1.

Introduction to the topic

This section discusses social perception and impression formation in an application
process. Before the applicants are invited to a job interview, they leave
impressions. This process of perceptual education refers to attribution theories
according to Heider (1958) and Kelley (1967). The first contact with a potential
employee, through a formal letter or personal encounter form impressions, this
behavior is definable with the Primacy and Regency effect. But mistakes in the
choice of candidates can still arise. This event is described in this context under
the co-variation error.
1.1 Understanding the Application Process!
An application process describes all processes that start with a job advertisement
and ideally end with a personal job interview. This process involves many other
important steps to recruit a new employee.
Social perception and impression formation goes a long way in an application
process whereby the employer or interviewer have some information and form an
impression about the applicant maybe through his submitted curriculum vitae (CV),
or referrer or through meeting from the first time. Social perception in
application process helps deal with how quickly an interviewer or an employer can
assess an applicant from what he or she looks like, from what they heard about them
from referrers, from their personality in their CV, and how well they can cope with
the job. Social perception leads to impression formation about the applicant in
application process before he can get the job. The employer or interviewer would be
able to assess if their first impression about the applicant turn out to be
correct, and if not, where and why they were wrong and how they can get on together
(Brian 2007). Impression formation also comes in play when an employer or an
interviewer is meeting an applicant face to face for the first time after the
applicant’s application even after been told about the applicant before their first
meeting. The employer may have a social perception about the applicant before their
meeting from the applicant description by a referrer while the applicant tries to
form an impression on the employer or interviewer.
Social perception and impression formation are necessary in application formation
going by different attribution theories about impression formation. It is rare
indeed that all this subsequent information perfectly matches first impressions.
Impression formation is a stage in application process whereby the interviewer or
employer meets the employee assesses and forms an impression of the applicant
different from the previous perception about the applicant after meeting.
Impression formation helps the interviewer or employer form certain judgment about
the applicant different from the initial information gotten about the applicant
(Brian 2007; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). There are different processes involved in the
application process after the vacancy stage to the recruitment stage, selection
stage, and the staffing stage. How easily does an employer or interviewer form an
impression about an applicant? Are employers and interviewers always correct about
their impression about an applicant during application process? That would be
answered in the course of this study.
Vacancy: Vacancy is defined as a recruitment tool, with which an organization
addresses the internal (in-house vacancy notice) and external workforce potential
to fill vacancies (tenders for jobs). Job advertisement informs about the
presentation of the requirement for a job and at the same time gives the first
impulses for future job. Vacancy involves recruiting and attracting candidate to
fill vacant positions in the organization structure. It makes recruitment easy for
candidates from outside the organizations and helps enterprises with a favorable
public image find it easier to attract qualified candidates (Nissen, 2018).
Application process
An application process is divided into phases, this begins mainly with the
submission of an application. Already here, the first impression is won, although
the personal conversation has not yet emerged.
Stage 1 Recruitment process
Recruitment is also involved in application process. Recruitment is defined by Mc
Fariand, as the process of attracting potential employees for a company. Flippo
also define recruitment as the process of searching prospective applicant or
employees and stimulating them to apply for the jobs in the organization.
Recruitment start from advert of vacancies due to promotion, transfer, retirement,
due to expansion, growth, diversification, permanent disability or death of a
worker in an organization. Recruitment refers to the process of attracting and
idetifying job seekers to build a pool of qualified job applicants. This process
comprises of different related stages which are: Planning, Searching, Screening,
Strategy development, evaluation, and control.
An ideal recruitment program is one that attracts a large number of qualified
applicants who will survive screening process within the organization. Recruitment
programs may miss the targeted applicants by falling to attract adequate
applicants, under or overselling thier firm, inadequately screening of applicants
before application process.
According to ‘Dunn and Stephens’ recruitment methods can be divided into three
categories:
1) Direct Methods; 2) Indirect Methods; and 3) Third Party Methods.

1) Direct Methods include travelling visitors to professional and educational

institutions, employee’s contacts with public and manned exhibits and waiting
lists.
2) Indirect Methods include adverts in newspapers, radio stations, social media,
television stations, in trade and professional journals, technical journals,
brochures, etc.
3) Third Party Methods includes the use of commercial and private employment
agencies, referrers, state agencies, placement offices of the colleges and
universities, and professional association recruiting firms.
Sources of Recruitment
The various sources of recruitment which may be classified as:
A. Internal sources or from within the organisation
B. External sources or recruitment from outside.
A. Internal sources – Many organisations give preference to people within the
company because they believe the best employees can be found from within the
organisation itself instead of recruiting from outside the organization. Under this
policy, if there is any vacancy in the organization the persons already working in
the organisation are appointed to fill the post in an acting capacity or be
promoted to the post. This method is practiced mostly in Government organisations.

