Deck 5: Foundations of Employee Motivation

Question 1

Abraham Maslow was the first to recognize that human thoughts play a role in motivation.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The problem with the concept of employee engagement is that it lacks theoretical foundation.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

One advantage of ERG Theory over Maslow's Needs Hierarchy Theory is that the ERG model seems to explain human motivation somewhat better.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

People with a high need for achievement tend to avoid risks and prefer working in teams.

Question 5

ERG Theory recognizes three learned needs: achievement, affiliation and power.

Question 6

The stronger your needs, the less motivated you are to fulfill them.

Question 7

According to Needs Hierarchy Theory, the need for self-actualization continues to develop even when it is fulfilled.

Question 8

Human needs cluster more neatly around the three needs categories in ERG Theory than the five needs categories in Maslow's Needs Hierarchy.

Question 9

Motivation is closely related to the concept of employee engagement.

Question 10

A person's hierarchy of needs is influenced by his or her values.

Question 11

According to ERG Theory, a person can regress down the hierarchy of needs when they fail to fulfill higher needs.

Question 12

Needs Hierarchy Theory explains how people develop perceptions of fairness in the distribution and exchange of resources.

Question 13

In the context of motivation, drives are also called primary needs, fundamental needs, or innate needs.

Question 14

Drives are needs, and are essential parts of human psychology.

Question 15

The concept of employee engagement is related to motivation, but not role perception.

Question 16

Maslow is credited for bringing a mechanistic perspective to the study of motivation.

Question 17

Most employers say that nowadays motivating employees is more challenging than it used to be.

Question 18

Maslow's Needs Hierarchy Theory incorporates only five basic categories.

Question 19

Maslow's Needs Hierarchy Theory states that people are motivated by only one need at a time.

Question 20

Motivation is one of the four essential drives of individual behavior and performance.

Question 21

In Four-drive Theory, the drive to bond does not produce any emotional markers.

Question 22

People with a high need for affiliation tend to be more effective in jobs that require them to mediate conflicts.

Question 23

People with a high need for affiliation tend to be more effective in jobs that allocate scarce resources among employees.

Question 24

According to Four-drive Theory, social norms, past experience, and personal values translate emotional signals into goal-directed effort.

Question 25

Employee motivation is explained reasonably well by the Expectancy Theory model.

Question 26

According to Four-drive Theory, three drives are proactive (i.e.we actively seek to fulfill them) whereas the drive to defend is reactive (i.e.activated only in reaction to threat).

Question 27

Expectancy Theory of motivation states that people naturally direct their effort towards behaviors they believe are most likely to lead to desired outcomes.

Question 28

In Expectancy Theory, the performance-to-outcome expectancy represents the anticipated satisfaction or dissatisfaction that an individual places on an outcome.

Question 29

One of the main problems with Expectancy Theory of motivation is that it does not identify the comparison other in the motivation process.

Question 30

According to Four-drive Theory, organizations maximize motivation by focusing employees on opportunities to fulfill only one of the four drives.

Question 31

Four-drive Theory recommends keeping all four drives in "balance"; that is, organizations should avoid too much or too little opportunity to fulfill each drive.

Question 32

According to Expectancy Theory, communicating the existence of a performance-based reward system motivates employees by increasing their outcome valences.

Question 33

One way to increase a person's P-to-O expectancy is to measure his or her job performance more accurately.

Question 34

Successful entrepreneurs tend to have a high need for achievement.

Question 35

According to Learned Needs Theory, people with a high personalized need for power enjoy power for its own sake and use it to advance their career rather than to benefit others.

Question 36

According to Expectancy Theory, employee motivation will remain high when the P-to-O expectancy falls to zero.

Question 37

Two drives identified in Four-drive Theory are the drive to acquire and the drive to bond.

Question 38

One way to increase an employee's E-to-P expectancy regarding a specific task is to increase the person's self-confidence through counseling and coaching.

Question 39

Four-drive Theory states that people have a hierarchy of needs that they progress through as lower level needs are fulfilled.

Question 40

According to Learned Needs Theory, companies should hire leaders with a strong need for personalized power.

Question 41

The idea behind 360-degree feedback is that employees should receive feedback for 360 continuous days.

Question 42

Goal setting tends to be more effective when the goals are specific rather than general.

Question 43

Research suggests that feedback originating only from the supervisor provides more complete and accurate information than feedback received through a 360-degree process.

Question 44

Participation in goal formation tends to increase performance when employees lack commitment to assigned goals.

Question 45

To determine the fairness of pay or other outcomes, people almost always rely on the equity principle.

Question 46

To learn about their progress towards goal accomplishment, employees usually prefer feedback from supervisors and other people.

Question 47

Combining goal setting with monetary incentives motivates many employees to set up difficult goals.

Question 48

Feedback can be more frequent when employees perform short rather than long job cycles.

Question 49

One of the most significant discoveries in Equity Theory research is that people tend to keep the same comparison other throughout their working lives.

