The Evaluator’s Perspective: Understanding Valence Alignment in Organisational Evaluations

Abstract This chapter examines the cognitive and emotional mechanisms underlying social evaluations of organisations, such as reputation, trustworthiness, status, and legitimacy, focusing on how individuals’ judgements tend to align, forming what we term ‘valence alignment’. It explores how both automatic, heuristic-driven cognitive processes and more deliberative, analytical thinking shape these evaluations, with strong initial impressions and emotional investment often reinforcing positive or negative alignment. Key cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias and the halo effect, play a central role in driving valence alignment across various social evaluations. It also investigates how significant events, or ‘jolts’—whether internal or external to the organisation—can disrupt established impressions, prompting evaluators to shift from automatic judgement to more deliberate judgement reassessment. These jolts may either strengthen or weaken valence alignment. The chapter underscores the practical importance of understanding these psychological mechanisms to foster more balanced and informed evaluations. Ultimately, this understanding helps individuals make more reflective decisions about organisations through awareness of how biases and emotions influence their judgements, and helps organisations manage stakeholder perceptions across multiple types of social evaluations.