Deck 7: Social Perception and Attributions

Question 1

Unstructured interviews have been shown to reduce bias on the interviewer's part.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: Bias can be reduced by using structured as opposed to unstructured interviews, and by relying on evaluations from multiple interviewers rather than just one or two people.

Question 2

Person memory contains information about a single individual or groups of people.

Answer 2

True
Explanation: Categories within the person memory compartment contain information about a single individual (your professor) or groups of people (professors). You are more likely to remember information about a person, event, or an advertisement if it contains characteristics that are similar to something stored in the compartments of memory.

Question 3

One source of inaccurate performance appraisals is faulty schemata about what constitutes good versus poor performance.

Answer 3

True
Explanation: Faulty schemata about what constitutes good versus poor performance can lead to inaccurate performance appraisals, which erode work motivation, commitment, and loyalty.

Question 4

Cognitive-category labels are needed to make schemata meaningful.

Question 5

Encoding involves storage of information in long-term memory.

Question 6

Event memory functions as a mental dictionary of concepts.

Question 7

People usually do not pay attention to salient stimuli.

Question 8

Semantic memory describes the appropriate sequence of events in well-known situations.

Question 9

In the encoding process, different individuals tend to have the same interpretation and evaluation of the same person or event.

Question 10

Culture does not affect the type of information stored in semantic memory.

Question 11

A person who needs cash and suddenly realizes that he does not have any cash in his wallet would probably find a McDonald's sign more salient than a sign for an ATM.

Question 12

A 12 foot tall university student would be a salient stimulus.

Question 13

Attention is the process of becoming consciously aware of something or someone.

Question 14

Good leaders are perceived to give preferential treatment to better performing members of a work unit.

Question 15

People, events, and objects are interpreted and categorized by comparing their characteristics with information contained in schemata.

Question 16

Cognitive categories represent mental depositories for storing information.

Question 17

Implicit cognitions can lead people to make biased decisions.

Question 18

Recognition of objects is one of the major functions of perception.

Question 19

A cognitive category contains a number of radically different objects.

Question 20

Information is retrieved from memory when people make judgments and decisions.

Question 21

The halo effect leads a rater to consistently evaluate other people or objects in an extremely positive fashion.

Question 22

Low managerial expectations will lead to enhanced employee performance.

Question 23

The recency effect is the tendency to remember old contacts, and then evaluate them by comparing them with characteristics of recently observed people or objects.

Question 24

Causal attributions are known causes of behaviors.

Question 25

According to Kelley, people make causal attributions after gathering information about three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.

Question 26

The key managerial challenge while addressing the issue of stereotyping in organizations is to reduce the extent to which stereotypes influence decision making and interpersonal processes throughout the organization.

Question 27

A stereotype is a set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group.

Question 28

Stereotypes are useful because they help us process the large amount of information that we receive daily.

Question 29

Contrast effect refers to the tendency to remember recent information. If the recent information is negative, the person or object is evaluated negatively.

Question 30

The essence of the Pygmalion effect is that people's past experiences determine their behavior and performance.

Question 31

People with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than others.

Question 32

"Quality" interpersonal contact among mixed groups often leads to reinforced gender, racial, and age stereotypes.

Question 33

A sex-role stereotype is the belief that traits and abilities make men and women particularly well suited for different roles.

Question 34

The Golem effect is a loss in performance resulting from low leader expectations.

Question 35

Age stereotypes are mostly based on fact.

Question 36

Men typically receive higher performance ratings than women for the same level of task performance, confirming the pro-male bias in performance ratings.

Question 37

Racial and ethnic stereotypes are automatically triggered and lead to micro aggressions.

Question 38

Older workers are more accident prone than younger workers.

Question 39

Galatea effect occurs when an individual's high self-expectations lead to high performance.

Question 40

Sex-role stereotypes are related to gender-based expectations that people use without any conscious awareness.

Question 41

According to Kelley's model of attribution, distinctiveness a comparison of an individual's behavior with that of his or her peers.

Question 42

Men typically believe that promotions are based on luck and connections whereas women typically believe that promotions are based more on hard work.

Question 43

_____ is necessary because people do not have the mental capacity to fully comprehend all the physical and social stimuli bombarding them from the environment.

A)A salient stimulus
B)Conscious retrieval
C)Selective attention
D)Environmental assessment
E)Semantic memory

Question 44

There is high consensus when one acts like the rest of the group and low consensus when one acts differently.

