Question 1

Shauna is a company executive who encourages employees to voice their opinions and to participate in developing workplace rules and production goals.Shauna best illustrates

Accepted Answer

Shauna's leadership style is democratic, which values the input and participation of employees in decision-making processes. This encourages a sense of ownership and responsibility among employees, leading to greater job satisfaction and motivation.

Question 2

Unhappy workers who undermine what their colleagues accomplish are

Accepted Answer

Unhappy workers who undermine what their colleagues accomplish are exhibiting behaviors that are detrimental to both their own engagement and the engagement of their coworkers. This behavior is characteristic of actively disengaged employees, who can have a negative impact on team morale and the overall success of an organization.

Question 3

Modifying management practices and work assignments to increase employee engagement best illustrates the professional concerns of

Accepted Answer

Organizational psychologists specialize in understanding and improving workplace dynamics, including employee engagement, job satisfaction, and productivity. Modifying management practices and work assignments to increase employee engagement is a common strategy used by organizational psychologists to improve overall workplace performance. Human factors psychologists focus on designing tools and equipment to fit the human body and mind, while clinical psychologists specialize in diagnosing and treating mental health disorders. Personnel psychologists are concerned with human resource management, such as selecting and training employees.

Question 4

Managers who set standards and keep a group focused on its goals are said to excel in

Accepted Answer

The skills mentioned in the question, i.e. setting standards and keeping a group focused on its goals, are in line with the characteristics of task leadership. Task leadership involves defining goals and objectives, organizing tasks, and ensuring that they are completed efficiently and effectively.

Question 5

Antonio,a sixth-grader,has just brought home a 30-word spelling test on which he spelled only 15 words correctly.If Antonio's parents want to effectively encourage higher levels of achievement in their son,they should tell him

Accepted Answer

Option B provides specific and achievable goals for Antonio to work towards improving his spelling, which can motivate him to put more effort into his studies. Option A may be seen as generic encouragement, while options C and D may create unnecessary pressure and stress for Antonio.

Question 6

Performance appraisal scales that specify in detail the precise behaviors that are indicative of poor,adequate,good,and excellent worker performance are most likely to inhibit

Accepted Answer

Performance appraisal scales that specify in detail the precise behaviors may lead to raters being hesitant to rate an employee as poor or deficient in any area, due to the fear of appearing too harsh or unfair, resulting in severity errors.

Question 7

Compared with ineffective managers,those who excel invest a _______ proportion of their time and effort trying to remedy their employees' deficiencies and a _______ proportion of their time and effort trying to enhance their employees' talents.

Accepted Answer

Effective managers focus less on remedying deficiencies and more on enhancing their employees' talents, thus a smaller proportion of time on deficiencies and a larger proportion on talents.

Question 8

Paul is seldom absent from work.However,an illness the previous week forced him to miss work for a day,and his supervisor evaluated his performance less positively than was warranted.This best illustrates the supervisor's vulnerability to

Accepted Answer

The supervisor's evaluation of Paul's performance was skewed by his recent absence from work, resulting in a less positive evaluation than was warranted. This is an example of a recency error, where a recent event or behavior is given undue weight in evaluating an individual's overall performance or behavior.

Question 9

The practice of 360-degree feedback is most clearly designed to improve

Accepted Answer

360-degree feedback is a tool used in organizations for performance appraisal purposes. It involves feedback on an individual’s performance from all angles, including superiors, subordinates, peers or colleagues, and even customers. The feedback helps individuals to understand their strengths and weaknesses, identify areas for development, and improve their performance. Thus, the practice of 360-degree feedback is most clearly designed to improve performance appraisal.

Question 10

Managers with a social leadership style would be most likely to

Accepted Answer

Managers with a social leadership style prioritize building relationships and promoting positive interactions among employees. Therefore, they would be likely to mediate a personal dispute between two argumentative employees.

Question 11

Managing by objectives is most clearly designed to facilitate the process of

Accepted Answer

Managing by objectives is a process where both managers and employees agree on concrete, specific goals to work towards within a certain timeframe. Therefore, it is designed specifically to facilitate the process of setting work goals.

Question 12

Business units with high levels of employee engagement experience somewhat

Accepted Answer

Business units with high levels of employee engagement experience increased productivity as employees are motivated to work harder and contribute more to the organization. They also experience lower employee turnover as engaged employees are more committed to their jobs and less likely to leave the organization.

Question 13

Encouraging employee productivity through recognition and reward illustrates effective use of

Accepted Answer

Operant conditioning involves creating associations between behaviors and consequences. In this case, rewarding employees for productive behavior creates a positive reinforcement that increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated in the future.

Question 14

An employee's high level of friendliness can lead a supervisor to judge the employee as a more reliable worker than is actually the case.This is said to illustrate

Accepted Answer

This is an example of a halo error, which occurs when a supervisor's overall positive impression of an employee leads them to overlook or downplay negative aspects of the employee's performance. In this case, the employee's friendliness is seen as indicative of overall reliability, even if there is no direct evidence to support this assumption.

Question 15

A company executive enhances the success of her sales department by sending a congratulatory note to department employees who exceed their monthly sales quotas.The executive is most clearly making effective use of

Accepted Answer

The executive is using operant conditioning to reinforce the behavior of exceeding monthly sales quotas by providing positive reinforcement in the form of a congratulatory note. This encourages employees to continue exceeding their quotas and can lead to increased motivation and success in the sales department.

Question 16

Miranda is the supervisor in the women's clothing department of a large store.Using a five-point scale,she is rating her workers' dependability,productivity,and so forth.She is using

Accepted Answer

Miranda is using a graphic rating scale because she is using a five-point scale to rate her workers' performance. A graphic rating scale is a performance appraisal method that uses a scale to rate employees on various job-related dimensions.

Question 17

In the early 1800s,Robert Owen improved the work environment in a Scotland cotton mill with humanitarian reforms.The commercial success that followed best illustrated the value of

Accepted Answer

Robert Owen's success was attributed to his humanitarian reforms, which were aimed at improving the welfare of the workers. This resulted in increased employee engagement and ultimately, commercial success.

Question 18

Through a task's ups and downs,people best sustain their mood and motivation when they focus on

Accepted Answer

Focusing on immediate goals helps individuals stay motivated and feel a sense of accomplishment as they complete each goal. This can provide a boost of positivity, which can help them sustain their mood and motivation through ups and downs. A strengths-based selection system, 360-degree feedback, and outsourcing may not necessarily contribute to sustained motivation and mood during a task's ups and downs.

Question 19

Rating scales used to record the dependability and productivity of workers are most clearly designed to facilitate

Accepted Answer

The use of rating scales to measure the dependability and productivity of workers is indicative of a performance appraisal system. This type of system is designed to evaluate an employee's job performance and provide them with feedback on how well they are doing in their job. Rating scales are one tool used in this type of appraisal system to measure specific aspects of job performance such as dependability, productivity, and quality of work.

Question 20

Many experiments show that social leadership facilitates

Accepted Answer

Social leadership has been shown to improve worker morale and create a positive work environment. It is focused on building relationships and promoting collaboration among team members. It is not associated with 360-degree feedback, directive management style, or strength-based selection systems.

Quiz 18: Psychology at Work