Expert answer:Need psychology help with decision making for orga
Answer & Explanation:The decision-making process is important at every level of an organization.Regardless of position, workers are faced with making daily decisions. Apply the six-step rational decision-making model, to the following situation: A large advertising agency is working with a client who wants to gain market shares from its competitors by marketing to young professionals. The agency needs to decide whether to spend all of the marketing funds on a single form of media (internet, television, or radio) or to spread it across all three. What decision would you make? Why?I will ONLY need you to do steps 3+4+5+6, each 4-5 sentences least.(reading material) The six step Rational Decision-Making Model The basic tenet of the rational decision-making model is to identify and select the out- come that is of maximum value to the organization. In this model, the decision-making process has six steps: Define the problem. Often, identifying the problem is fairly straightforward, as it is in the sample scenarios above. This is not always the case, however, and manag- ers must be careful not to act too quickly, lest they make the mistake of solving the wrong problem. For example, instead of quickly identifying assemblers as the problem after a series of line shutdowns, an assembly-line manager might inves- tigate further and discover that the real problem is an ineffective protocol or a faulty machine.Identify the criteria. After defining the problem, the organization should determine its objectives for the decision and the process needed to accomplish it. Looking back at the scenario about the high-tech company with two new products, the company may have the ultimate objective of increasing sales, but it may also desire greater brand awareness, improved customer loyalty, and greater market share. The company also needs to consider how it plans to mass-produce, distrib- ute, and sell each of the two possible new products. The rational decision-making process requires the decision maker to identify all relevant criteria.Weigh the criteria. Different criteria will have different levels of importance tothe decision maker. The rational decision maker will determine relative values for the various criteria by examining the pros and cons of each. Our high-tech company, for example, would weigh the relative importance of brand awareness versus customer loyalty or the high cost of producing a more innovative product versus the lower cost of producing a new version of an already popular product.Generate alternatives. The fourth step is to generate all possible solutions to the problem. Instead of limiting the scope of the decision to choosing either prod- uct A or product B, the high-tech company might also consider the feasibility of releasing both products on a smaller scale or even waiting on both products in favor of developing a third. The company might also revisit the various develop- ment and marketing criteria for each of the original products to see if more effec- tive or lower-cost alternatives exist. In the rational decision-making approach, this investigation continues until the cost of the search for alternatives exceeds the value of any additional information (Bazerman, 2002).Rate each alternative on each of the criteria. With this step, organizations assign numeric ratings to each of the alternatives generated in step 4 in relation to each of the criteria identified in step 2, in an effort to determine how well each alterna- tive is able to satisfy the criteria. This step can be especially difficult because it requires the decision maker to forecast future events. For our high-tech company, trying to predict which product—the innovative, expensive item or the less- expensive revamp—will ultimately be most profitable will be tricky indeed. This is because the first alternative may have a less favorable rating on price and risk but a more favorable rating on quality or consumer appeal, whereas the second may be at the opposite end of the rating scale on each of these criteria. 6. Compute the optimal decision.In a perfect situation,the optimal decision is calculated simply by multiplying the rating of an alternative by the value of weighted importance given to each criterion, and then adding the totals for an aggregate score. This is done for each alternative, the scores are compared, and the one with the highest score is chosen. The rational model of decision making assumes that the decision maker fulfills each step in a completely rational manner by fully defining the problem, identifying all criteria, accurately weighing the criteria, identifying all possible alternatives, accurately assessing the alternatives, and choosing the alternative that yields the maximum value. Follow- ing the model will always produce a solution that is completely informed, perfectly logical, and economically oriented. As you can probably guess, however, this model is really more useful for theoretical purposes; it describes how decisions should be made, not how they really are made. Real decision makers will always be influenced by subjective factors such as emotions and perceptual biases and are limited by their ability to acquire and process information and their creativity in generating alternatives. Time constraints, budgets, and political considerations also interfere with perfect rationality. These limitations inspired a decision- making model based on the more realistic assumption of bounded rationality. 08ch_youssef_psychology.pdf
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8
Making Good Decisions at Work: Theories
of Problem-Solving and Creativity
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to
1. Describe how perceptions affect your judgment of others
2. Compare and contrast rational decision making with bounded rationality
3. List and discuss the common decision-making biases
4. Discuss techniques for improving individual decision making and problem solving
5. Consider how emotions affect decision making and problem solving
6. Explain how positivity impacts creativity and decision making
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Section 8.1 The Importance of Perception
CHAPTER 8
8.1 The Importance of Perception
Perception is the process by which people bring meaning to their world by organizing and
interpreting the stimuli around them. Objective reality is often much different from perceived reality, however, and one person’s reality may be significantly different from another’s. Consider this situation: A manufacturing company is merging with another company,
giving it the greatest market share and profitability in the industry. The CEO decides to
share this exciting news with the rest of the company. After a series of presentations in
which he makes a convincing case for the merger
and the positive impact it will have on the company and its employees, the CEO asks a group of
employees for their opinion. The CEO is shocked
to hear the employees make comments such as “I
don’t understand why we made this move” and
“In the long-term, this won’t help the company.”