B. External sources or recruitment from outside – Internal sources may not always
meet the needs of an organisation for a particular position. Naturally, most of the
concerns have to be sourced externally for recruiting the required number of
employees with the requisite qualifications.
Stage 2 Selection process
Selection process means the taking up of different applicants by various acts from
the application process who are invited through different sources of internal and
externals vacancy advert. Selection is the process of choosing the most suitable
person for the current position or for future position from within the organization
or from outside the organization.
The selection of managers is one of the most critical steps in the entire process
of managing.
According to Dale Yoder, “Selection is the process in which applicants seeking
employment are divided into two classes those who are to be offered employment and
those who are not.”
Selection Procedure:
Every enterprise has its own policy for recruitment. The following procedure maybe
adopted by organizations for their selection processes:
Receiving and screening the application: After receiving the applications
applicants have to be screened. In this process the applications of applicants
without the requisite qualification are disqualified.
Sending the Blank application form: After preparing the list of applicants suitable
for job, blank application forms may be sent to the applicants. In this application
form information would be provided about the name and address of the applicant,
educational qualification, experience, salary expected etc. If interview will not
been conducted.
Administering Tests: Different types of test may be undertaken by applicants before
consideration for the job. Tests are conducted to test the applicant knowledge,
personal behaviour, efficiency of work and interest.
Checking References on Investigation of Previous History: Applicants are generally
asked to give names of at least two persons to serve as referee for them. The
referees are whom the firm may make a reference to about the applicant.
Final Selection: On the basic of results from previous interview and selection
process the applicant is informed whether he/she is selected for the said post or
not.
There are other phrases in selection process namely:
Phase 1 Contact: Application documents
In this phase, application documents are checked for formal defectiveness, whereby
the condition of the submitted documents plays a role. Applicants who are biased
due to their very good qualifications, but have not scrutinized their records for
color and visual appeal, or who disagree with the Formation of Selected Fonts and
colors and fonts, will not qualify for Phase 2 (Mai, 2019).
Phase 2 Preliminary Interview: The interviewer decide whether the applicant is fit
for job or not. By this interview form impression about the applicant appearance,
attitudes, behaviour of the applicant can be known easily.
Telephone interview
After successfully fighting through numerous applicants, the voice, the form of
expression and the sympathy are valued in this phase. This telephone call gives the
applicant as well as the personnel officer the opportunity to confirm the decision
(Mai, 2019).
The job interview
The job interview serves to get to know and determine the suitability. With a very
good communication skills and adherence to the discreet rule of facial expressions,
gestures and body language, there are no more obstacles to the chances of success.
The first impression is essential here, the appearance is seen as a criterion and
personality trait (Mai, 2019).
Stage 3 Staffing
The workplace is an established location through the knowledge and skills described
in the application process. The location is a designation for a hierarchically
arranged occupation in an organization, i. through these schemes company
occupations can be reconstructed. This results in the position to be assigned to a
department (Arbeitgeber, 2016).
Staffing is also the managerial function of recruitment, training, selection,
promotion, developing, and compensation of personnel. Staffing may be defined as
the process of hiring and developing personnel to fill various positions in an
organization or establishment. It involves estimating and determining the number
and type of people required for the organization. It involves considering the type
and number of personnel needed, recruiting and developing them, maintaining and
improving their competence and performance for the betterment of their
organization. Staffing is the process of identifying, placing, developing,
assessing, and evaluating individuals at work.
According to Koontz and O’Donnell: “The managerial function of staffing involves
improving the organizational structure through effective and proper selection,
appraisal and development of people to fill the roles designed into the structure.”
Staffing is also defined as, “Filling a position in an organizational structure.
This is done by identifying work-force requirements, recruiting, selecting,
placing, promotion, appraising, planning the careers, compensating, training,
inventorying the people available, developing existing staff or new recruits, for
the organization to accomplish their tasks effectively and efficiently.”
1.2 Social Perception
In many events, people have different views on understanding and judging a
situation and meaningfully interpreting a result. Actually, the common
interpretation is not possible, because each has a differentiated perception and
Eistellungen that lead to a situational event, but also to a different behavior.
Therefore, there are always several solutions to a behavior or a happening of the
invention. The social perception deals with the interpretation of the behavior of
other people and their own, it follows, the process, the categorization in
particular the starting point of the information (Gerring, 2015).
