Question 1

Social identity is easily defined using demographic characteristics.

Accepted Answer

Social identity is a complex concept that encompasses not just demographic characteristics, but also cultural, psychological, and contextual factors. While demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and racial/ethnic identity can be part of social identity, they alone do not fully capture the complexity of how individuals self-identify and how they relate to social groups.

Question 2

Confirmation bias causes us to screen out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions.

Accepted Answer

Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that confirms our preexisting beliefs and values, while ignoring or dismissing information that contradicts them. This can cause us to screen out information that challenges our assumptions, leading us to reinforce our existing beliefs and opinions instead of being open to new perspectives.

Question 3

Mental models play an important role in sense-making,but they also make it difficult to see the world in different ways.

Accepted Answer

Mental models are frameworks that the human mind constructs in order to understand different phenomena, situations, and systems. While mental models help us make sense of the world, they can also create barriers to seeing or interpreting things in different ways. This is because mental models are often ingrained and automatic, and can limit our ability to consider alternative perspectives or solutions.

Question 4

Social identity theory partially explains why people in low-status jobs tend to define themselves in terms of non-job groups.

Accepted Answer

According to social identity theory, individuals strive to maintain positive social identity by identifying with high-status groups. If one's job is in a low-status position, they may seek to compensate for this by identifying with non-job related groups that have higher status.

Question 5

People have a tendency to screen out information that is contrary to their assumptions.

Accepted Answer

This is known as confirmation bias, and is a well-documented cognitive bias where people tend to seek out and favor information that confirms their existing beliefs or assumptions, while ignoring or rejecting information that contradicts them.

Question 6

Categorical thinking is mostly a conscious process of deciding what information in the environment to notice.

Accepted Answer

Categorical thinking is largely an automatic and unconscious process that helps us efficiently navigate and make sense of the world by organizing information into categories.

Question 7

Self-concept consists of two distinct categories: personal identity and social identity.

Accepted Answer

Self-concept is indeed made up of personal identity, which includes our own unique qualities and characteristics, as well as social identity, which involves our group memberships, such as our race or nationality.

Question 8

Employees can break out of their existing mental models by working with colleagues from diverse backgrounds that bring different mental models to the workplace.

Accepted Answer

When individuals work with colleagues who come from different backgrounds and bring with them different mental models, they are exposed to new ideas and perspectives that challenge their existing mental models, leading to a break in their current thinking patterns. This can help employees develop a more open and flexible mindset, paving the way for innovation and creativity in the workplace.

Question 9

Selective attention occurs after incoming information is organized and interpreted.

Accepted Answer

Selective attention occurs before information is organized and interpreted. It involves focusing on specific stimuli while filtering out others in order to process the most important information.

Question 10

Our emotions influence what we recognize or screen out.

Accepted Answer

Our emotions can impact our perception and attention, leading us to selectively recognize or ignore certain things based on our emotional state. For example, if we are feeling anxious, we may be more attuned to potential threats in our environment and may notice them more readily than if we were feeling calm.

Question 11

Grouping people and objects into recognizable patterns is part of the selective attention process.

Accepted Answer

Grouping people and objects into recognizable patterns is part of the perceptual organization process, not selective attention. Selective attention involves focusing on a specific aspect of the environment while ignoring others.

Question 12

Stereotyping is an extension of the social identity process.

Accepted Answer

Stereotyping is a cognitive process where individuals categorize others based on their group membership. This process is an extension of the social identity process where individuals derive a sense of self-identity from the groups they belong to.

Question 13

A person's expectations make them more sensitive to incoming information,but also less sensitive to unexpected information.

Accepted Answer

This is known as the "confirmation bias" - people tend to seek out and give more weight to information that supports their existing beliefs and expectations, while downplaying or ignoring information that contradicts them.

Question 14

The perceptual process begins by attributing behaviour to internal or external causes.

Accepted Answer

The perceptual process begins with the selection and organization of stimuli from the environment, not with attributing behavior to causes. Attribution is a later step where we try to explain the causes of behaviors or events.

Question 15

Seeing a trend in a sequence of sales figures involves the process of categorical thinking.

Accepted Answer

Categorical thinking involves identifying patterns and trends within a set of data, such as observing trends in sales figures over time.

Question 16

The three steps in stereotyping,in order,are: (a)identify negative information, (b)behave in ways consistent with previous expectations,and (c)watch the employee form a positive or negative opinion of you.

Accepted Answer

The three steps in stereotyping, in order, are (a) categorization, (b) generalization, and (c) discrimination. These do not involve watching the employee form an opinion of you.

Question 17

Social identity is also called external self-concept.

Accepted Answer

Social identity refers to how an individual identifies with a particular group or social category, such as their race, gender, religion, nationality, or profession. It is considered as part of an individual's external self-concept, which refers to how they see themselves in relation to others and the external world.

Question 18

People whose self-concepts are heavily defined by social rather than personal identities are more easily influenced by peer pressure.

Accepted Answer

This is because individuals who place a greater emphasis on social identities are typically more invested in fitting in with their social group and conforming to group norms, which can make them more susceptible to peer pressure.

Question 19

Social identity theory explains self-concept only in terms of personal identity.

Accepted Answer

Social identity theory explains self-concept in terms of both personal identity and social identity. Social identity refers to the groups we belong to and the characteristics associated with those groups, and can heavily influence our self-concept.

Question 20

We are more likely to notice objects with features that are repetitive,intense,and in motion.

Accepted Answer

This is because our brain is wired to pay attention to patterns and changes in our environment, and these repetitive, intense, and moving features are more likely to stand out and capture our attention.

Quiz 3: Perceiving Ourselves and Others in Organizations