The CEO cannot understand why the employees
aren’t viewing this opportunity as positively as
the board of directors and senior management.
What’s going on? Unfortunately, what the CEO
failed to realize was that the employees’ perceptions of the current merger were influenced by bad
experiences from two years earlier, when the CEO
had made the decision to roll out a defective product, the company lost money, and the employees
received no pay raises.
It’s important for organizations to understand
perceptions, because perceptions impact how
workers behave. In the previous example, workers’ decisions either to accept or verbally sabotage
the merger are based on their individual perceptions, not on the CEO’s opinion or the objective
reality of the merger’s impact. The world as it is
perceived, then, is what matters most.
Objective reality is often significantly
different from perceived reality due to
perception, the process by which people
bring meaning to their world by organizing
and interpreting the stimuli around them.
Components of Perception
Humans receive stimuli through the recognized senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and
taste. How, then, can two people who hear or see the same information interpret it so differently? Precisely because they do not really hear and see the same information due to the
difference between sensation and perception. Sensation is the experience of the physical
characteristics of stimuli. On the other hand, perception has three separate components:
the characteristics of the perceiver, the target that is being perceived, and the situational
context in which the perception is occurring. In order for reality to be perceived, it must
move through a personal filter. As a result, no two people will ever interpret the same
event in exactly the same way. Let’s look at how each component affects perception.
The perceiver is the person who is attending to a target. A person’s interpretation of reality
is based on his or her personal characteristics, including experiences, emotions, motives,
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Section 8.1 The Importance of Perception
CHAPTER 8
values, culture, and physical abilities. Our personal experiences are some of the most
significant influences on perception because they lead us to develop expectations. If, for
example, you worked for a manager who treated you with consideration, mentored you,
and helped you attain a promotion, your experience might lead you to trust all organizational leaders and give them the benefit of the doubt. The reverse might be the case if,
on the other hand, you worked for an overbearing, capricious manager who treated you
poorly. The perceiver’s emotional and physical states also affect perception. Generally,
people see what they want to see; when in positive moods, people view targets more
positively and vice versa. Finally, people who are ill or otherwise physically impaired
(forgetting to wear their glasses, for example) will likely perceive a target differently than
they normally would.
The target is one of the stimuli to which the perceiver is attending. People are bombarded
with countless stimuli throughout the day, but they consciously perceive only those to
which they actually pay attention. Depending on the stimuli, a target may receive more
or less attention from the perceiver. Attractive people (targets), for example, get noticed
more than unattractive people, as do high-status targets or targets that share characteristics with or hold personal interest for the perceiver. Ultimately, the more a person attends
to a target, the more information she will be able to learn about that target. However, even
close attention is unlikely to uncover all of a target’s details; the causes of an event or the
emotions behind a coworker’s behavior, for example, often remain hidden. Ambiguity or
lack of information about a target can therefore prompt the perceiver to make additional
subjective interpretations about it.
The situation is the context (social, physical, etc.) in which the target is being perceived.
Situations can affect whether a target receives any attention and thus whether it is perceived. For example, if you went to a party at the beach and a guest arrived wearing a
three-piece suit instead of a bathing suit, you might think it unusual and observe him
closely, wondering who he is and why he is there. If, on the other hand, you were at a
wedding reception and the same man, dressed in the same suit, walked in the room, you
might not even notice he was sitting at the table next to you. In the first situation, the
man’s dress is unusual for the social context, but in the second, it fits. Thus, even though
the target and perceiver in this example are the same, different perceptions are created by
different situations.
Attribution Theory: Perceiving Causes and Motives
Some of the most common perceptions we make are about other people. As mentioned
earlier, we rarely have access to all the information about a target, and this is especially
true when the target is a person. Without complete information, our interpretations of others can never be perfect. How, then, are we able to make judgments of people? Attribution
theory provides a framework for understanding this process.
