THE BIGGER PICTURE
Understanding person perception will help you see how perception affects a variety of important processes and outcomes within the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. It can also assist in managing the perceptions people form about you.
Oprah Winfrey is not only following the Weight Watchers’ Plan, but she also purchased a 10 percent stake in the
company and joined its board. She has filmed a company commercial and is actively involved with marketing and program issues.
The company hopes that her star power can help reverse the company’s financial decline.
Do you think more people will join Weight Watchers because of Winfrey’s involvement?
© Helga Esteb/Shutterstock RF
target—the person or group being observed—and of the situation (see Figure 4.2).7 Let’s take a closer look at how these components work.
Characteristics of the Perceiver Figure 4.2 shows six key perceiver characteristics that affect our perceptions of others.8 As you read, consider how they might have influ-enced your perceptions in the past.
• Direction of gaze. Gaze is the first step in the perception process because it focuses your attention and tells the brain what you think is important in the immediate envi-ronment. When scanning people, we also tend to pay attention to others who are gaz-ing at us. We usually remember people when we make direct eye contact with them.
• Needs and goals. We are more likely to perceive whatever is related to our goals and needs. For example, we perceive examples of food if we are hungry. If we are looking for a friend at a party, we scan the room for familiar faces and fail to per-ceive strangers.
• Experience with target. Our perception of a target is influenced by our past experience with him or her. You might perceive someone’s firm handshake negatively, for instance, if you know this person has attempted to exert power and control over you in the past.
The same handshake is positive if you remember the target as a friendly, caring person.
• Category-based knowledge. Category-based knowledge consists of perceptions, including stereotypes, that we have stored in memory about various categories of people (professors, singers, artists, police, politicians, and so on). We use this in-formation to interpret what we see and hear. For instance, if you believe professors in general are intelligent, you are more likely to perceive that those teaching your current courses are intelligent. If your memory tells you that people who lie cannot
Characteristics of the perceiver
• Direction of gaze
• Needs and goals
• Experience with target
• Category based knowledge
• Gender and emotional status
• Cognitive load
Characteristics of the target
• Direction of gaze
• Facial and body shape characteristics
• Nonverbal cues
• Appearance or dress
• Physical attractiveness Characteristics of the situation
• Context of interaction
• Culture and race consistency between perceiver and target
Interactions between perceivers
and targets.
Person Perception FIGURE 4.2 A MODEL OF PERSON PERCEPTION
be trusted, you are likely to perceive a politician as untrustworthy who is caught in a lie. We discuss stereotypes in the next section.
• Gender and emotional status. Women recognize emotions more accurately than men, and both men and women are more likely to recognize a target’s emotions when they are consistent with their own. Experiencing negative emotions such as anger and frustration is likely to make your perceptions more negative. The oppo-site is true for positive emotions such as optimism and love.
• Cognitive load. Cognitive load represents the amount of activity going on in your brain. If you are tired and distracted after working a long day, your perceptions are more likely to be distorted and susceptible to stereotypical judgments.
Characteristics of the Target Figure 4.2 identifies five important characteristics of the target that affect our person perception.9 The characteristics are:
• Direction of gaze. We form different perceptions of people based on whether they are looking at us while conversing. Direct eye contact suggests interest, whereas eyes darting across a room suggests the opposite.
• Facial features and body shape. We often use faces as markers for gender, race, and age, but face and body characteristics can lead us to fall back on cultural stereotypes.
For example, height has been associated with perceptions of prosperity—high income—and occupational success. Excess weight can be stereotypically associated with negative traits such as laziness, incompetence, and lack of discipline.
• Nonverbal cues. Communication experts tell us that nonverbal actions are highly influential in perception. Gestures, touching, facial expressions, eye contact, and body movements like slouching all convey messages. You might perceive that someone is defensive if you observe folded arms, a facial scowl, or crossed legs. In many cultures appropriate touching conveys an impression of warmth and caring.
• Appearance or dress. We all are susceptible to being influenced by appearance.
