The effective use of the four reinforcement strategies can help manage human behavior at work. Testimony to this effect is found in the wide application of these strategies in all sorts of work settings, and by the number of consulting fi rms that specialize in reinforcement techniques. But use of these approaches is not without criticism.
Some critics claim that the success of specifi c reinforcement programs involves isolated cases that have been analyzed without the benefi t of scientifi c research designs. This makes it hard to conclude defi nitively whether the observed results were really caused by reinforcement dynamics. One critic goes so far as to argue that any improved performance may well have occurred only because of the goal setting involved—that is, because specifi c performance goals were clarifi ed, and workers were individually held accountable for their accomplishment.34 Another major criti- cism rests with potential value dilemmas associated with using reinforcement to infl u- ence human behavior at work. Some maintain that the systematic use of reinforce- ment strategies leads to a demeaning and dehumanizing view of people that stunts human growth and development.35 Others believe managers abuse the power of their position and knowledge when they exert this external control over individual behav- ior.
Advocates of the reinforcement approach attack its critics head on. They agree that behavior modifi cation involves the control of behavior, but they also argue that such control is an irrevocable part of every manager’s job. The real question, they say, is how to ensure that the reinforcement strategies are done in positive and constructive ways.36
4 study guide
Key Questions and Answers
What is perception and why is it important?
• Individuals use the perception process to select, organize, interpret, and retrieve information from the world around them.
• Perception acts as a fi lter through which all communication passes as it travels from one person to the next.
• Because people tend to perceive things differently, the same situation may be interpreted and responded to differently by different people.
• Factors infl uencing perceptions include characteristics of the perceiver, the setting, and the perceived.
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96 4 Perception, Attribution, and Learning
What are the common perceptual distortions?
• Stereotypes occur when a person is identifi ed with a category and is assumed to display characteristics otherwise associated with members of that category.
• Halo effects occur when one attribute of a person or situation is used to develop an overall impression of the person or situation.
• Selective perception is the tendency to single out for attention those aspects of a situation or person that reinforce or emerge and are consistent with existing beliefs, values, and needs.
• Projection involves the assignment of personal attributes to other individuals.
• Contrast effects occur when an individual’s characteristics are contrasted with those of others recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.
What is the link between perception, attribution, and social learning?
• Attribution theory addresses tendencies to view events or behaviors as primarily the results of external causes or internal causes.
• Three factors that infl uence the attribution of external or internal causation are distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
• Fundamental attribution error occurs when we blame others for performance problems while excluding possible external causes.
• Self-serving bias occurs when, in judging our own performance, we take personal credit for successes and blame failures on external factors.
• Social learning theory links perception and attribution by recognizing how learning is achieved through the reciprocal interactions among people, behavior, and environment.
What is involved in learning by reinforcement?
• Reinforcement theory recognizes that behavior is infl uenced by environmental consequences.
• The law of effect states that behavior followed by a pleasant consequence is likely to be repeated; behavior followed by an unpleasant consequence is unlikely to be repeated.
• Positive reinforcement is the administration of positive consequences that tend to increase the likelihood of a person’s repeating a behavior in similar settings.
• Positive reinforcement should be contingent and immediate, and it can be scheduled continuously or intermittently depending on resources and desired outcomes.
• Negative reinforcement, or avoidance learning, is used to encourage desirable behavior through the withdrawal of negative consequences for previously undesirable behavior.
• Punishment is the administration of negative consequences or the withdrawal of positive consequences to reduce the likelihood of an undesirable behavior being repeated.
• Extinction is the withdrawal of reinforcing consequences to weaken or eliminate an undesirable behavior.