Question 45

The fundamental attribution bias represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure.

Question 46

_____ involves interpreting and translating raw information into mental representations or categories.

A)Storage and retention
B)Retrieval and response
C)Selective attention and comprehension
D)Encoding and simplification
E)Decoding and interpretation

Question 47

Managers tend to disproportionately attribute behavior to external causes.

Question 48

A woman's promotional track generally resembles more of a labyrinth than a straight upward path.

Question 49

Kelly found that she was the only woman in her advanced statistics course, which had 30 students. Which of the following best describes Kelly's situation?

A)Her classmates will likely ignore her.
B)She will be perceived as a salient stimulus by her classmates and thus receive their attention.
C)Her classmates will store information about Kelly in the "event" compartment of long-term memory.
D)Her classmates will store information about Kelly in the "semantic" compartment of long-term memory.
E)Her instructor will likely commit the recency perceptual error when calculating Kelly's grade.

Question 50

_____ consists of three compartments containing categories of information about events, semantic materials, and people.

A)Cognitive category
B)Long-term memory
C)Perception
D)Short-term memory
E)Cognition

Question 51

You are trying to concentrate during an examination but you get distracted by the sound of another student tapping her pencil on her desk. Which of the following stages of the information processing model are you in?

A)Selective attention/comprehension
B)Encoding and simplification
C)Storage and retention
D)Retrieval and response
E)Recognition

Question 52

The study of how people perceive one another is called _____.

A)interpersonal theory
B)social cognition
C)attribution theory
D)the fundamental attribution bias
E)perceptual information processing

Question 53

High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task better than others.

Question 54

The self-serving bias is evident when students attribute their high grades to hard work and ability but attribute low grades to unfair tests, bad luck, or poor teaching.

Question 55

Employees can usually be taught to attribute their failures to a lack of effort rather than to a lack of ability.

Question 56

A _____ represents a person's mental picture or summary of a particular event or type of stimulus.

A)fundamental attribution bias
B)causal attribution
C)schema
D)person memory
E)self-serving bias

Question 57

Which of the following stimuli would be most salient?

A)A twelve-year-old student in an MBA class.
B)A 250-pound man at a meeting of the National Football league Players' Association.
C)A Mobil gas station sign when you have a full tank of gas.
D)A McDonald's restaurant sign right after you've eaten breakfast.
E)An 85-pound girl at a gymnastic class.

Question 58

_____ is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings.

A)The self-fulfilling prophecy
B)A salient stimulus
C)The fundamental attribution error
D)Stereotypes
E)Perception

Question 59

_____ refers to general knowledge about the world.

A)Encoding
B)Semantic memory
C)Schemata
D)Event memory
E)Information processing

Question 60

According to Kelley's model of attribution, the concept of consensus relates to other people while distinctiveness relates to other tasks.

Question 61

_____ occurs when an individual's high self-expectations for him- or herself lead to high performance.

A)Fundamental attribution bias
B)Pygmalion effect
C)Self-serving bias
D)Contrast effect
E)Galatea effect

Question 62

_____ is a perceptual error that refers to a personal characteristic that leads a person to consistently evaluate other people or objects in an extremely positive fashion.

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Central tendency
D)Leniency
E)Halo

Question 63

Which of the following statements about sex-role stereotypes is true?

A)Women are stereotypically viewed as more quantitatively oriented, autocratic, and directive than men.
B)Females usually receive significantly more favorable promotion decisions than males.
C)Men are stereotypically viewed as more patient and creative than women.
D)Men and women usually receive similar performance ratings for the same level of task performance.
E)Males receive significantly more favorable hiring recommendations than females.

Question 64

Another name for the Pygmalion effect is _____.

A)self-serving bias
B)selective attention
C)fundamental attribution bias
D)self-fulfilling prophecy
E)stereotyping

Question 65

Sharon observes her co-worker Robert being rude to a newcomer. She has seen this behavior in Robert whenever the company hires new people. She decides that Robert is being a bully and asks him to stop. Which of the following stages of information processing has Sharon just undergone?

A)Selective attention/comprehension
B)Encoding and simplification
C)Storage and retention
D)Retrieval and response
E)Implicit cognition

Question 66

Stewart has been a good and hard-working employee throughout the year. But two days before his performance review, his boss finds him taking a nap during work hours. As a result, he gets a poor job performance rating. Which of the following perceptual errors has Stewart's boss committed?