We may conclude someone who shows up for work in dirty, tattered clothes is lazy or uncaring. A recent experimental study showed that people performed better in mock negotiations when they wore business suits and dress shoes.10
• Physical attractiveness. While attractiveness is culturally determined, the beauty-is-good stereotype leads us to perceive attractive people positively. High attractiveness has been associated with better job opportunities, higher performance ratings, and the potential for increased earnings. One team of researchers concluded, “The effects of facial attractiveness are robust and . . . attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children and adults in almost every domain of judgment, treatment, and behavior.”11 Characteristics of the Situation Figure 4.2 shows two key situational characteris-tics that affect perception: the context of the interaction, and the culture and race consis-tency between perceivers and targets.
• Context of interaction. Perceptions are affected by the social context in which the interaction occurs. For example, your parent will likely perceive your eating food from the kitchen when you visit home differently than will a coworker whose food you take from the office refrigerator. Texting someone while eating dinner with friends is per-ceived differently than texting during a business meeting. Context matters!
• Culture and race consistency. We more accurately recognize emotions displayed by people from our own culture or from other familiar cultures. We also better un-derstand and remember facial expressions displayed by people from our own race.
For instance, both authors do consulting around the world, and we find it harder to accurately perceive group dynamics in foreign than in US companies. Angelo re-calls telling a joke to a group of Finnish managers. No one laughed or made any facial expressions, and he thought the joke had bombed until someone told him at a break that he was really funny. What a perceptual surprise! The OB in Action box highlights how differently apologies are viewed in the United States and Japan.
The frequency and meaning of apologies like “I’m sorry” vary around the world.
For example, a study revealed that US students apologized 4.51 times a week, while Japanese students used some type of apology 11.05 times a week. The findings highlight the importance of social perception.12
What Does an Apology Mean? A team of researchers concluded “Americans see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing, whereas Japanese see it as an expression of eagerness to repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability nec-essarily implied.” US students’ response is also consistent with the “psychological tendency among Westerners to attribute events to individuals’ actions.”13 In con-trast, Japanese students apologized even when they were not responsible. This response is partly due to the fact that Asian countries hold more collective or group-oriented values that focus on doing things for the greater good over self-interests.
Never Apologize, Never Explain An old John Ford film, She Wore a Yellow Rib-bon, followed a cavalry brigade posted in the US West in the 1800s; it popularized a strand of US individualism in a phrase you may still hear today. John Wayne’s character says, “Never apologize and never explain. It’s a sign of weakness.” But apologies do have a role in US business.
The Business Impact of Apologies Apologizing can acknowledge wrongs, and it can save money. A study of medical malpractice suits revealed that 16 percent of plaintiffs would not have sued had the hospital offered an apology. The Univer-sity of Michigan Medical Center put these results into practice and “adopted a policy of ‘full disclosure for medical errors,’ including an apology; its rate of law-suits has since dropped 65 percent.”14
“Apologizing by admitting a mistake—to coworkers, employees, customers, clients, the public at large—tends to gain credibility and generate confidence in one’s leadership,” says Linda Stamato of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.15
It’s important when apologizing to convey remorse and to choose the right words. Consider the apology made by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, to the US Congress while it was investigating the company’s ignition-switch recall.
“Today’s GM will do the right thing,” Barra said. “That begins with my sincere apologies to . . . the families and friends [of those] who lost their lives or were in-jured. I am deeply sorry.”16 GM ultimately agreed to pay a $900 million settlement to end criminal investigations.17
When a company such as GM has committed a wrong, a simple apology is not enough. The apology should be followed by tangible actions aimed at correcting the situation. GM did this by conducting an internal review, restructuring the engi-neering and quality departments, and placing two engineers on leave.18
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Do you think it pays to apologize in a business setting even if you did not do something wrong? Explain.
2. What is your opinion about hospitals apologizing for medical errors?
3. What are some right ways and wrong ways to apologize in business settings?