At one point or another, most of us have probably experienced a lack of recognition for a job well done. Instead, it may have been that no matter how hard we tried, we never seemed to get the attention of our boss. For example, Mr. Smith, who is always slacking off but sucking up as much as possible, may get the VP promotion over Mr. Stein. Mr. Stein puts in many hours, always gets feedback from his customers but has constructively challenged authority to foster new ideas. Unfortunately for Mr. Stein, his previous behavior may be costing him that next promotion. In fact, his behavior may drastically influence all future interactions that he may have with his supervisor. But why would this be?
This could be happening due to two different concepts, both of which operate under the idea of a perceptual bias, with the first being selective perception and the second being the halo effect. To understand how each of these can influence managerial decisions, it is important to first define a perceptual bias and then define selective perception and the halo effect. Perceptual biases are errors that disrupt and distort the perceptual process, thus leading to faulty judgements. These can occur because we, as humans, attempt to create shortcuts of understanding. Attempting to analyze every detail of behavior would require too many cognitive resources; as such, we sometimes rely on assumptions to fill in missing information (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). In other words, we may not always have the full picture and will then rely upon previous experience to piece everything together. Sometimes, this process works as it should, helping to protect us from danger for example. Other times, this process operates inefficiently and may be causing us to act in ways we normally would not.
Now that you have a better understanding of a perceptual bias, selective perception can be examined. Have you ever been in a situation where you were the one scolded for doing something wrong, even though every other staff member did it? Worse yet, you were scolded again, after the original issue, for something completely different? Come to find out, again, everyone did the same thing, yet you were still the one to get punished. Why is this? It could be attributed to selective perception. This is when a manager is only able to see one piece of the whole picture at any given time (Schneider et al., 2012). That manager is selectively perceiving a specific occurrence. The reason for this is that it is impossible to take in everything happening at every given time; thus, a manager must find a way to essentially make sense of what they can see. In this case, they are punishing you because their past experience shows that you have made mistakes. As such, that manager may think that you will have a higher occurrence of issues and continue to watch you more closely than others. This leads into another type of perceptual bias, the halo effect. This can occur when a manager creates a general impression of an employee, specifically based upon a single characteristic. Within the work setting, this is most likely to show up on a performance appraisal (Schneider et al., 2012). For example, if an associate comes off as negative to the manager, he or she could receive a poor review because the manager may see everything they do as negative, even if they actually have a lot of job knowledge and skill. Additionally, there is the chance for the similar-to-me effect to occur, which is when an employee is perceived as much better than they actually are because they are very similar to the manager appraising them (Schneider et al., 2012).
The above scenarios demonstrate that perceptual biases can occur across a variety of situations; however, what actually influences them? To answer that, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of a few studies. Dearborn and Simon (1958) demonstrated that industrial executives did utilize selective perception, specifically in aspects of situations that related to their departmental goals and activities, which may have impacted decision-making ability. Walsh (1988) countered this by demonstrating that a manager’s belief structures did not have any detrimental impact on decision making; additionally, very few managers viewed the organizational world along narrow functional criteria such as those presented in Dearborn and Simon’s study. Bayer et al. (1997) revisited both studies by adding more layers to each in order to understand the decision making process at a deeper level. It was found that managers’ information processing is somewhat influenced by functional experience, but not in the ways previously thought. Additionally, the variations between the Dearborn and Simon and Walsh studies were found to be a result of procedural differences for each experiment versus true variations. That said, is there a one size fits all approach to why these biases occur?
Unfortunately, I would have to argue that no, there is not. However, from personal experience, I know that there are many different factors that can impact perceptual biases. When I first started in management, many of my biases were developed from previous experiences in my own career or life. However, as I continued to grow and develop, the level at which these biases influenced my decisions declined. The reason? Awareness. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to be aware of what it is you are actually doing. Nobody should expect you to be perfect as that is unrealistic. However, I have learned that people, especially employees, do expect that you should be fair. Being aware of your actions internally will help to demonstrate fairness and equality externally. In having interacted with a few high-level individuals, the ones I respect and remember are those that do not forget that they had to start somewhere too. The ones that I do not care for are those that forgot the essence of who they are and would also prefer to select Mr. Smith over Mr. Stein.
References
Beyer, J. M., Chattopadhyay, P., George, E., Glick, W. H., Ogilvie, D., & Pugliese, D. (1997). The selective perception of managers revisited. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 716-737. Retrieved from
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Dearborn, D. C., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Selective perception: A note on the departmental identifications of executives. Sociometry, 21(2), 140-144. doi: 10.2307/2785898
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Walsh, J. P. (1988). Selectivity and selective perception: An investigation of manager’s belief structures and information processing. Academy of Management Journal, 31(4), 873-896. Retrieved from
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