Developed by Harold Kelley in 1967, attribution theory describes how people establish
explanations for their own and others’ actions and the outcomes that arise from them.
When we think a person’s behavior is caused by his or her innate personal characteristics, we are attributing it to dispositional, or internal, factors. Conversely, when we
think behavior is caused by factors outside a person’s control, we are attributing it to
situational, or external, factors. As you might expect, continued experience with the
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Section 8.1 The Importance of Perception
CHAPTER 8
behavior of a target person will increase the amount of information we receive to help
us determine whether behavior is dispositional or situational (Kelley, 1973). For example, if a new employee turns in a very important project late, a manager might attribute
this behavior to the person’s
being lazy or disorganized,
both internal characteristics.
On the other hand, if the manager was aware from previous
interactions that the employee
had been having computer difficulties or that he had trouble
getting key information from
another department, the late
assignment might instead be
attributed to external factors.
Attribution theory describes how people establish explanations
for their own and others’ actions and the outcomes that arise
because of them. Context influences how people perceive the
actions of those around them.
•
•
•
Let’s look now at the different
types of information people
gather as they make behavior
attributions. According to attribution theory, there are three
main sources:
Consistency. Does the same thing happen every time? Perceptions of a behavior are based partly on how consistently that behavior is displayed. Think of a
rude retail-store clerk. The more consistent the behavior (customer complaints
are received about the clerk every few weeks), the more likely the observer will
attribute the behavior to internal characteristics (the clerk has poor customerservice skills). On the other hand, inconsistent behavior (a complaint has never
been received about this clerk) is more easily attributable to external factors (the
customer was being difficult and unreasonable).
Consensus. Would other people act similarly in the same situation? If most
people facing the same or a similar situation respond with the same or similar
behavior, that behavior is said to show consensus. If a sales representative failed
to meet his monthly sales quota, his behavior would show consensus if all of the
other representatives also failed to meet their quotas. The high consensus would
likely clue the manager to look for external causes (e.g., slow economy, defective
product, ineffective marketing strategy) for the poor sales numbers. Conversely,
if the representative was the only one on the team not to make quota, the manager would likely attribute the poor performance to the rep’s internal characteristics (e.g., laziness, ineffective communication skills).
Distinctiveness. Do other situations and stimuli elicit the same behavior? Behaviors that are uncharacteristic of a specific person are more likely to be attributed
to external causes and vice versa. An employee who often comes to work late
but never has trouble with completing projects on time might lead a manager
to wonder if child-care arrangements, transportation challenges, or other external factors are interfering with the employee’s morning commute. If another
employee is always late—arriving at work late, turning in projects late, returning
phone calls late, and so forth—the manager might attribute the behavior as being
caused by the employee’s inherent tendency to procrastinate.
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Section 8.1 The Importance of Perception
CHAPTER 8
In summary, then, low consistency, high consensus, and high distinctiveness tend to lead
to external behavior attributions, whereas high consistency, low consensus, and low distinctiveness tend to lead to internal behavior attributions. Keep in mind that external and
internal attributions are, by themselves, neither good nor bad. Depending on the circumstance, however, the target may think one more desirable than the other. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, for example, achieved his success by demonstrating high consistency
(consistent practice and high performance), low distinctiveness (winning 14 gold and two
bronze medals over the course of two Olympic Games), and low consensus (extraordinary
natural talent and relentless drive to succeed). Most of us would unquestionably attribute
Phelps’ success more to these internal sources and not just to luck, good coaching, or a hightech swimsuit. In this case, then, an internal attribution is quite positive; after all, we all
want others to believe we achieve success based on our own merits and not because someone gave it to us. In other situations, we may hope for the reverse. Being late to work, breaking a valuable piece of equipment, making a mistake on a huge project: These are the times
when we want others to attribute the outcome to something—anything!—but ourselves.
Despite their best efforts, however, people make mistakes when they try to figure out why
others act the way they do. Research has shown that we are very aware of others’ behavior, and that this high level of attention leads us to overattribute behavior to dispositional
factors such as abilities, traits, and motives and to underattribute behavior to situational
factors outside of the target’s control (Ross, 1977). This tendency is so common that it is
known as the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error helps
explain how managers can attribute an employee’s tardiness one morning to laziness and
poor judgment instead of the ten-car pileup he heard about on his drive in to work. In
contrast, the self-serving bias describes the common tendency to attribute our successful
behaviors and outcomes to dispositional characteristics but to blame external factors for
poor behaviors and failures (Jones & Nesbitt, 1971).