Nietzsche a philosopher suggested that social perception is nothing but the
projection of an individual own idiosyncratic representations onto the world. In
his claim, “Whoever thought that he had understood something of me had merely
construed something out of me, after his own image” (Nietzsche, 1908/1969). The
contemporary approach to social perception was derived from pioneering research
conducted by Asch (1946). What struck Asch was how rapidly people seem to form and
arrive at impressions, despite the diversity of information that has to be
combined. Asch read out personality different adjectives to his students and asked
them to form an impression of a person (target) and describe the person by
different words. The students wrote a brief description of the person (target) and
then ticked any relevant traits on a personality checklist (e.g., they had to say
whether the target was generous or ungenerous, humorous or humourless, and so on)
he used this process to investigate his study. This greater influence of initial
information generated is generally known as a primacy effect. Evidently, people do
not wait until all obtaining all evidence before starting to integrate them and
forming impression about an individual. Kelley (1950) found similar effects on
judgements of employer or interviewer with whom applicants actually had direct
contact. He used the example of a guest lecturer who was introduced to students
either as ‘cold’ or ‘warm’ with the student forming an impression about him and
rated him only after he had taught them. Not only was the lecturer rated less
positively for been described as ‘cold’ but also students interacted less with him
and asked fewer questions for him. Since the first thing that the students learned
about him was that he was either warm or cold, these affected their perception
about the lecturer and these effects could depend on either primacy or trait
centrality. Behavioral traits and characteristics can be explained and the cause
reaction can also be explored. Using social psychology as an instrument, the
attribution theory according to Heider (1958) and Kelley (1967), using these
theories, the origins of behavior are categorized according to (situational,
genetic, and the sensibility factor) (Myers, 2008). In a negative conspicuous
behavior, people are often subject to the fundamental attribution error, i.
Applicants who are late for a job interview will also be late for regular working
hours. This assumption makes one believe that the applicant has a personality
characteristic of being punctual. Mostly situational factors are excluded (Gerring,
2018).
Icheiser (1943) and Heider (1958) noticed that people tend to attribute observed
behaviour to the enduring dispositions of a person without sufficiently considering
the impact of the situation on the person’s behaviour. Many social psychologists
often want to examine the extent to which the process of interest of an individual
relies on whether it is automatic or controlled processing, “hot” affect or “cold”
cognition, visual or linguistic processing, and episodic or semantic memory
(Lieberman & Pfeifer). Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory argued that people come
to know themselves by observing their own behaviour, in the same way they learn
about the preferences and personality of other people, rather than through
introspection. Bem’s theory suggests that knowing one’s self is dependent on
remembering about one’s own behaviour. People often based their social perception
of others based on the observable traits from their own personality making their
first impression about others based on the preferences they observe from themself.
Some people have their own implicit personality theories that help them make sense
of other people personality (Bruner & Tagiuri, 1954). Implicit personality theory
is an integrated set of ideas held by social perceivers about how different traits
and characteristics tend to be organized within an individual. More generally,
people seem to integrate social information about others by trying to infer its
holistic pattern this is known as configural model.
Configural model is a holistic approach to impression formation, whereby social
perceivers actively construct deeper meanings out of available information they
receive about other people. While alternative cognitive algebra model suggests that
separate pieces of information are simply added together or averaged by social
perceivers to form an impression about other people (Anderson, 1981). Cognitive
algebra is a proposed process for averaging or summing trait information received
about other people when trying to form impressions of other people.
For example, if a person is described as ‘warm’ but ‘boring’, the overall
impression would be less positive than when the person is described as ‘warm’ but
‘interesting’, but more positive than if the person is described as ‘cold’ and
‘boring’.
Social perception focuses on how people as social perceivers form impressions of
other people, and how they combine information they receive about them into a
coherent overall picture. Pioneering studies of social perception have shown how
important the nature and order of available information are, and how social
perceivers actively form their meaning, rather than simply sum the information
available to them.
1.3 Attribution Theory
"The term attribution or attribution in social psychology refers to both the
subjective and social attribution of characteristics such as skills or experiences
as well as assumed or suspected causes of actions of one's own person or other
people and the causation of real external events and situations" (Strangl, 2019).
Attribution can also be defined as the inferences people make about the causes of
other peoples behaviour. Attribution is an explanation for the cause of a behavior,
action, or event. There are different causes of this inferences which can be either
internal or external factor. Internal factors can be: Dispositional- behaviour
reflects personality, Intentional- behaviour was chosen, Unintentional behaviour
was not chosen while external factor is when a situation caused the behaviour.
Attributions may or may not be actual causes of some behaviours exibited by an
individual but can give a precedence to an individual’s construction of reality.
In social psychology, the term attribution has two primary meanings. The first
refers to explanations of behavior (i.e., answers to the why questions); the second
refers to inferences or ascriptions (e.g., inferring traits from behavior,
ascribing blame to a person). The similarity in the two meanings is a process of
assigning: in attribution a behavior is assigned to its cause; as well as
inference, a quality or attribute is assigned to the agent on the basis of an
observed behavior. Despite the connection between these meanings, they have
distinct psychological characteristics (Hamilton, 1998; Hilton, Smith, & Kin, 1995;
Malle, in press).
