MGT 3150 Exam 3: Personality, Motivation & Team Dynamics

What are the Big Five personality dimensions?

Extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.

What is extroversion?

Being outgoing, sociable, assertive, and energized by social interaction.

What is agreeableness?

Being cooperative, trusting, considerate, and good-natured.

What is conscientiousness?

Being dependable, organized, responsible, persistent, and achievement-oriented.

What is emotional stability?

Remaining relatively calm, secure, and resilient under stress.

What is openness to experience?

Being curious, imaginative, receptive to new ideas, and willing to try unfamiliar approaches.

Which Big Five trait is indicated by an employee who keeps detailed checklists and meets deadlines?

Conscientiousness.

Which Big Five trait is indicated by an employee who enjoys testing unfamiliar methods?

Openness to experience.

What are core self-evaluations?

Fundamental judgments about one's worth, competence, and control.

What is self-efficacy?

Belief that you can successfully perform a particular task.

What is self-esteem?

Your overall sense of personal worth or value.

How do self-efficacy and self-esteem differ?

Self-efficacy concerns capability; self-esteem concerns worth.

What is an internal locus of control?

Believing that your actions and effort influence what happens to you.

What is an external locus of control?

Believing that luck, fate, or outside circumstances largely determine what happens to you.

What does preparation reflect in terms of locus of control?

An internal locus of control.

How can a manager help develop an employee's self-efficacy?

Provide achievable practice successes, capable role models, specific encouragement, and support for handling anxiety.

What is emotional intelligence (EI)?

The ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions and respond effectively to others' emotions.

What are four common areas of emotional intelligence?

Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

How do emotional stability and emotional intelligence differ?

Stability is a tendency to remain calm; emotional intelligence is skill in understanding and managing emotions.

What is employee engagement?

Being mentally and emotionally invested in work, with energy, involvement, and willingness to contribute.

What is job satisfaction?

The positive or negative feelings and evaluations a person has about their job.

What is organizational commitment?

Identification with an organization and attachment to it, including a desire to remain a member.

How do engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment differ?

Engagement = investment in doing the work; satisfaction = how much you like the job; commitment = attachment to the organization.

What is perception, and why does it matter at work?

Perception is interpreting information to make sense of the environment, influencing employee and manager actions.

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect?

Expectations influence treatment, leading individuals to behave in ways that confirm those expectations.

What concept applies when a supervisor expects a trainee to excel and provides extra coaching?

The Pygmalion effect.

What is stereotyping?

Judging an individual based on beliefs about a group they belong to instead of evidence about that individual.

What is implicit bias?

An automatic, often unconscious association or attitude that can affect judgments and behavior.

What is the halo effect?

Allowing one favorable characteristic to shape an overly positive overall judgment.

What is the recency effect?

Giving excessive weight to the most recent information.

What is selective perception?

Noticing and interpreting information in ways shaped by your interests, experiences, or expectations.

What is a causal attribution?

An explanation of why behavior occurred, emphasizing either personal or situational causes.

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Overestimating personal causes and underestimating situational causes when explaining someone else's behavior.

What is self-serving bias?

Attributing successes to abilities or effort while blaming failures on external circumstances.

What error is likely if a manager calls a late employee lazy without considering a transit shutdown?

Fundamental attribution error.

How can managers reduce perceptual errors?

Use clear criteria, gather evidence over time, consider alternative explanations, and seek multiple perspectives before judging.

What is job-related stress?

A response to work demands or pressures perceived as taxing or exceeding available resources.

What are common sources of job-related stress?

Heavy workload, time pressure, unclear or conflicting roles, low control, job insecurity, interpersonal conflict, poor conditions, and work-family conflict.

How do role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload differ?

Ambiguity = unclear expectations; conflict = incompatible expectations; overload = demands exceed available time or resources.

What is burnout?

A response to chronic work stress involving exhaustion, cynicism or detachment, and reduced feelings of effectiveness.

What is learned helplessness?

A learned belief that your actions cannot change outcomes, causing you to stop trying even when improvement becomes possible.

How do burnout and learned helplessness differ?

Burnout centers on exhaustion and detachment; learned helplessness centers on believing effort will not change results.

How can managers reduce harmful job stress?

Clarify roles, set realistic workloads, provide resources and support, give appropriate control, and address recurring causes of stress.

What is motivation?

The processes that energize, direct, and sustain effort toward a goal.

What is an extrinsic reward?

A reward supplied by an outside source, such as pay, a bonus, promotion, or praise from a manager.

What is an intrinsic reward?

Satisfaction arising from the activity itself, such as enjoyment, mastery, accomplishment, or meaningfulness.

Is every non-monetary reward intrinsic?

No. Praise and awards are non-monetary but extrinsic because someone else provides them.

What are the four major motivation perspectives?

Content, process, job design, and reinforcement perspectives.

What question does each motivation perspective ask?

Content: what needs motivate? Process: how do people decide to exert effort? Job design: how can work motivate? Reinforcement: how do consequences shape behavior?

What are the five levels of Maslow's hierarchy?

Physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

What are physiological needs in Maslow's theory?

Basic survival needs, such as food, water, and rest.

What are safety needs in Maslow's theory?

Needs for security, protection, and stability.

What are love or belonging needs in Maslow's theory?

Needs for friendship, acceptance, and connection.

What are esteem needs in Maslow's theory?

Needs for self-respect, achievement, recognition, and respect from others.

What is self-actualization in Maslow's theory?

Developing and using your potential.

According to Maslow, how do needs influence motivation?

Relatively unmet needs motivate behavior; lower needs generally take priority before higher needs become prominent.

What are McClelland's three acquired needs?

Achievement, affiliation, and power.

What is the need for achievement?

A desire to accomplish challenging goals and meet high standards.

What is the need for affiliation?

A desire for friendly, close relationships, acceptance, and harmony with others.

What is the need for power?

A desire to influence others or control resources.

What three psychological needs are central to Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory?

Competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

What is competence in self-determination theory?

Feeling capable and effective, with opportunities to develop mastery.

What is autonomy in self-determination theory?

Experiencing choice and ownership over your actions.

What is relatedness in self-determination theory?

Feeling connected to, cared for by, and significant to others.

How can a manager support self-determination?

Build competence through feedback and learning, support autonomy through meaningful choice, and support relatedness through respectful relationships.

What is Herzberg's two-factor theory?

Job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are influenced by different sets of factors: motivators and hygiene factors.

What are hygiene factors in Herzberg's theory?

Conditions surrounding the job, such as pay, company policy, supervision, relationships, and working conditions.

What are motivators in Herzberg's theory?

Features of the work itself, such as achievement, recognition for achievement, responsibility, meaningful work, advancement, and growth.

Does improving hygiene factors automatically create strong motivation?

No. It mainly reduces dissatisfaction; motivators help create satisfaction and motivation.

What is the central idea of equity theory?

People compare their perceived outcomes relative to inputs with the outcomes-to-inputs ratio of a relevant comparison person or group.

What count as inputs in equity theory?

Contributions such as effort, time, skills, education, experience, and responsibility.

What count as outcomes in equity theory?

Returns such as pay, benefits, recognition, promotion, and desirable assignments.

Does equity mean everyone receives identical rewards?

No. Equity concerns fairness relative to contributions.

How might someone respond to perceived inequity?

Change effort, seek different rewards, reinterpret the comparison, choose another comparison person, or leave.

What is distributive justice?

Perceived fairness of how outcomes or rewards are allocated.

What is procedural justice?

Perceived fairness of the process used to make a decision.

What is interactional justice?

Perceived fairness of interpersonal treatment and explanations.

How do distributive, procedural, and interactional justice differ?

Distributive = outcomes; procedural = decision process; interactional = treatment and explanations.

What is expectancy theory?

Motivation depends on believing effort can produce performance, performance can produce outcomes, and those outcomes are valuable.

What is expectancy (E to P)?

The belief that effort will lead to the required performance.

What is instrumentality (P to O)?

The belief that successful performance will lead to a particular outcome or reward.

What is valence?

The value or attractiveness of an outcome to a particular person.

What is the simplified expectancy-theory formula?

Motivational force = expectancy x instrumentality x valence.

In the scenario where an employee wants a bonus but lacks training, which expectancy-theory factor is weak?

Expectancy: the employee doubts that effort can produce the required performance.

In the scenario where an employee can meet a target but thinks management will not deliver the promised bonus, which factor is weak?

Instrumentality: the employee doubts the performance-to-reward link.

In the scenario where an employee believes a reward is attainable but does not want the offered trip, which factor is weak?

Valence: the reward has little personal value.

How can a manager strengthen all three expectancy-theory factors?

Expectancy: provide training and achievable goals; Instrumentality: honor clear reward commitments; Valence: offer rewards employees value.

If expectancy = 0.8, instrumentality = 0.5, and valence = 0.9, what is motivational force?

0.8 x 0.5 x 0.9 = 0.36.

What is job design?

Arranging tasks, responsibilities, and working relationships to improve how work is performed and experienced.

What is job simplification?

Breaking work into a narrower set of straightforward tasks.

What is job rotation?

Moving employees among different jobs or tasks over time to build experience and variety.

What is job enlargement?

Adding more tasks at a similar responsibility level.

What is job enrichment?

Increasing responsibility, decision authority, and opportunities for meaningful achievement.

In the scenario where a cashier adds bagging duties versus gaining authority to resolve customer problems, which job-design changes are these?

Adding bagging is enlargement; gaining decision authority is enrichment.

What are the five core dimensions in the job characteristics model?

Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

What is skill variety?

The degree to which a job uses different activities, skills, and talents.

What is task identity?

The degree to which a job involves completing a whole, identifiable piece of work from beginning to end.

What is task significance?

The degree to which a job affects other people's lives or work.

What is autonomy in the job characteristics model?

Freedom and discretion in scheduling work and deciding how to perform it.

What is feedback in the job characteristics model?

Clear information from performing the work about how effectively you are doing it.