Beyond attribution theory: Cognitive processes in performance appraisal.

Performance appraisal is construed as the outcome of a dual-process system of evaluation and decision making. Attention, categorization, recall, and information integration are carried out via either an automatic or a controlled process. In the automatic process, aspects of an employee and his/her behavior are noted and the employee is categorized without conscious monitoring. The automatic process is dominant except when decisions are problematic, in which case a consciously monitored categorization process takes place. Subsequent recall of the employee is biased by the attributes of prototypes (abstract images) representing categories to which the employee has been assigned. Dispositional and contextual factors influence the availability of categories during both assignment and recall. Categorization also biases any subsequent search for information about the employee, and interacts with task type to produce halo, leniency/ stringency biases, and racial, sexual, ethnic, and personalistic bias as well. The same automatic and controlled processes can, however, account for accuracy of evaluations. Suggested research includes the study of behavior taxonomies, individual differences in cognitive structure, the validation of behavior-sampling techniques, and laboratory studies of appraisal processes.