Attribution theory discuss the reasons why individuals attribute causes to events
that have an impact on the way they cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally
respond on future occasions. The theory see people as naive scientist trying to
understand the causal determinat of thiers and other peoples behaviour. Why things
happen the way they do, why people say and behave the way they do. Attribution
Theory discuss how we form integrated (deeper) social impressions about ourself and
others. Attribution theory explain how combination of emotion and cognition
influence people’s behaviour (Folkes, 1984; Weiner, 2000). Attribution theory can
be applied to a wide range of social interaction phenomena, it is therefore
considered one of the fundamental paradigms in social psychology (Swanson & Kelley,
2001). Attribution theory, has been used by researchers in different disciplines of
psychology (i.e. experimental, personality, motivation, clinical, organisational
and education psychology) and in applied fields of psychology (such as clothing,
marketing and consumer behaviour). Contemporary research has been very much
concerned with predicting individuals’ academic behavior. Attribution Theory, was
pioneered by Heider (1958), and Rotter (1966) and later furthered by Weiner
attribution (1985, 1986, 1992), The theory relates to the ways people perceive or
see the causes of their own behavior. Attribution theory is mainly rooted in the
works of Kurt Lewin, Julian Rotter, John Atkinson, Fritz Heider, Harold
Kelley, and Bernard Weiner. Weiner (1985, 1986) identified individuals’ beliefs
about why particular things happen in their lives. Attribution theory was put forth
as a domain of study which could be inspected to give a better understanding of
individuals and their perceptions about other people and themselves. Weiner (1992)
stated that individuals’ attributional beliefs tend to affect their performance in
future; these beliefs may have an impact on their motivation to cope with future
tasks (Jarvis, 2005).
Heider (1958) argued that people try to identify the dispositional
properties that form observed behavior and do so by attributing people’s or their
behavior either to: external (situational) causes internal (dispositional) causes.
(Weiner, 1972) stated that attribution theorist investigate the perception of
casuality, or make judgment on why a particular event occurred. He also believed
that the allocation of responsibility manisfestly guides subsequent behaviour of
people.
A special personality trait is an emphasized trait that is understood as a
constituent building block of a personality. Effects describe the influence of
information and the effectiveness of qualitative perception (Myers, 2008).
Different attribution theorist work will be looked into and discussed. In some
basic sense, intentional actions are believed to always been caused by the person
(D’Andrade, 1987; Heider, 1958; Kruglanski, 1975; Malle & Knobe, 1997).
Attribution Theory according to Kelley (1967)
Kelley’s (1967) work on attribution theory in social psychology is considered
generally as the first systematic and general treatment of lay causal explanations.
Kelley’s self-ascribed goal in the work was “to highlight some of the central ideas
contained in Heider’s theory” (Kelley, 1967). Specifically, the two central ideas
Kelley’s work were focused on: attribution process “the choice is between external
attribution and internal attribution” and also the procedure of arriving at these
external or internal attributions is analogous to experimental methodology
(Arbeitgeber, 2016). Kelley also quoted a passage from the very end of Heider’s
book (Heider, 1958), which is largely based on the section “Attribution of Desire
and Pleasure” (Heider, 1958).
Kelley (1967) discuss how perciever assign causality to the environment or person,
in light of principle that behaviour is. The model of wholeness, here are
categorized exact assignments for behavior patterns and actions (Stürmer, 2009).11
Kelley designed different indicators for this:
Kelley‘s theory discuss about about the covairation model of attribution which
includes: Consensus, Consistency, Distinctiveness. Consensus across persons,
Consistency over time and situations and Distinctiveness of entities and Causal
attribution theory.
Kelley’s (1967) covariation theory provides a more general account of how people
assume different possible causes of an observed action or event. Using the
covariation theory Kelley argues that observers make form their impression on the
basis of correlations or covariations between effects and their possible causes.
That is, ‘the effect is attributed to the factor which is present when the effect
is present and which is absent when the effect is absent’ (Kelley, 1967). Kelley
argues that people need to consider three kinds of evidence, with each
corresponding to one of the possible causes (the object, situation or person).
Kelley’s Covariation Model: the attribution process here is the search for
information about what a behaviour co-occur (covaries) with. Where when it co-
occurs with the situation it equals external attribution while when it co-occurs
with the person it equals internal attribution. He also proposed Dominanting
Metaphor where he view people as naive scientists who analyze the world in a
rational manner. He view low consensus, low distinctiveness, and high consistency
to internal attributions, while high consensus, high distinctiveness, and high
consistency as external (situational) attributions. Consistency? What about in this
situation over time? (if high -> dispositional attribution). Consensus? What would
others do? (if low -> dispositional attribution). Distinctiveness? What about in
other situations? (if low -> dispositional attribution).
He argued that this process will help identify what internal attribution is (caused
by the person), while not telling us what internal factor caused the behaviour. The
consistency measures the period and the consensus the social sphere (Stürmer,
2009).
This model first looks for the explanations in the Own Experiences, after which it
tries to find an evaluation of possibilities for the assignment of the behavior.
The possible causes can be searched for in the sense of instinct (Stürmer, 2009).
