DEPARTMENT OF WORK, EMPLOYMENT, & ORGANISATION

HR207 Work Psychology

03 December 2018 1400-1600 (2 Hours)

There are TWO parts to this exam

This exam will be marked out of 100 marks

Answer all questions from Part A (total of 60 marks)

Answer one question only from Part B (total of 40 marks)

Name: __________________________________

Student Number: _________________________

HR207 2018-19 (December) Page 1 of 9

Part A (Total of 60 Marks)

Answer all of Part A’s multiple choice questions on this

paper and submit it with your exam booklet.

Part A will be marked out of 60 marks (each question is worth 1.5 marks)

Answer the following questions by writing the letter of your

answer (A, B, C, or D) in the right-hand column.

1. Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and

attitudes results in ________.

a. organizational dissonance
b. cognitive dissonance
c. attitudinal clarification
d. values clarification

2. What is the emphasis of Adam’s (1965) Equity Theory?

a. money is the only reward that motivates people

b. equity is an objective measure
c. it is a measure of rewards exceeding effort
d. perception of equity is based on social comparisons

3. The 'big five' personality constructs are:

a. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness,

and neuroticism
b. introversion, neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience and
conscientiousness
c. agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, psychoticism
and extroversion
d. neuroticism, agreeableness, introversion, conscientiousness and
psychoticism

4. Which of the following is NOT an example of organizational citizenship

behavior (OCB)?

a. telling your friends about the company's great work environment

b. discouraging a friend from applying for a job at the company
c. working over the weekend to make sure a project gets done
d. volunteering to help a colleague meet a deadline

5. In Pavlov's experiment, the bell was a/an ________.

a. unconditioned stimulus
b. unconditioned response
c. conditioned stimulus
d. conditioned response

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6. Which of the following is NOT one of Luthans & Kreitner’s five steps in an OB
Mod programme?

a. identify the critical behaviour

b. conduct a functional analysis of behaviour
c. provide feedback
d. develop an intervention

7. The critical behavior in Zohar’s (2002) was:

a. workers wearing safety goggles

b. supervisors communicating with workers about safety
c. the number of accidents after the intervention
d. workers wearing ear plugs

8. Social Cognitive Theory is achieved through reciprocal interactions among:

a. people, behavior, and environment

b. motivation, needs, and performance
c. knowledge and skill
d. performance and human resource maintenance

9. The key principles of emergent change are as follows:

a. emergent change is a continuous process which occurs over time

b. emergent change is used as a means of developing an organisation
c. emergent change is self-organising
d. all of the above

10. An employee is offered a more prestigious job in another company.

However, the hours are longer and the pay is the same, so the employee
decides to remain with her current organization. This is an example of:

a. affective commitment
b. continuance commitment
c. normative commitment
d. occupational commitment

11. If an employee's primary reason for working is to be respected for

accomplishments or capabilities, on which level of Maslow's need hierarchy is
this employee focused?

a. security
b. esteem
c. social
d. self-actualization

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12. Which of the following is NOT one of the levels described by Alderfer's
theory?

a. existence
b. relatedness
c. socialization
d. growth

13. An employee finds out that she is making the same salary as a co-worker
who is performing half the amount of work, and she becomes motivated to
somehow fix this unfair situation. Which theory best describes this scenario?

a. goal-setting theory
b. VIE theory
c. need theory
d. equity theory

14. Which of the following elements is NOT part of Vroom's theory of

motivation?

a. valence
b. instrumentality
c. expectancy
d. dependency

15. Which of the following elements deals with the relationship between
performance and anticipated outcomes?

a. valence
b. instrumentality
c. expectancy
d. dependency

16. Hackman and Oldham developed a way to score jobs on their potential to
motivate an individual. All of the following are job characteristics tied to this
motivation potential except:

a. the extent to which the individual identifies with coworkers

b. the extent to which a task or job is self-contained
c. the extent to which the individual can control schedules
d. the number of skills required to perform a job successfully

17. Which of the following is NOT an important issue relating to goal-setting

theory?

a. goal difficulty
b. goal specificity
c. equity among co-workers
d. feedback

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18. According to Rousseau (1995) transactional psychological contracts are
those which are based on:

a. material rewards and shorter contracts

b. long-term employment and job security
c. mutual respect and trust
d. partnership working

19. Marty thinks that the way bonuses are calculated is unfair to some workers.
What type of injustice does he perceive?

a. interactive
b. interpersonal
c. procedural
d. distributive

20. In the JCM model, what three core job dimensions combine to create
meaningful work?

a. skill variety, task identity, and task significance

b. skill variety, autonomy, and task significance
c. skill variety, autonomy, and feedback
d. feedback, task identity, and task significance

21. In the JCM model, which core job dimension(s) create experienced
responsibility?

a. autonomy
b. skill variety, autonomy, and task significance
c. autonomy, and feedback
d. feedback, task identity, and task significance

22. Which of these is NOT a key feature of the psychological contract?

a. they are subjective

b. they are dynamic
c. managers determine content
d. breach can occur

23. Training that emphasizes the leader-follower relationship is focused on:

a. leader development
b. leadership development
c. leader emergence
d. leader effectiveness

