Org. Behavior Exam #2

Chapters (6-10)

Expectancy Theory

Describes the cognitive process that employees go through to make choices among different voluntary responses

motivation is fostered when the employee believes three things:

1.) that effort will result in performance (expectancy)

2.) that performance will result in outcomes (instrumentality)

3.) that those outcomes will be valuable (valence)

Trust and Factors that Influence Trust Levels

The willingness to be vulnerable to a trustee based on positive expectations about the trustee’s actions and intentions

1.) disposition based trust (trust propensity) - general expectation that words, promises and statements of other can be relied upon

2.) cognition based trust (trustworthiness - ability, benevolence [authority wantes to do good for the trustor], integrity [authority adheres to a set of values and principles the trustor finds accep)

3.) affect based trust (feelings toward trustee, rooted in emotion rather than reason)

Operant Conditioning Components

antecedent: condition that precedes behavior (manger sets specific and difficult goal)

behavior: action preformed by employee (employee meets assigned goal)

consequence: result that occurs after behavior (employee receives a bonus)

Goal Orientations

Learning orientation: building competence is deemed more important than demonstrating competence (enjoy working on new tasks even if they fail during their early experiences)

Performance- prove orientation: focus is on demonstration competence so that others think favorable of them

Performance-avoid orientation: focus is on demonstrating competence see that others will not poorly of them

Decision-Making Biases

1.) anchoring: rely too heavily on one trait or piece of info.

2,) Framing: make different decisions based on how the question/situation is phrased

3.) Representativeness: assess the likelihood of an event by comparing it to a similar event

4.) Contrast: judge things erroneously based on a reference that is near to them

5.) Recency: weigh recent events more than earlier events

6.) Ratio bias effect: judge the same probability of an unlikely event as lower when the probability is presented in the form of a ratio of smaller rather than larger numbers

Big Five Taxonomy

1.) Conscientiousness: strong desire to accomplish task related goals (organized, reliable, hardworking)

2.) agreeableness: acceptance in personal relationships (kind, helpful, warm)

3.) neuroticism: affects how people deal with stress (nervous, emotional, unstable)

4.) Openness to experience: (curious, creative, imaginative)

5.) extraversion: positive affectivity, obtain power and influence within social structure (talkative, sociable, passionate)

The “g-Factor”

a statistical construct that measures a person’s general intelligence or mental ability

1.) verbal:

• oral and written comprehension - understanding written and spoken words/sentences

• oral and written expression - communicating ideas by speaking or writing so that others can understand

2.) spatial:

• Spatial Orientation- knowing where one is relative to objects in the environment

• Visualization - imagining how something will look after it has been rearranged

3.) quantitative:

• number facility- performing basic math operations quickly and correctly

• Mathematical reasoning- selecting the right method or formula to solve a problem

4,) Reasoning:

• problem sensitivity- understanding when there is a problem or whe something may go wrong

• deductive reasoning- apply general rules to specific problems

• inductive reasoning - combining specific information to form general conclusions

• originality- developing new ideas

5.) perceptual

• Speed and flexibility of closure- making sense of information and finding patterns

• perceptual speed - comparing information or objects with remembered information or objects

Hannah has been asked to give the opening speech at her global company’s annual sales convention. She has successfully given speeches in the past, and her friends have all told her she would be great. These have resulted in a high sense of self-efficacy, and she accepts the assignment.

true

Intrinsic motivation is felt when task performance serves as its own reward.

true

Research suggests that employees underestimate how powerful a motivator pay is to them.

true

When goal commitment is high, assigning specific and difficult goals will have significant benefits for task performance.

true

Impact reflects the sense that a person’s actions “make a difference.”

true

Employees who feel a sense of equity on the job are more likely to engage in citizenship behaviors, particularly when those behaviors aid the organization

true

___equity is when you compare yourself to others doing the same job in other company, with similar levels of education, seniority, and performance.

Goal setting

 

Self-efficacy

 

Goal commitment

 

Psychological empowerment

 

Vicarious experience

Psychological empowerment

Motivation has a effect on job performance.

strong positive

weak positive

moderate negative

moderate positive

strong negative

strong positive

Expectancy represents the belief that exerting a high level of effort will result in the successful performance of some task.

true

Employees gauge distributive justice by asking whether decision outcomes, such as pay, rewards, evaluations, promotions, and work assignments, are allocated using proper norms.

true

Low levels of informational justice can make an organization vulnerable to wrongful termination claims.

true

Moral intensity captures the degree to which an issue has ethical urgency.

true

ability to focus reflects the degree to which employees can devote their attention to work, as opposed to engaging in workplace politics or saving themselves from problems like abusive supervision

true

The legal component of corporate social responsibility argues that the law represents society's codification of right and wrong and must, therefore, be followed.

true

Efforts to improve the quality of life in the communities in which organizations work is typically an effort that comes under the citizenship component of corporate social responsibility.

true

If an authority recognizes that a moral issue exists but is then unable to determine whether a given course of action is right or wrong, the authority is having trouble with ___the second step of the four-component model of ethical decision making. moral judgment

moral intent

moral awareness

moral intensity

moral attentiveness

moral judgement

Playing politics" or "covering one's backside" has a negative effect on employees' job performance, because it hampers their

social exchange.

normative commitment.

continuance commitment.

ability to focus.

affective commitment.

ability to focus

Which of the following is a feature of economic exchange relationships between organizations and employees?

affective and normative organizational commitment

an explicit repayment schedule

mutual investment

vaguely defined obligations

open-ended job demands

an explicit repayment schedule

Which of the following is a feature of social exchange relationships between organizations and employees?

an explicit repayment schedule

a narrow definition of work demands

mutual investment

advance knowledge of occupational obligations

impersonal and contractual exchanges

mutual investment

There is no guarantee that personality tests used by companies are actually valid assessments.

true

Christy is attending a business meeting at a client’s office. Some of the attendees are formally dressed; others are in shorts and T-shirts. The table is round instead of rectangular, so there is no “head” position to indicate who is leading the meeting. There is no set agenda to identify what the important topics will be. Christy’s personality is most likely to drive how Christy behaves in this situation.

true

Conscientiousness has a moderate positive effect on performance.

true

Low-power distance cultures tend to accept the fact that power is usually distributed unequally within organizations.

false

In the context of the Big Five taxonomy, openness to experience is positively related to performance across all occupations.

false

Personality captures what people are like, as opposed to ability, which captures what people can do.

true

What is described by adjectives, such as traditional, informal, and assertive?