The applicant was late for the job interview. Here should the question: "What
happened that he came too late"? Is it only unique? his.
The consistency: consistency information evidence relating to how an individual’s
behaviour towards an entity differs across different situations. It also describes
the repetitions of the situation. The applicant who was late for the job interview
is late for the trial day. Thus, the response might be drawn that the candidate is
rather unsuitable for a job starting at 8 o'clock in the morning, or the
circumstances would have to be adjusted with the working time (Stürmer, 2009).
The factor consensus: consensus is also the information evidence relating to how
different people behave towards the same entity. It tries to explore forecasts
based on observations of other participants (Stürmer, 2009). If several candidates
are late, it is to be assumed that the time is unrealistic and therefore needs to
be adapted by the employer. If the behavior is not in consensus is present, it can
be assumed that the individual candidate has a tendency to be punctual (Gerring,
2015).
Distinctiveness: it is the information evidence relating to how a person responds
to different entities under similar circumstances.
Over the years, Kelley’s covariation model have been tested empirically and
appeared to receive reasonable support from other theorist (Försterling, 1992;
McArthur, 1972; Sutton & McClure, 2001).
Causal attribution theory: helps define the discretion of one's own behavior and
the attribution of others' behavior. The causal attributions describe the indicator
distinctiveness, the specific subject area. Kelley argued that people fill in
missing information by reference to their existing ideas about how effects are
produced (causal schemas). Causal schema is a knowledge structure that shapes
attributions. Causal schemas can be either abstract representations of general
causal phenomenon (e.g., multiple necessary and multiple sufficient causes schemas)
or domain-specific ideas about how particular causes determine particular effects.
Kelley’s causal schema theory indicates that people often take shortcuts to
inferential conclusions when limited information or resources are available.
However, Kelley’s study suffered from a pair of heavy demands because there is no
evidence that people randomly search for covariation information when trying to
explain behavior. Another limitation of the Kelley covariation model is that the
pattern of information used to indicate various attributions is incomplete
(Försterling, 2001; Hilton, 1988). In summary Kelley’s (1967) model of attribution
contains two main propositions: (a) that attribution is a choice between internal
and external causes and (b) that people uses covariation assessment to arrive at
this choice. Both propositions are seen to be problematic. First, covariation
assessment is used far less than he commonly assumed, and it is not useful as a
method to generate explanations of intentional actions. Second, the internal–
external dimension may be a relevant distinction mostly in explanations of
unintentional events, but it does not capture or project people’s explanations of
intentional action. Although Kelley’s theory provides a logical basis for
attribution, it is difficult to imagine that people will keep collecting evidence so
systematically and engage in such processes for a long time while trying to analyze
or make sense of an event’s causes every time.
Attribution Theory according to Heider (1958)
Fritz Heider developed models of attribution theory for both object perception and
person perception. His theory of object perception is rarely cited today, but it
serves as the foundation for his later theory of person perception. After his early
work on object perception he started work on the domain of social
interactions,wondering how people perceive each other in interaction and especially
how they make sense of other peoples behavior. Heider proposed that attribution
process involve a person perception, but he recognized that person perception is
more complex than object perception – due to available observational data and the
various causes (e.g., beliefs, desires, emotions, traits) to which these data can
be attributed. Heider feel that people are “perceived as action centers and as such
can do somethings to themselves. They can benefit or harm each other intentionally,
and they can benefit or harm others. People have abilities, wishes and sentiments;
they can act purposefully, and can perceive or watch others” (Heider, 1958). Heider
emphasized two distinct features of a person perception. The first feature is that
of social domain, where variance refers to the agent’s stream of ongoing behavior
and invariance refers to the inferred perceptions, motives, traits, intentions, and
sentiments.
Heider (1958) sometimes refer to the word invariances using the term disposition,
even though he occasionally use the term dispositions when referring to traits and
abilities he considered “motives, intentions, sentiments as the core processes
which show themselves in overt behavior”.
Heider’s model emphasized that: “The underlying causes of events, especially the
motives of other persons, are the disposition of the environment that are relevant
to [the perceiver]; they give meaning to what the person experiences” (Heider,
1958). Heider’s terms disposition and invariance primarily refer to mental states
in social perception. The second distinct feature of person perception according to
Heider people perform a causal (i.e., attributional) analysis of human behavior,
their judgments of causality follow one of two of his conceptual models (Heider,
1958). The first model is that of impersonal causality, which is applied to
unintentional human behaviors (such as sneezing or feeling sad) and physical events
(such as waves splashing or leaves falling). The second model is that of personal
causality, which is invoked whenever a a person performs an intentional action
(such as cleaning the kitchen or inviting someone to dinner).
Situations and actions are automatically questioned in detail by people without
basic in-depth psychological knowledge, each of whom tries to classify these traits
e on the basis of their acquired experiences (Gerring, 2015). The attribution
theory of Fritz Heider (1958) explains how people judge the behavior of others.
