Topic 2 - Personality, Perception and Attribution + Attitudes and Values

Summary

Personality is the individual’s characteristics that influence the behavior depending on the situations on which the person is involved. It’s determined mainly by heredity (family) and the environment (society). There are some theories about the personality; one is the Trait theory from Gordon Allport which says that there are five main traits: extraversion (sociability vs. reservation), agreeableness (warm vs. antagonistic), conscientiousness (assiduous vs. untrustworthy), emotional stability (tranquil vs. anxious) and openness to experience; the Psychodynamic theory from Sigmund Freud which says that the unconsciousness is the one who determines the behavior of a person; and the Humanistic theory from Carl Rogers, which says that the basic human needs which are the self-actualization and the positive regard are achieved by growth as a response and improvement as a result.

The most influential personality characteristics of the Core Self-Evaluation are:

· Locus of control, which is the ability to manage to the events of a person, whether internally or externally.

· Self-esteem, which is how a person feels about him/herself.

· Self-efficacy, which is the personal conviction about one’s capabilities.

· Self-monitoring, which is how a person behaves when guided.

Perception is how a person perceives the environment in order to understand the world and the self. The perception is influenced by three main things: the perceiver (with its familiarity, attitudes and mood), the target (perceiving the appearance and the verbal and non verbal communication) and the barriers (such as stereotypes and judgments).

The perception has some principles which are: the selective perception (which maintains the perceiver’s point of view), the stereotypes (which are the prejudices), the first-impression error, the projection (how estimated the person is according to ones beliefs), self-fulfilling prophecy and the impression management. The attributions are originated mainly by external (outside the person, the situation) and internal factors (inside the person, the personality).

The attitudes are the feelings about certain situations or people and it’s highly related to one’s behavior. The ABC model explains the three main components of the attitudes, such as the affect (the feelings and verbal statements), the behavioral intentions (how the person behaves and the verbal statements about the intentions) and the cognition (attitudes and beliefs). The attitudes are created mainly by two reasons: direct experience and social learning (by family, organizations and groups).

The behavior is highly influenced by certain attitudes, such as the specificity (positions with only two points of view (yes or no)), relevance (issues that affect one’s interests), timing of measurement, personality factors (or self-monitoring) and social constraints (which actions are accepted).

Values are those beliefs about some conducts that are accepted and are divided in two main categories: instrumental (how to achieve goals) and terminal (the goals achieved). In the organization there are some values generally accepted, such as the achievement, concern for others, honesty and fairness.

Source: Class presentations Personality, Perception and Attribution and Attitudes and Values

Please explain, using your own words, the concept of Pygmalion Effect.

What are the potential implications, uses, or challenges that this effect may pose for organizations engaging into international operations that require the understanding of diverse cultural contexts? Can you use this concept to explain the relationship between national and organizational cultures? (500-1000 words).

Image taken from http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/burne-jones/burne-jones_pygmalion.jpg.html. Accessed on August 17th 2010.

The Pygmalion Effect is how one’s perception about the performance of other person affects the other one’s behavior and performance. The potential challenges that this effect may pose for organizations engaging into international operations at a diverse cultural context are that in an environment where are people from different nationalities or cultures (because there are some cases where people being from the same country, have very different culture) may behave in a different way, and affect the performance of the organization.

Image taken from http://thingaboutskins.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/my-friend-chad-victims-and-victory-and-those-visitors-who-want-indians-to-stay-virtually-the-same-part-1/. Accessed on August 17th 2010.

The fact that a leader puts the same trust to all of his/her employees doesn’t mean that they will perform or behave the same way, and a true leader must know how his subordinates will achieve the goals proposed. Furthermore, the implications that this effect may have on a “cross-cultural context”(Term taken from the reading "Beyond Pygmalion effect: the rome of managerial perception", p. 306) influences the perception of the people from the different cultures and difficult the possibility of working harmoniously. However, it’s not always negative to work in a multicultural environment, since the weaknesses that may appear in one culture may be strength to another one, which means that sometimes different cultures will complement each other instead of generating conflict.

The Pygmalion Effect is also highly related to some of the Cultural Dimensions of Hofstede, since it reveals how the power distance affects the performance of a worker regarding the perception of his/her superiors and also how the uncertainty avoidance is applied to a culture, since some cultures won’t do anything risky if they don’t receive an approval or expectations from their superiors, or if they are proactive enough to perform in a good way without the need of an expectation from a boss.

Additionally, this effect helps to understand the relationship between the national and organizational culture because it shows how different cultures perform in a similar environment, trying to achieve the same goal (in an organizational case, to generate income, to expand the company or generate value to the stakeholders, for example). Also, when dealing with a cross-cultural context, it is important to know how the different cultures will behave and how are they going to interact among each other when the leader has a perception and some expectancies with their performance, because by knowing that it will be more possible to anticipate the behavior and performance of everybody dealing with the organizational culture and realize how will be their future performance.

Finally, it’s important to notice that even though a leader might influence someone’s performance by having some expectations on that person, it doesn’t mean that the target will perform of that way, or that will improve his/her performance, it only means that there is a previous knowledge about that person. That’s why it’s so important to try avoiding prejudices in order to have an objective perspective of someone’s behavior, and don’t let be guided by stereotypes (such as the laziness of some people, or overestimate someone’s skills, or think that the people from certain countries are not capable of managing certain works or positions).

Taken from http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/High%20Expectations%20Disclaimer_27807 on August 17th 2010