How Work Roles Influence Perception: Structural-Cognitive Processes and Organizational Behavior

Abstract

This article develops a model of how workers perceive each other at work, and shows why subordinate workers underevaluate their fellow subordinates and overevaluate their managers. The guiding thesis is that (1) organizational factors systematically bias the information that actors have about each other, and (2) cognitive and motivational limits on the ability to process information do not allow actors to correct for the biased source of their information. The main hypothesis tested is that those who are high in an organizational hierarchy and who do high-skill-level tasks are perceived more favorably on selected role-related traits than are others of equal ability in the organization. The hypothesis is tested by creating an experimental corporate office. As predicted, clerks rate managers more favorably on selected traits than they rate fellow clerks, even though subjects were assigned to the two roles on a random basis. A structural-cognitive model best accounts for the results. Recently, Jackman and Senter (1983) found that people believe that thriftiness, industriousness and intelligence increase as one ascends the class ladder. Furthermore, they found that poor and working-class respondents believe this as well as members of the upper classes. Although Jackman and Senter's data do not address specific occupations, their findings suggest that people make trait distinctions between occupations as well as classes. Thus, it seems likely that people think secretaries are less talented, ambitious, aggressive, etc., than their bosses. Yet, given the extreme skew of women's participation in the labor force, it is probable that secretaries are often more intelligent than their bosses, just as line workers are sometimes more intelligent than their foremen, and junior executives more talented than senior ones. In these cases, the question arises as to whether workers can accurately perceive each others' talents and abilities. In other words, are there organizational, cognitive and motivational factors that cause subordinate workers to overevaluate their managers and to underevaluate their fellow workers?