People judge by two factors 1. The inner disposition and the external situation
that are responsible for the behavior. Behavioral characteristics are divided into
four indicators in this theory. 1. The dispositionale or internal attribution, with
the task to classify the process in positive and negative. Personal characteristics
are included here as a criterion. Eventualities are taken into account under
situational or external attributions (Gerring, 2015). Rice (1985) conducted the
experiment with Manager, observing that managers also have to apply attributions in
assessing employees. As little as possible of the own disposition is assumed, i. if
the manager is a bad executive who is less efficient and does not conform to the
standards of a leader, then he should not equate the employees with his own
negative attitude but give a neutral rating. When assessing employees, it may
happen that poor performance is attributed to personal factors rather than
motivation (Myers, 2008).
1.3.1 Impression formation
It should be noted that any history of impression formation is, in part, a history
of how humans have viewed themselves. Understanding impression formation has
probably been one of human concern over the years since the metacognitive
realization that impressions do form and are not simply reflections of some
reality, putting aside naïve realism and assumed similarity, one person gestured or
grunted to another. People’s descriptions of others are diverse and have changed
over the years. This diversity develop because, unlike the perception of measurable
physical properties (e.g., how visible light’s wavelengths relate to perception of
color), person “perception” is not about physically objective reality. Modern
psychology regards the properties people see in others as largely inferred,
assumed, felt, and/or enacted (Uleman, Saribay, & Gonzalez, 2008). People over time
also form impression of others based on four temperaments of personality (sanguine,
choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic) believing people with any of these
personality traits act the way they do based on their personality. In the early
80‘s, social cognition had emerged as a distinctive approach to issues in social
psychology, and impression formation was at its center. Uleman and Saribay (2012)
argues that the study of initial impressions “combine personality and social
psychology like no other field of study—‘personality’ because (1) people
impressions are about personalities, and (2) perceivers’ personalities may affect
these impressions; and ‘social’ because (3) social cognitive processes also come in
play in impression formation, and (4) sociocultural contexts have major effects on
impressions”. The study of impression formation depends on developments in many
areas. Work on impression formation gained more importance as government and
industry programs expanded effort on it, while better ways were sought to place the
right set workers in the right jobs. Clinical and actuarial assessment of skills
and personality were among the urgent problems of the world today and impression
formation was central to this. Asch’s (1946) in his classic paper, that cut through
the many theoretical complexities of impression formation by offering a simple
experimental paradigm and placing his focus on traits. He also stated results from
his finding where he discussed about the order of effect which are primacy effect,
recency effect, and halo effect. (“primacy,” in which the first items in the list
affect impressions more; and “recency,” in which the last items affect impressions
more) and halo effects (in which the evaluation associated with some traits spreads
to others). Asch’s (1946) argued that impressions have structure and the meanings
of their traits depend on which other elements are present. While anticipating
future research, he wondered whether similar principles govern impressions of
groups or relationships. Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto (2007) pointed out that warmth
includes both sociability and morality and found morality is more important than
sociability in forming impressions of others by perceivers in a social or
organizational setting. Impression formation has been related and discussed over
the years to have relations different social elements and perceptions. It has been
seen to be useful in many field of study, organizational process and applied in
daily lives of people. Impression formation comprises of different elements which
includes: Social perception, Attribution and attribution theory, different order of
effects, Non verbal language, Facial expressions and gesturing, and Body language.
The social psychologist Solomon Asch (1952) (Montgemori, 1992) researched the
formation of impressions and came to the conclusion that humans judge by means of
elementary, psychological mechanisms, characteristics, abilities and patterns.
Qualities can be learned through a healthy personality image and basic human
knowledge (Blume, 2014).
Nonverbal language
Emotions can be expressed through language, but also through the expression in the
posture and in the facial features. People are social beings who are highly
dependent on appreciation and belonging to a social environment. Society has an
exemplary function and sets guidelines that at the same time have the function of
shaping its members. Cognitive learning is developed in society. Newborns
communicate their needs through facial expressions or screaming before even
learning a language, so facial expression is very important (Kopp, 2014). Posture
usually shows the nuances that are more crucial than expressing verbal form. It
reproduces suppressed signals, the inner voice becomes the expression and is
reflected in the attitude (Blume, 2014).
Facial expressions and gesturing
Facial expressions are very important in communication and emotional analysis. The
expression determines the starting point of the realized feelings. These, in turn,
are subdivided into facial expressions and gestures, just as the psychologist Paul
Ekmann differentiates between micro-expression and facial expressions that arise in
fractions of a second through the facial muscles (Standop, 2013). That the facial
expressions are not seen in the first moments only because the expression
disappears, but also because the human eye is not able to perceive such rapid
changes.