Question 50

Expectancy Theory identifies emotions as a key component of employee motivation.

Question 51

Goal setting potentially improves employee performance by increasing motivation and clarifying role perceptions.

Question 52

Employees consider feedback from non-social sources to be more accurate than feedback from social sources.

Question 53

Feedback to employees is most effective when it is frequent, credible, and general.

Question 54

The optimal level of goal difficulty occurs where the goal has more than a low level but less than a moderate level of goal difficulty.

Question 55

Compared to supervisor-only feedback, 360-degree feedback tends to produce more ambiguous and conflicting feedback.

Question 56

According to Equity Theory, employees feel inequity only when other people receive higher salaries than they do.

Question 57

In the Equity Theory model, a 'comparison other' is an individual or group of people against whom the person compares his or her outcome/input ratio.

Question 58

When employees want to improve their self-image, they seek out positive feedback from social sources.

Question 59

The distributive justice principle states that everyone should receive the same rewards in life.

Question 60

Goal setting is more effective when employees can easily complete the goals assigned to them.

Question 61

Self-concept, social norms, and past experiences help us:

A)adjust our level of drive-based emotions.
B)regulate our decisions and behaviors.
C)adjust our drive-based emotions, but not our behaviors.
D)make unemotional decisions based on reason and logic.
E)adjust our level of drive-based needs, and regulate our decisions and behaviors.

Question 62

The highest level need in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is:

A)esteem.
B)safety.
C)power.
D)belongingness.
E)self-actualization.

Question 63

Underreward inequity occurs when your outcome/input ratio is lower than the outcome/input ratio of a comparison other.

Question 64

Overreward inequity occurs whenever other people receive less money than you do.

Question 65

Which of these is the most widely known theory of human motivation?

A)Maslow's Needs Hierarchy Theory
B)Expectancy Theory
C)Goal Setting Theory
D)Equity Theory
E)Learned Needs Theory

Question 66

_________ produce emotions, whereas _________ represent the motivational force of those emotions which are channeled toward particular goals.

A)Drives, needs
B)Needs, drives
C)Thinking, doing
D)Planning, projecting
E)None of the above is correct.

Question 67

Feelings of procedural injustice produce anger, which, in turn, generates either withdrawal or aggression.

Question 68

Procedural justice is influenced by the policies and practices that decision makers follow as well as their standards of interpersonal conduct.

Question 69

Distributive justice increases directly with the extent that the decision allows voice, can be appealed, and has an unbiased decision maker.

Question 70

One problem with Equity Theory is that it incorrectly assumes people are individualistic, rational, and selfish.

Question 71

Motivating employees is more challenging today than two decades ago because:

A)employers have difficulty understanding the different needs and expectations that younger generation employees bring to the workplace.
B)there is more layers of management today, which makes it more difficult to motivate everyone in management positions.
C)corporate downsizing and reduced job security have damaged the levels of trust employees need to work beyond minimum levels.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)employers have difficulty understanding the different needs and expectations that younger generation employees bring to the workplace, and corporate downsizing and reduced job security have damaged the levels of trust employees need to work beyond minimum levels.

Question 72

'Benevolents' and 'Entitleds' represent opposing ends of the equity sensitivity continuum.

Question 73

Which of the following statements about drives is FALSE?

A)They are also called primary needs.
B)They activate emotions, which put us in a state of readiness to act.
C)They include only basic physiological essentials, such as hunger and thirst.
D)Drives and emotions represent the primary sources of motivation.
E)All of the above are correct.

Question 74

Expectations of new workforce entrants has:

A)made employee motivation less relevant as an influence on job performance.
B)made it less difficult to motivate employees using financial rewards.
C)made it more difficult to identify what motivates employees.
D)made it impossible to use any form of goal setting.
E)had no effect on employee motivation.

Question 75

Giving employees an explanation for a negative decision has no effect on procedural justice.

Question 76

All of the following are reasons given for why some employees are "disengaged" EXCEPT:

A)Companies have not adjusted to the changing needs and expectations of the new workforce.
B)Corporate restructuring (downsizing) has undermined commitment and trust among employees.
C)Pressures from globalization and information technology make it harder to motivate employees beyond minimum standards.
D)Employees aged 25 to 34 sometimes or frequently feel demotivated.
E)Basic needs have already been provided and satisfied.Therefore higher-level needs are harder for employers to anticipate and offer.

Question 77

Feelings of inequity occur when employees receive less than others, but not when they receive more than others.

Question 78

One of the most common consequences of overreward inequity is that overpaid employees try to increase their inputs by working harder.

Question 79

Needs Hierarchy Theory includes all of the following concepts EXCEPT:

A)self-actualization.
B)frustration-regression.
C)esteem.
D)belongingness.
E)physiological needs.

Question 80

Equity Theory research has found that employees who feel overrewarded tend to alter their perceptions of inputs and outcomes rather than attempt to actually change them.