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Central tendency
D)Leniency
E)Halo fallacy

Question 67

Susan believes that Mr. Ryan, who supervises her employees, definitely has room for improvement in the way he communicates with the employees. However, she feels uncomfortable saying anything bad about anybody, so she rates Mr. Ryan's performance higher than his performance actually deserves. Which type of perceptual error is Susan communicating?

A)Halo
B)Leniency
C)Central tendency
D)Recency effects
E)Contrast effects

Question 68

John is Harry's boss, and really likes the way Harry handles a number of people-related issues. John feels that Harry is an up-standing guy who really cares about other people, even though he is not very good at the technical aspects of his job. John uses this overall impression and gives Harry a really good rating in the performance evaluation. Which of the following perceptual errors explains John's behavior?

A)Recency effect
B)Leniency
C)Halo
D)Contrast effect
E)Central tendency

Question 69

_____ is a perceptual error that represents the tendency to evaluate people or objects by comparing them with characteristics of recently observed people or objects.

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Central tendency
D)Leniency
E)Halo

Question 70

Samantha has been asked to rate the two students who have joined her class recently. One of them is extremely diligent, submits her assignments on time and makes very clear presentations, while the other one puts in just enough efforts to get a passing grade, and is often not prepared for the presentations. Samantha, who avoids extreme judgments, rates both of them as near-average students. Which of the following perceptual errors is Samantha making in her rating?

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Halo
D)Leniency
E)Central tendency

Question 71

_____ is a perceptual error that represents the tendency to avoid all extreme judgments and rate people and objects as average or neutral.

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Central tendency
D)Leniency
E)Halo

Question 72

Caroline's mother asks her about her new math teacher. Caroline feels that the teacher is good, but not as good as Caroline's favorite teacher, Mrs. Stinson. So, she tells her mother that the new teacher is good, but not great. Which of the perceptual errors is affecting Caroline's judgment?

A)Halo
B)Leniency
C)Recency effect
D)Contrast effect
E)Central tendency

Question 73

_____ is a perceptual error that occurs when a rater forms an overall impression about an object and then uses that impression to bias ratings about the object.

A)Contrast effect
B)Recency effect
C)Central tendency
D)Leniency
E)Halo

Question 74

If managers use _____, inaccurate evaluations of job applicants and employees may result.

A)cognitive attributions
B)cognitive categories
C)valid stereotypes
D)salient features
E)faulty schemata

Question 75

Which of the following statements about stereotyping is true?

A)Stereotyping facilitates better hiring decisions.
B)All stereotypes are positive.
C)All stereotypes are negative.
D)Stereotyping requires a great deal of cognitive effort.
E)Stereotyping is a self-reinforcing process.

Question 76

Which of the following is true?

A)Older employees quit less often than do younger employees.
B)Age is positively related to involuntary absenteeism (being sick).
C)Older workers are more likely to take days off for recreational and other personal activities than younger workers.
D)Managers should focus more attention on the turnover and absenteeism among older workers than among younger workers.
E)Employees' job involvement reduces as they grow older.

Question 77

As employees age, they typically experience _____.

A)higher job satisfaction
B)higher accident rates
C)higher absenteeism
D)less organizational commitment
E)less internal work motivation

Question 78

Social scientists believe the best way to reduce stereotypes in an organization is to _____.

A)make the social minorities more visible by placing them in front-end positions
B)screen job applicants and hire those with fewer stereotypes
C)increase the number of affirmative action hires
D)have the CEO of the organization issue a memo stressing the need to reduce stereotyping
E)increase the amount of high-quality mixed-group contact

Question 79

Which of the following is true about stereotypes?

A)Racial and ethnic stereotypes are automatically triggered and lead to micro-aggressions.
B)Stereotype threat is generally associated with higher performance on evaluative tasks for women and nonwhites.
C)African American employees reach career plateaus less frequently than do white employees.
D)African Americans and women tend to perform better on academic tests when something primes them to think about race or gender.
E)Stereotype threat refers to the threats that the dominant social groups make to the minority social groups in order to prevent the minority group from taking prominent jobs.

Question 80

Bill provides directions to his house to Mark. Mark listens carefully to make sure that he does not forget the directions and does not get lost on the way. Which stage of the information processing model is Mark currently undergoing?

A)Selective attention/comprehension
B)Encoding and simplification
C)Storage and retention
D)Retrieval and response
E)Implicit cognition