24. A leader who likes to be in control of others is described as having high:

a. power motive
b. activity inhibition
c. affiliation need
d. work discipline

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25. According to Ogbanna and Harris (2002) there are three labels attributed to
views of whether culture change is possible. Which of the following is most likely
to be said by an ‘optimist’?

a. values and assumptions cannot be determined with any accuracy

b. planned change can occur through management control and coercion
c. culture as a whole cannot be changed
d. none of the above

26. A manager who maintains an objective view by not socializing with his/her
subordinates is described as having low:

a. power motive
b. activity inhibition
c. affiliation needs
d. work discipline

27. Which of the following power motives emphasizes the personal benefits that
come with being a leader?

a. affective-identity
b. instrumental
c. social-normative
d. discipline

28. Which approach attempts to show that leaders possess certain

characteristics that non-leaders do not?

a. behavioral
b. power
c. trait
d. contingency

29. If a correlation coefficient is close to 1 (one) this means:

a. as one variable increases so does the other variable

b. as one variable increases the other variable decreases
c. one variable is higher than the other variable
d. the variables are not related

30. According to Herzberg’s motivation theory, Hygiene factors are the sources
of:

a. satisfaction
b. motivation
c. dissatisfaction
d. commitment

31. Which of the following is NOT a factor that can lead to Destructive
Leadership?

a. perceived threat in the environment

b. personalised power
c. different world-view among followers
d. followers with unmet needs

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32. Which type of development is concerned with developing and enhancing
individual leader attributes?

a. leadership development
b. manager development
c. leader development
d. exchange development

33. What does an “implicit measure” attempt to measure?

a. automatic processing
b. deliberative processing
c. personality
d. group processing

34. If asked to not think about a white bear this may lead you to actually think
about a white bear. This is described as:

a. attitude formation
b. cognitive dissonance
c. ironic suppression
d. polarization

35. A famous study at the Western Electric Company in the 1920s showed that
the behaviour of workers was altered because they were being studied. What
was this effect termed?

a. the Company Effect

b. Work Demand Effect
c. the Hawthorne Effect
d. Study Effect

36. Of the following descriptions, which best describes a transformational

leader?

a. a leader who prefers people that they trust

b. a leader who always treats everyone equally
c. a leader who rewards workers based on meeting agreed standards
d. a leader who provides a vision for the future

37. In the common sense approaches to motivation, which of the following best
describes Theory X?

a. people cannot be trusted so must be controlled

b. people can be trusted so must be given autonomy
c. people do not trust leaders so must be lied to
d. leaders do not trust workers leading to disharmony

38. Which of the following describes the two main factors of Blake and Mouton’s
Managerial Grid?

a. concern for profits and concern for losses

b. control of profits and control of losses
c. control of people and control of production
d. concern for people and concern for production

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39. Which of the following statements is most typical of the Storming stage of
Group Development?

a. People are interested in discovering what is considered to be

acceptable behaviour
b. Hostility and infighting may occur
c. The group may disband
d. It is the performing stage

40. Which of the following statements is true regarding size of teams?

a. As team size increases, coordination problems tend to decrease.

b. When teams have excess members, cohesiveness declines.
c. As team size increases, social loafing decreases.
d. When teams have excess members, mutual accountability increases.

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Part B (Total of 40 Marks)

You must answer ONE question only from this section

You can choose one question from any of the four question options

All questions are worth 40 marks

Answer the question in the style of an essay

Question 1:
MOTIVATION & JOB DESIGN

Read the following case study then answer the subsequent question.

Jodie, Peter, and Matt all work in a call centre. Jodie works in the Sales department.
She works hard and always reaches her sales targets but there are no bonuses given
for reaching these targets. Peter works in Sales too but regularly fails to meet his
targets regardless of how hard he works. Matt works in Customer Services. He
regularly receives bonuses based on customer satisfaction ratings. Unfortunately,
these bonuses are supermarket vouchers but he already has a discount card at
another supermarket.

Question:

Using the key relationships of Expectancy Theory, describe the work situations of
Jodie, Peter, and Matt in the case study, and how these work situations may affect the
work motivation of each worker. Explain which changes to Jodie, Peter, and Matt’s
work situations may help increase the motivation levels of each worker, using
Expectancy Theory to explain your reasoning. (40 Marks)

Question 2:
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE AND CULTURE

Explain the role of culture within an organisation, and discuss whether it is possible
to change an organisation’s culture. Justify whether organisational culture change is
worthwhile. (40 Marks)

Question 3:
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT

Drawing on theory and evidence, describe the value of understanding the

psychological contract in a workplace setting. Critically discuss whether breached
psychological contracts are inevitable. (40 Marks)

Question 4:
GROUPS & TEAMS

What is groupthink? Explain with reference to the antecedents, symptoms, problems,

and consequences, and how these aspects are related. What measures can be
taken to avoid or lessen the impact of groupthink? (40 marks)
END OF PAPER
Tony McCarthy/Joanna Butler
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