CHAPTER 4

Social Perceptions
and Managing
Diversity

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 Major Questions You Should
Be Able to Answer
4.1 How do I form perceptions of others?

4.2 How can I use awareness of stereotypes to make better decisions and
manage more effectively?

4.3 How do I tend to interpret employee performance?

4.4 How does awareness about the layers of diversity help organizations
effectively manage diversity?

4.5 What is the business rationale for managing diversity?

4.6 What are the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity
programs?
4.7 What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what
works best?

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 Person Perceptions

What is perception?
• A cognitive process that enables us to interpret and
understand our surroundings
• Important as perceptions affect actions and decisions
• Perceptions are based on the characteristics of:
• The perceiver
• The target
• The situation

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 Model of Person Perception

Jump to Appendix 1 for description

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 Managerial Implications of Person
Perception
Hiring Performance appraisals
• Implicit cognitions may lead to biased • Faulty perceptions about
decisions. performance leads to inaccurate
appraisals and erode morale.
• Biased decisions are avoided by
training, use of structured interviews, • Faulty perceptions are reduced by
use of multiple interviewers. use of objective measures, training,
use of HR analytics for capturing daily
Leadership performance.
• Employees’ evaluations of leader
effectiveness are influenced by their
schemata of good and poor leaders.

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 Test Your OB Knowledge (1 of 5)
Steven wants to be sure there is no implicit cognition
creating bias in his company’s interviewing process.
The best course of action is to
A. train all interviewers in the interview process.
B. have more than one interviewer conducting
interviews.
C. conduct the interviews virtually.
D. use a structured interview approach.
E. All of the above.

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 What Is a Stereotype?
An individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or
attributes of a group
• May or may not be accurate
• Can lead to poor decisions
• Can create barriers for:
• Women
• Older individuals
• People of color
• People with disabilities

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 How Stereotypes Are Formed and Maintained

Four steps
1. Categorization
2. Inferences
3. Expectations
4. Maintenance

Accurate information and motivation are needed to reduce the

use of stereotypes.

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 Stereotypes

Managerial challenges and recommendations

1. Educate people about stereotypes and how they influence

behavior and decision making.

2. Create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and

work with others.

3. Encourage all employees to increase their awareness.

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 Test Your OB Knowledge (2 of 5)
Which of the following statements is NOT accurate?
A. Stereotypes can lead to poor decisions.
B. All stereotypes are negative.
C. Stereotypes are used during the encoding process of
perception.
D. Quality interpersonal contact among mixed groups
may reduce the use of stereotypes.
E. Some people have negative stereotypes about older
individuals.

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 Causal Attributions
What are causal attributions?
• Suspected or inferred causes of behavior
• Important because attributions affects our perceptions of
cause and our choice of action

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 Kelley’s Model of Attribution (1 of 2)
• Behaviors can be attributed either to internal factors within a
person or external factors in the environment.

• We make causal attributions by observing three dimensions of

behavior. These can be high or low.
1. Consensus
2. Distinctiveness
3. Consistency

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 Kelly’s Model of Attribution (2 of 2)

How does consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency lead to

specific attributions?

Attribution Consensus Distinctiveness Consistency

(People) (Tasks) (Time)

Internal Low Low High

External High High Low

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 Attributional Tendencies
Fundamental attribution bias Self-serving bias
A tendency to attribute One’s tendency to take more
another person’s behavior to personal responsibility for
his or her personal success than for failure
characteristics, as opposed to
situational factors

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 Managerial Applications and Implications

• Managerial tendency to attribute behavior to internal causes

may lead managers to take inappropriate actions.

• An employee’s attributions for his or her own performance

have dramatic effects on subsequent motivation,
performance, and personal attitudes.

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 Test Your OB Knowledge (3 of 5)
Megan was hurt at work. Megan’s manager concluded
that Megan was careless and clumsy. Megan’s manager
may have committed an error called ________ error.
A. fundamental attribution
B. ultimate perception
C. stereotyping
D. self-serving bias
E. internal cognition

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 The Four Layers of Diversity
Diversity: the multitude of individual differences and similarities that exist
among people

1. Personality

Surface-level
2. Internal characteristics apparent
to others (unchangeable)

Deep-level
3. External influences
4. Organizational dimensions

Jump to Appendix 2 for description

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 Addressing Discrimination
Discrimination occurs when employment decisions about an individual are
due to individual characteristics and attributes that are not related to the job.

Affirmative Action Managing Diversity

• Interventions to correct
imbalances, injustice, mistakes, or
outright discrimination
• Both voluntary and mandatory
programs
• Not based on quotas
• Can lead to stigmas for those
expected to benefit from AA
programs
• Focuses on changing
organizational culture and
structure
• Enable people to perform to
potential
• Relies on education,
enforcement, and exposure

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 Test Your OB Knowledge (4 of 5)
As Jasmine got to know Mary, a co-worker of a different
ethnicity, Jasmine was surprised to learn how much she
actually had in common with Mary such as loving to
hike and choice of religion. Jasmine was experiencing
which layer of diversity?
A. organizational dimensions
B. personality
C. surface-level characteristics
D. deep-level characteristics
E. internal dimensions

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 Building the Business Case for
Managing Diversity
Business rationale for diversity
• Managing diversity gives an organization the ability to grow
and maintain a business in an increasingly competitive
marketplace.
• The access-and-legitimacy perspective is based on
recognition that the organization’s markets and constituencies
are culturally diverse.

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 Are Women Breaking the Glass Ceiling?
Women are breaking through but barriers and differences remain.

Advancements Barriers and Gaps

• Educational attainment • Continuing pay gap

• Seats on board of directors • Pay gap for female MBA
graduates
• Leadership positions in education
institutions • Gender discrimination

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 Trends in Workforce Diversity (1 of 2)
The Census Bureau predicts that by 2060 57% of the workforce
will consist of minority groups.

However, current minority groups appear to be stalled at their

own glass ceiling.
• They make up a smaller percentage in the professional class.
• They are involved in more discrimination cases.
• They achieve lower earnings.

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 Trends in Workforce Diversity (2 of 2)

Generational Diversity

• The population and workforce is getting older.

• Four generations of employees are working together (soon to

be five).

• Managers need to deal with generational differences in

values, attitudes, and behavior.

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 Test Your OB Knowledge (5 of 5)
Big Bucks Bank is located in a city with a growing Latino
population. Jane, the CEO, believes in the access-
legitimacy perspective. Jane will do which of the
following?
A. Hire employees to match the diversity in the
population.
B. Offer Latino food every Friday.
C. Offer international travel services.
D. Support the local university’s Spanish department.
E. All of the above.

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 Barriers and Challenges to
Managing Diversity
• Inaccurate stereotypes and • Difficulty in balancing
prejudice career and family issues
• Ethnocentrism • Fears of reverse
discrimination
• Poor career planning
• Diversity not seen as an
• Negative diversity climate
organizational priority
• Unsupportive and hostile
• Outdated appraisal and
environment
reward systems
• Lack of political savvy of
• Resistance to change
diverse employees

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 Managing Diversity
Organizations use a variety of generic approaches to
addressing diversity issues.
• Include or exclude • Isolate
• Deny • Tolerate
• Assimilate • Build relationships
• Suppress • Foster mutual adaptation

Only fostering mutual adaptation endorses the

philosophy behind managing diversity.

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 Social Perception and Managing Diversity:
Putting It All in Context
Figure 4.5 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB

Jump to Appendix 3 for description

©McGraw-Hill Education. Copyright 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.