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Self-Test 4 97
Terms to Know
Attribution (p. 86)
Continuous reinforcement (p. 93) Contrast effect (p. 84)
Extinction (p. 94) Extrinsic rewards (p. 90)
Fundamental attribution error (p. 87) Halo effect (p. 83)
Impression management (p. 80) Intermittent reinforcement (p. 93) Law of contingent reinforcement (p. 92)
Law of effect (p. 90)
Law of immediate reinforcement (p. 92) Negative reinforcement (p. 94) Operant conditioning (p. 90) Organizational behavior
modifi cation (p. 90) Perception (p. 76)
Positive reinforcement (p. 90) Projection (p. 84)
Punishment (p. 94)
Reinforcement (p. 89) Schemas (p. 78)
Selective perception (p. 83) Selective screening (p. 78) Self-effi cacy (p. 88)
Self-fulfi lling prophecy (p. 85) Self-serving bias (p. 87) Shaping (p. 92)
Social learning theory (p. 87) Stereotype (p. 81)
Self-Test 4
Multiple Choice
1. Perception is the process by which people ____________ and interpret information.
(a) generate (b) retrieve (c) transmit (d) verify
2. When an individual attends to only a small portion of the vast information available in the environment, this tendency in the perception process is called ____________.
(a) interpretation (b) self scripting (c) attribution (d) selective screening
3. Self-serving bias is a form of attribution error that involves ____________. (a) blaming yourself for problems caused by others (b) blaming the environment for problems you caused (c) poor emotional intelligence (d) low self-effi cacy
4. In fundamental attribution error, the infl uence of ____________ as causes of a problem are ___________. (a) situational factors, overestimated (b) personal factors, underestimated (c) personal factors, overestimated (d) situational factors, underestimated
5. If a new team leader changes tasks for persons on her work team mainly “because I would prefer to work the new way rather than the old,” she may be committing a perceptual error known as ____________. (a) halo effect (b) stereotype (c) selective perception (d) projection
6. Use of special dress, manners, gestures, and vocabulary words when meeting a prospective employer in a job interview are all examples of how people use ____________. (a) projection (b) selective perception (c) impression management (d) self-serving bias
7. The perceptual tendency known as a/an ____________ is associated with the
“Pygmalion effect” and refers to fi nding or creating in a situation that which was originally expected. (a) self-effi cacy (b) projection (c) self-fulfi lling prophecy (d) halo effect
8. If a manager allows one characteristic of a person, say a pleasant personality, to bias performance ratings of that individual overall, the manager is falling prey to a c04PerceptionAttributionandLearning.indd Page 97 7/13/11 7:34 PM ff-446
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98 4 Perception, Attribution, and Learning
perceptual distortion known as ____________. (a) halo effect (b) stereotype (c) selective perception (d) projection
9. The underlying premise of reinforcement theory is that ____________. (a) behavior is a function of environment (b) motivation comes from positive expectancy (c) higher-order needs stimulate hard work (d) rewards considered unfair are de-motivators
10. The law of ____________ states that behavior followed by a positive consequence is likely to be repeated, whereas behavior followed by an undesirable consequence is not likely to be repeated. (a) reinforcement (b) contingency (c) goal setting (d) effect
11. ____________ is a positive reinforcement strategy that rewards successive approxi- mations to a desirable behavior. (a) Extinction (b) Negative reinforcement (c) Shaping (d) Merit pay
12. B. F. Skinner would argue that “getting a paycheck on Friday” reinforces a person for coming to work on Friday but would not reinforce the person for doing an extraordinary job on Tuesday. This is because the Friday paycheck fails the law of ____________ reinforcement. (a) negative (b) continuous (c) immediate (d) intermittent
13. The purpose of negative reinforcement as an operant conditioning technique is to ____________. (a) punish bad behavior (b) discourage bad behavior (c) encourage desirable behavior (d) offset the effects of shaping
14. Punishment ____________. (a) may be offset by positive reinforcement from another source (b) generally is the most effective kind of reinforcement (c) is best given anonymously (d) should never be directly linked with its cause.
