| Managers are often called upon to deal with "people problems," in which some unproductive behavior has either taken place or is on-going. Before deciding what to do, a manager must make a diagnosis, judging the probable cause or causes of the problem. Unfortunately, observers' judgments are known to suffer from dispositional biases. Reducing dispositionalism in explanations of unproductive behavior in organizations may be desirable for at least two reasons: (a) the consequences to employees who are dispositionally linked to unproductive behavior are often substantial, and (b) a mis-diagnosis could create these consequences without solving the organization's problem. Of course, it is possible for dispositional explanations to be correct. Thus, any intervention to reduce dispositionalism runs the risk of leading managers away from a "true" person-based cause. A new technique for structuring diagnosis of complex people problems is introduced and tested in three laboratory experiments. A total of 332 upper-level undergraduates in industrial/organizational psychology and organizational behavior courses participated. Most participants (74%) were currently employed. The results indicate that this technique can reduce dispositionalism in initial explanations of a complex people problem, while preserving the possibility of an ultimate attribution to person-based causes. Effects of primed inferential goals on initial explanations were also found. The structured diagnosis technique increased both the desire to collect additional information before finalizing a judgment and the breadth of the subsequent information search. Anticipated effects of structured diagnosis on confidence were not found. Further, a separate manipulation introduced to reduce confidence in one study unexpectedly failed. This research concludes that the benefits of structured diagnosis can be achieved in a relatively parsimonious format that could be easily learned and adopted by managers. |
