Strategy 3: Understand How

Raters Process Information

Strategy 3: Understand How Raters
Process Information
 The Rater
• Observes the behavior of a ratee
• Encodes the ratee behavior
• Stores information in memory, which subject to both
short- and long-term
• When evaluating a ratee:
 Review the performance dimensions
 Retrieve stored observation to determine their
relevance to performance dimensions
• The information is reconsidered and integrated with
other available in formation as the rater decides on
the final ratings.
Common Errors in Appraising
Perfomance
 Errors in the Rating Process
• Raters should notice only performance-related
factors when they observe employee behavior.
Common Errors in Appraising
Perfomance
 Errors in Observation (Attention)
 Generally, researchers have varied three type of
input information to see what raters pay attention
to when they are collecting information for
performance appraisal.
 First, it appears that raters are influenced by
general appearance characteristics of the raters.
 Race also matters in performance ratings.
 Researchers also look at change in performance
over time to see if this influences performance
rating.
Common Errors in Appraising
Perfomance
 Errors in Storage and Recall
• Research suggests that raters store information in
the form of traits.
• More importantly, they tend to recall information in
the form of trait categories.
 Errors in the Actual Evaluation
 The context of the actual evaluation process

also can influence evaluation. Several

researchers indicate that the purpose of an
evaluation affects the rating process.
Common Errors in Appraising
Perfomance
 Factors that lead raters to give inaccurate

 appraisals:

 • Guilt

 • Embarrassment about giving praise

 • Taking things for granted

 • Not noticing good or poor performance

 • The halo effect

 • Dislike of confrontation

 • Spending too little time on preparation of the appraisal _x0000_