Executive Summary:
Do you believe people can turn over a new leaf and change the type of person they are? Managers’ implicit assumptions about this issue — known as their implicit person theory (IPT) — can have a range of important implications, according to organizational psychologist Peter Heslin. Basically, most people tend to gravitate toward one of two camps: the entity theory notion that people are largely fixed entities with stable personal attributes (e.g., intelligence and personality) that don’t change much over time, or the incremental theory idea that personal change can occur. Whatever assumptions a manager holds in this respect can mean the difference between a misguided performance appraisal or one that accurately reflects employee accomplishments and areas for development. In this first-of-its kind research, authors Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle of SMU Cox, along with Gary Latham of University of Toronto, show how a simple assumption can have significant consequences. Their explanation about the impact of managers’ IPTs could lead to better management decisions and more equitable treatment of employees. The research paper “The Effect of Implicit Person Theory on Performance Appraisal” was recently published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Psychology.
The Studies
Good scientific theory helps us to understand, predict, and change phenomenon around us. This research paper makes a contribution on each of these fronts, in part by extending to an organizational setting previous research with children and students led by Carol Dweck of Columbia University. It has significant practical importance because failure to acknowledge improvement in an employee’s performance could result in frustration, withdrawal, and resentment in the workplace. Similarly, organizational effectiveness and indeed human lives could be seriously jeopardized if a decline in performance by people such as airline pilots, security guards, or nuclear power plant operators goes unnoticed. Most research has largely ignored individual differences in managers’ acknowledgement of changes in an employee’s behavior or performance.
Four related studies each revealed different aspects of how holding an entity or incremental IPT impacts managers’ performance appraisals of their employees. As expected, the first study found that managers who believe people tend to change (i.e., incremental theorists) were more inclined to recognize improvements in performance than were the entity theorist managers.
Does this mean that incremental theorists are just more optimistic about others? The second study examined how much managers who first observed good performance recognize a subsequent decline in performance. In this study, those with an incremental IPT did not disregard the new data about performance decline when providing a performance appraisal, as much as the entity theorist managers who seemed more wedded to their initial positive impressions. In other words, the incremental theorists acknowledged decline in employee performance more than did the managers who held an entity IPT.
Could incremental theorists be exaggerating the change they observe? The third study showed that this is unlikely to be the case. Rather, it found that in contrast to incremental theorists, entity theorists’ evaluation of good performance was anchored even by negative rumors about the past performance of an employee whose good performance they observed and appraised. The rigidity of entity theorist managers’ initial impressions and judgments suggests the need for a training intervention.
The fourth study showed that it is possible for a manager with a more fixed entity mindset to develop greater appreciation for people’s ability to change. The researchers used a range of self-persuasion tactics for this intervention because with self-persuasion, the resulting message comes from a source they trust most, themselves. Heslin explained, “Through activities such as pondering when they and others had managed to change, as well as writing an e-mail of encouragement to a struggling protégé — emphasizing how consistent effort, practice, and guidance almost always enable improvement — entity theorists managers can come to adopt a more incremental IPT.” In other words, with an appropriate intervention, change in IPT mindset is possible. It is also accompanied by improvement in the accuracy of the performance appraisals that managers provide.
IPT also may have important implications in relation to decision making, stereotyping,
and negotiations. “The bottom line is this: If we stereotype or categorize people in boxes based on our initial impressions — about what they can and cannot do — we could understate their accomplishments, as well as fail to recognize instances where remedial action is required,” Heslin remarked.
Conclusion
Implicit person theory (IPT), the assumptions we make about others’ personal attributes, is a motivational force with regard to acknowledging actual employee behaviors. With a more rigid entity IPT mindset, performance improvement or decline may go relatively unnoticed.
This research helps pave the way towards identifying and training managers who provide idiosyncratic performance appraisal ratings, which can mean the difference between a well-deserved promotion and salary increase, or sheer frustration and disillusionment for an employee. The interventions or techniques developed in the fourth study “can help somewhat in loosening mental rigidities as they pertain to the way we perceive and judge others, as well as recognizing changes in their performance,” Heslin concluded.
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