In 1872, Charles Darwin wrote in his book, Expression of Emotion in a Man and
Animals, that emotions are adaptive because they can express emotions. Darwin
assumed that humans have innate emotions, facial expressions, and gestures that
express them in the same way, regardless of their cultural origin (Jahnke, 2005).
Ekman considered this theory wrong and then launched a trial with his team. The
goal of this research was to find results that would refute Darwin's hypothesis, as
he was convinced that facial expressions had been learned. They found that Darwin
was right (Myers, 2008).
1.3.2 Perception Influencing effects in Impression Formation
This section is about explaining the terms (Primacy, Regency and Halo Effect).
These effects are not only the decisive point in an application process, but are
used subconsciously in everyday life as a criterion for creating impressions.
Primacy Effect (The first impression)
This effect denotes the sympathy ability of the features first used, i. In the
example application process, this effect would be seen again in the personality
description in the application process.
The order of the listing contributes to the effect of the applicant.
If an applicant succeeds in sorting out his characteristics well-thought-out, he
achieves a written bonus of character traits, which are considered positive traits.
Primacy effect the tendency for information presented earlier to be more influential
in social perception and interpretation.
The Regency Effect (The last impression)
This effect gets its positive impression from the last information obtained, these
outshine the information first enumerated and this case, the information collected
first.
In this effect, the applicant again gets the opportunity by the set order
(Maderthaner, 2017) e.g. negative, or rather less good, features that have been
listed at the beginning of the description are credited with a positive impression
at the end of the listing.
Halo effect (The veneer)
The look and the eye-catching choice of clothes influence the assessment processes.
According to (Taylor & Fiske, 1975), benefits arise because negative personality
traits and attributes are blinded by the highlighted outward feature, thus
providing positive results. Compared to applicants who were not expressively
dressed but were more capable, the candidates, who are more expressive, perform
better. Personal characteristics that will influence an overall assessment are
called (central features) (Maderthaner, 2017). The halo effect occurs when
subjective perceptions can generally be deduced to have other positive or negative
personal characteristics (Kopp, 2014).
1.4 Practice Transfer Theory
Understanding the relationship between practice and theory is a persistent and
difficult problem for many scholars and researchers who work in professional
schools, business, engineering, social work, medicine, agriculture, education,
public administration, journalism, and law. Professionals typically build their
knowledge by developing themselves and translating their skills into advance
practice of the professions (Kondrat, 1992; Simon, 1976; Tranfield & Starkey,
1998). Several special issues in leading academic journals have highlighted growing
concerns that the gap between theory and practice in the professions is widening
(Anderson, Herriot, & Hodgkinson, 2001; Rynes et al., 2001). While a number of
confusing opinions exist regarding which strategies that theory-practice
relationship should be aligned with, there is still little information on how the
theory-practice relationship is actually framed. Theory-practice is essentially a
communication relationship. In this view, three devices of relating theory to
practice represent different types of communication strategies. Communication is
the transfer of information from a source to a recipient (Shannon and Weaver 1949).
Relating theory and practice poses the important question of how organizations and
individuals can develop the means of addressing complex problems in the world.
1.5 Summary
During the last few years, the use of attribution theory, social perception has
been used to explain impression formation (Laufer, 2002). From the above findings
it can be seen that attribution and attribution theory has been able to explain how
people from impression of others over the years. Using the findings from many
social psychologists from over the years it can be seen that person perception and
attribution theory plays a major role in impression formation. Many researchers in
the field of impression formation have link impression formation to many factors
starting from Asch’s findings to other researchers finding listed above to discuss
more about impression formation. Psychologists consider attributions to be
important because they believe they are the foundations of further judgments,
emotional reactions, behaviour and impression formation (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
Heider’s (1958) deep insights into the social perception of human action made
attribution theory a central position in social psychology. His assumption that
humans spontaneously explain behavioral and social events has led to many
researches in the field of social influence, self-regulation, relationships, and
health. Social psychologists see people as naïve scientists trying to uncover the
structure of an independent social reality. Social perception research focuses on
verbally represented information or static, sensory stimuli, when people confront
each other in everyday life they often have access to a knowledge about others that
is responsive to their own conduct. Some social perceivers can read directly from
the available information about others to form their impression about them (Baron &
Boudreau, 1987; Gibson, 1979). The application is a written document that provides
the first impression. Basically, you're always the same from the build. It tells
about the persons characteristics of the applicant and the intentions and
expectations of the new employer. The formal foundations show the First Interests
and the Character traits, but the intelligence can not be determined by the
application. This first appearance, which explains the necessity of why one is
suitable for the position and possibly not, can play a major role in the further
step, or even cause miracles by rejection (Thurau, 2016).