 

Attitude

 

Culture

 

Traits

 

Personality

Culture

Cultural values are shared beliefs about desirable end states or modes of conduct in a given culture. However, culture cannot influence the expression of traits.

 

false

Extraversion has the strongest impact on task performance.

false

Cultural values provide societies with their own distinctive personalities.

true

The three components in the operant conditioning process are practice, repetition, and knowledge transfer

false

Communities of practice are groups of employees who work together and learn from one another by collaborating over an extended period of time.

true

Company meetings tend to run long because Dmitri invariably raises irrelevant points that get everyone off track discussing something that has nothing to do with the business at hand. He seems to enjoy this, but Sandra, his manager, finds it extremely annoying. Without Dmitri knowing it, she has instructed the others to remain silent the next time he tries to get everyone talking about something unrelated to the discussion. In an effort to change Dmitri’s behavior, Sandra is using the contingency of reinforcement known as extinction.

true

Explicit knowledge is more difficult to communicate, and is gained with experience.

false

Operant conditioning is also known as:

 

recognition.

 

removal

 

reinforcement.

 

repetition.

reinforcement

Positive reinforcement and extinction should be the least common forms of reinforcement to create learning.

false

Some people learn differently, as a function of the goals and activities that they prioritize. What type of orientation is focused on demonstrating confidence so that others think favorably of them?

 

Performance-avoid orientation

 

Learning orientation

 

Performance-prove orientation

preformance-prove orientation

Your professor shared the four step training method that he used in industry. What is not one of the four steps?

 

Guided practice

 

Show and tell

 

Reward

 

Document

 

Follow-up

reward

What type of orientation is focused on demonstrating competence, so that others will not think poorly of them?

 

Performance-avoid orientation

 

Performance-prove orientation

 

Learning orientation

preformance avoid orientation

In the decision making process, satisficing is choosing the best alternative.

false

Abilities are strictly a function of genetics.

false

Malnutrition, exposure to toxins such as lead, and prenatal exposure to alcohol are some risk factors related to low cognitive abilities.

true

Written comprehension is the ability to understand written words and sentences.

true

Quantitative ability includes the mathematical capabilities of number facility and mathematical reasoning.

true

Speed and flexibility of closure is making sense of information and finding patterns. This is a specific facet of the reasoning type of cognitive ability.

false

Detectives found two sets of skid marks and tire tracks at an accident scene. More importantly, the single car on the scene was white but there were marks of blue paint in the car’s impact zone. A headlight left behind at the scene identified the second car as a Ford. The detectives were now looking for a blue Ford with damage to the front of the car. This conclusion is an example of deductive reasoning.

false

Hannah’s manager just took credit for her hard work—again! Hannah is so angry that she throws her coffee cup across her office, sends a terse e-mail to a client, and is rude to her assistant for the rest of the day. Hannah demonstrates a low level of “use of emotions,” one of the factors in emotional intelligence.

false

Evidence exists that emotional intelligence may give individuals the gift of influencing others, which cab be abused (gossiping, harassment, and even theft).

true

Cognitive ability tends to be more strongly correlated with task performance than with citizenship behavior or counterproductive behavior.

true

Which of the following represents the three general categories into which abilities can be grouped?

 

social, physical, and emotional

 

external, internal, and transactional

 

emotional, social, and cognitive

 

physical, cognitive, and external

 

cognitive, emotional, and physical

cognitive, emotional, and physical

Financial planners for investment firms have to choose and apply formulas to help their clients plan for their financial future. Which of the following abilities is required?

 

problem sensitivity

 

mathematical reasoning

 

inductive reasoning

 

number facility

 

deductive reasoning

mathematical reasoning

Depth perception, night vision, and speech recognition are all types of

 

psychomotor abilities.

 

sensory abilities.

 

fine manipulative abilities.

 

emotional behaviors.

 

physical abilities.

sensory abilities

Which of the following is true regarding individuals with high cognitive ability?

 

The relationship between high cognitive ability and task performance is observed in the academic context as well as in the work context.

 

High cognitive ability tends to be equally correlated with the variables of task performance, citizenship behavior, and counterproductive behavior.

 

Testing to select employees with high cognitive abilities is widely discouraged and avoided as it discriminates between people.

 

Individuals with high cognitive ability are not significantly better than others at task performance.

 

Individuals with high cognitive ability also have significantly higher levels of organizational commitment than other employees.

The relationship between high cognitive ability and task performance is observed in the academic context as well as in the work context.

High cognitive ability has a strong correlation with increased

 

citizenship behaviors such as helping a colleague.

 

task performance, especially in complex and demanding jobs.

 

physical stamina and interpersonal functioning.

 

counterproductive behaviors such as breaking office rules.

 

affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization.

task preformance, especially in complex and demanding jobs

Ability refers to the relatively stable capabilities people have to perform a particular range of different but related activities.

true