15. A defi ning characteristic of social learning theory is that it ____________.
(a) recognizes the existence of vicarious learning (b) is not concerned with extrinsic ewards (c) relies only on use of negative reinforcement (d) avoids any interest in self-effi cacy
Short Response
16. Draw and briefl y discuss a model showing the important stages of the perception process.
17. Select two perceptual distortions, briefl y defi ne them, and show how they can lead to poor decisions by managers.
18. Why is the law of effect useful in management?
19. Explain how the reinforcement learning and social learning approaches are similar and dissimilar to one another.
Applications Essay
20. One of your friends has just been appointed as leader of a work team. This is her first leadership assignment and she has recently heard a little about attribution theory. She has asked you to explain it to her in more detail, focusing on its possible usefulness and risks in managing the team. What will you tell her?
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Next Steps 99
Next Steps
Top Choices from The OB Skills Workbook
Case for Critical Thinking
Team and Experiential Exercises
Self-Assessment Portfolio
• Magrec, Inc. • Decode
• How We View Differences
• Alligator River Story
• Expatriate Assignments
• Cultural Cues
• Downside of Punishment
• Turbulence Tolerance Test
• Global Readiness Index
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100
Hungry to Succeed
One in six Americans are at risk of hunger. And Feeding America wants to do something about it. With more than 200 local food banks, the nation’s largest network of food banks feeds more than 37 million Americans each year by acquiring and distributing more than 3 billion pounds of food and grocery products annually.a
The Chicago-based charity procures donations from corporations, the food and grocery industries, individuals, government agencies, and other organizations. They distribute the food, grocery items and funds to member food banks, which distribute food to more than 61,000 agencies including food pantries, soup kitchens, and other emergency feeding centers.b
Founder Jon van Hengel volunteered at a Phoenix, AZ, soup kitchen in the late 1960s.
During his efforts to secure donations, he was inspired by the suggestion that there should be a place where unwanted food could be stored for later use, like money in a bank. His work led to the opening of St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, the nation’s fi rst food bank.
In the mid-70s, St.
Mary’s Food Bank Alliance was given a federal grant to
promote the development of food banks in other states, and America’s Second Harvest was born in 1979. The charity retained this name until 2008, when it rebranded itself Feeding America to more explicitly communicate its core mission and responsibilities.
Employees and volunteers alike often cite a powerful desire to end hunger as their motivation for engaging with Feeding America, a desire sometimes infl uenced by fi rst hand understanding of what it means to go without food. “In essence,” the charity says on its website, “feeding serves a double meaning—both providing food and enriching lives.”c
“Not often in your day-to-day job do you get to enjoy what you do and impact so many people.”
—Jerrod Matthews, Feeding America.
FYI: Last year, 14.7% of American households (17.4 million) were food insecure, the USDA’s term to defi ne a lack of daily access to food.d
Quick Summary
• Feeding America is the nation’s largest organization of food banks, with 202 participants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
• Centered in Chicago, it employs more than 150 people. Its board of directors includes high-ranking executives from Procter and Gamble, ConAgra, Mars Inc., and other food-centric corporations.
• After more than 30 years as America’s Second Harvest, the organization rebranded itself to Feeding America to counter declining donor participation and an increasing misunderstanding about its purpose.
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➠
1015 Motivation Theories
the key point
Even with great talents many people fail to achieve great things. They just aren’t willing to work hard enough to achieve high performance. That’s obviously not a problem in Feeding America’s success story. But still, many individuals underachieve, and so do the organizations they work for.
The question to be answered in this chapter is: Why are some people more motivated than others in their jobs?
chapter at a glance
What Is Motivation?
What Can We Learn from the Needs Theories of Motivation?
Why Is the Equity Theory of Motivation Important?
What Are the Insights of the Expectancy Theory of Motivation?
How Does Goal Setting Influence Motivation?
what’s inside?
ETHICS IN OB
INFORMATION GOLDMINE CREATES A DILEMMA
FINDING THE LEADER IN YOU
LORRAINE MONROE’S LEADERSHIP TURNS VISION INTO INSPIRATION
OB IN POPULAR CULTURE
EQUITY THEORY AND ALLY BANK
RESEARCH INSIGHT
CONSCIOUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS GOALS HAVE MOTIVATIONAL IMPACT
achievement requires effort
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102 5 Motivation Theories