2. Attribution error of the supervisor during the application phase
In this part of the thesis, based on the theoretical basics that have been
enumerated, the transfer to practice in relation to the issue is given. The
formation of impressions in an application process in connection with attribution
theories according to Kelley (1976) and the influenceable perception by the Non
Verbal (body language, posture facial expressions and gestures) are explained in a
case study. The goal is to use the theories applied to achieve possible theory
practice transfer. Attribution error is the tendency of people making error in
internal-disposition attributions abpout other people’s behaviour, even when
situational causes are clearly present. Supervisors also makes error while
attributing their own feelings towards an applicant. Supervisors can also exibit
self serving bias towards applicans in application process.
2.1 Common error made by Supervisors in Application Phase
To internalize and clarify the theories, this section uses an application and a
chaotic job interview to explain how the theories are applied in practice.
2.1.1 Application period and Cover letter/Curriculum vitae been Misspelled
Applications are time consuming. Proper editing will produce good results, so
special effects and rules are important for creating impressions.33 Supervisors may
find it hard to go through all applicants application forms or submitted curriculum
vitae (CV), this will allow for mistakes or screening out of the right applicant.
Applicant letters of application may make effects that affect a supervisor.
2.1.2 The Interview and Interviewer
This procedure is usually initiated after the application process to gain a
personal impression of the applicant.
Typical errors! A chaotic job interview
The covaration Model According to Kelley (1967) Why did the supervisor make a
mistake during the application phase? Which factors have influenced him, or is the
rejection and attribution errors attributable to the applicant.
An internal Attribution
It was up to the boss is set according to the following criteria. The boss had an
argument with his partner and had out of emotional bias (from a non-rational angle)
misinterpreted the application process.
An external Attribution
it was up to the applicant is employed for the following criterion: The applicant
has incorporated many mistakes in the application and formal errors, missing
documents and spelling mistakes, he may have allowed to call the contact person
wrong.
Special circumstances that led to the behavior of the supervisor are accepted on
the following criteria: He has a catalog in which he has to follow clear rules.
He had time pressure
He was confused to this situation or this person. Because of this, he could not
rationally evaluate the situation. (Gollwitz & Schmitt, 2006).
Kelley's (1967) covarition model is a modified Heider model that considers the
wholeness of a situation. This model shows differentiated solutions. The premise
is that the supervisor was unable to judge rationally, for which reason the
application was not appropriate, i. judged in the light of (skills, abilities and
knowledge). Thus, the supervisor has escaped the skills and suitability of the
applicants. Supervisor can be bias in their judgment and decision making due to
gender differences in making selection & sexual behaviour of applicant during
interview or due to the applicant gesture (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2008).
2.2 Summary
Supervisors are seen as human beings who form their impression about applicants
from available information to them. Attribution theory was used to describe their
method of assessing applicants because they are also social perceivers who form
impression of other people from available information about the person. They are
also susceptible to attribution error in their judgment and decision making
process. They are likely to make errors in the application process while trying to
recruit applicants for a particular position in their organization. According to
Albert Mehrabian your effect is based on presentations or similar. 55% of your body
language (posture, gestures, eye contact), 38% of your voice and only 7% on the
content of your communication.
3 Content reflection
An application phase is a new step into independence.
Applicants must leave a good impression for you to be invited to a job interview.
Until this process is initiated, this phase is usually associated with
inconsistencies and long processes.
There is a risk that the perception of interviewers due to a negative mood is
impaired by the HR. The mind is crucial in order to make accurate effective
attributions.
Heider's attribution theory distinguishes two indicators that are internal, i.
direct attribution of behavior and external attribution is the act of externally
generated situations. Heider's theory foresees that in an unusual situation, man
automatically and permanently tries to apply an attribution of behavior. The fixed
schemata and outline points should give proper attention to the points that
ultimately represent a structural measure.
If the application is not in accordance with the established structures, it will
not be admitted to further selection. In the case of a cancellation, the
formalities should be checked before the cause is immediately seen by the mental
state of the interviewer. It should not be forgotten that the interviewer has no
personal relationship with the candidate and that he has to judge from the
documents sent to him by the applicants, ie. the more unstructured the documents,
there is also the possibility of a negative impression. Impressions arise
constantly and everywhere, these are to be analyzed by face expressions, nonverbal
behavior and the verbal language.
Crucial in such an evaluation is the idea of the evaluator and the nature of the
perceived perception. In the case of a negative impression in the job interview,
the covariation model could be used to trace causes of processing between the
interviewer and the potential employee. This variable is only to be considered if
the mistake in the candidate is foreseeable. Attribution errors arise from
distortion of the recorded information. During a conversation, it may be possible
that the non-verbal communication is misunderstood and thus misunderstandings
occur.
Different measures can be put in place to help supervisors avoid mistakes when
forming impressions about applicants.
1. Supervisors should not be bias or overly involve in the applicant.
2. The organization should allow for more time in application process so that
supervisors can be able to assess applicant thoroughly.
3. There should allow for recess and break during interview or selection process
of applicants.
4. Supervisor should be allowed to assess the applicant outside the laid down
guideline or mode of assessment and interview of the organization.