Consider This: Your Own Attributions
• Think about a recent positive event that happened in your life. It can be personal (e.g., finished
a difficult home-improvement project), social (met a special person), or professional (got a
promotion).
• To what extent do you believe that this event should be attributed to internal or external causes?
• Think about the causes that led to the event. To what extent are those causes characterized by
consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness as described earlier?
• Are your findings consistent with Kelley’s attribution theory?
• Now think about a recent negative event in your life. Again, it can be personal, social or
professional.
• Analyze the event in terms of consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness, as well as internal
and external attributions as you did before.
• Repeat this exercise with additional positive and negative events. Choose events that are
important to you.
• Now consider positive and negative events that took place in the lives of people close to you.
They can be friends, family members, coworkers, or classmates. Analyze the event in terms of
consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness, as well as internal and external attributions as you
did before.
• Do you have predominant attribution biases for events in your own life? In others’ lives?
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Section 8.2 Shortcuts in Person Perception
CHAPTER 8
8.2 Shortcuts in Person Perception
Humans have a limited capacity to attend to and interpret the myriad of stimuli to which
they are exposed every day. In order to function in our complex world, we use a number
of shortcuts to streamline and simplify the process of perception. Although these shortcuts are valuable for making quick, accurate evaluations, they are certainly not perfect.
Trouble occurs when they are overused or used to make overgeneralizations, which can
lead to significant distortion of a target’s actual characteristics. One of the best ways to
mitigate distortion is to learn about different perception shortcuts and recognize how each
can mar our judgments.
Primacy and Recency Effects
When people attempt to evaluate and make sense of their world, they tend to rely on
information gathered from their earliest as well as most recent experiences with a target
or series of targets. The primacy effect is the tendency to rely on information gathered
from our earliest experiences with a target or series of targets. The recency effect, on the
other hand, is the tendency to rely on information gathered from our most recent experiences. In the workplace, the primacy effect often influences the way interviewers evaluate
potential job candidates. First impressions, such as clothing, timeliness, or even a firm
handshake, can have a big impact on the interviewer’s judgment of a candidate’s suitability for a job. After seeing a series of job candidates, interviewers also tend to remember
more clearly their interactions with the earliest (primacy effect) and most recent (recency
effect) candidates.
Selective Perceptions
For safety and other reasons, people need to be able to make quick judgments about their
environment. Therefore, we tend to pay attention to people, objects, and events that stand
out. This tendency to make selective perceptions extends to the social realm, as well:
We’ll notice the loud and colorful woman at a party or the jocular, well-dressed man at a
conference but not their more subdued counterparts. In general, we attend more closely
to stimuli that are loud, attractive, or have something in common with us. By selectively
attending to certain characteristics, we are able to speed up our evaluations of people and
more quickly make sense of the world. As you might recall from chapter 4, people also
tend to give more attention to negative or threatening events or stimuli for the same reasons: They stand out more, and they signal a need for more immediate action.
Contrast Effect
According to the contrast effect, our reactions to others are influenced by previous interactions with other people. When two things appear close together in time, we tend to
evaluate them against one another rather than against a fixed standard. For example, an
extravert appears more gregarious when in a crowd of introverts. In an interview situation, a stellar candidate may make the next candidate lose some of her luster. Similarly, if
a longtime coworker retires, her replacement may never seem to be able to measure up,
regardless of the new coworker’s actual performance.
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Section 8.3 The Role of Perception in Decision Making
CHAPTER 8
Stereotyping
Stereotyping occurs when we categorize information and assume
that objects, people, or experiences
that fall into the same group share
more characteristics than they
actually do. Stereotypes are quick
and easy and help keep us from
having to relearn the same information over and over again. Think
how difficult life would be if we
faced a flight of stairs as a completely new invention every time
we happened upon a flight we had
never climbed, or if we had to start Because stereotypes are based on assumptions,
from scratch every time Microsoft characteristics are often falsely attributed to individuals.
Office was updated! Of course, For instance, people often think that women are weak and
stereotypes quickly get muddled emotional due to stereotyping.
when we use them with people.
Any time stereotypes are based on group status, such as age, gender, religion, ethnicity,
or race, discrimination can occur. “Women are weak and emotional,” “senior citizens are
slow,” “overweight people have no discipline”—each of these stereotypes assumes that
people in specific groups are all the same, e …
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