Final Revision

Question 1

What am I going to talk about in a Ability and Intelligence essay?

Answer 1

• Define Individual differences
• GMA spearman’s ‘g’ factor
• Thurstone’s PMAs
• Critical evaluation and examples of both
• Gardner’s Theory
• Emotional Intelligence
• Critical evaluation and examples of both

Question 2

What am I going to talk about in a Personality essay?

Answer 2

• Define Personality
• Nurture vs nature (personality factors)
• Define trait
• Big 5 Model and critically evaluate
• Define Myer Brigg’s Type Indicator
• Critical evaluation of MBTI

Question 3

What am I going to talk about in a Motivation 1 essay?

Answer 3

• Define motivation
• Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation
• Define Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs (1943, 1970)
• Evaluate Hierachy of Needs
• Define McClellands Motivational Needs (1961)
• Define Goal-setting Theory
• Evaluate Goal setting theory

Question 4

What am I going to talk about in a Motivation 2 essay?

Answer 4

• Define job design/redesign
• Define Scientific Management (Taylorism, 1910)
• Evaluate Taylorism
• Define JCM (Hackman & Oldham, 1980)
• Evaluate JCM
• Define Theory of Purposeful Work Behaviour
• Define Equity & Justice Theories

Question 5

What am I going to talk about in a Groups & Teams essay?

Answer 5

• Define team and group
• Stages of Team development
• Evaluate Team development
• Define team role
• Types of team roles
• Belbin’s team roles
• Define & evaluate Groupthink

Question 6

Define Organisational Behaviour

Answer 6

Organisational Behaviour is the systematic study of the behaviour of individuals and groups in organisational settings

Question 7

Define Individual Differences

Answer 7

Individual differences are all the ways people tend to differ from another, especially psychologically, all personality and intelligence differences are included. [Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2006]

Question 8

Definition of Personality

Answer 8

Personality is a relatively stable and consistent set of traits that interact with environmental factors to produce emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses (Hughes and Batey, 2017)

Question 9

Definition of a Trait

Answer 9

A trait is a dimension upon which people differ psychologically and are stable over time (Arnold et al., 2010)

Question 10

Definition of Motivation

Answer 10

Motivation is that which directs (what someone’s trying to do), energises (how hard someone is trying) and sustains behaviour (how long a person continues trying), (Steers & Porter, 1979)

Question 11

Definition of Intrinsic Motivation

Answer 11

Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and so is more process oriented and about personal satisfaction

Question 12

Definition of Extrinsic Motivation

Answer 12

Extrinsic motivation is a construct that pertains whenever an activity is done in order to attain some separable outcome (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and is more product-oriented with the individual expecting a reward.

Question 13

Definition of Job Design

Answer 13

Job design is the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdependence of those tasks with other jobs (Bratton, 2010).

Question 14

Definition of Job Redesign

Answer 14

Job redesign is the collective name given to techniques designed to increase one or more of the variety, autonomy and completeness of a person’s work tasks (Arnold, 2010).

Question 15

Definition of Taylorism

Answer 15

Scientific management or Taylorism is a systematic method of determining the best way to do a job and specifying the skills needed to perform it. (Taylor, 1910).

Question 16

Definition of a Group.

Answer 16

A group is a number of people who interact with each other, are psychologically aware of each other and perceive themselves to be a group (Schein, 1980).

Question 17

Definition of a Team

Answer 17

A team is a group of people who hold a common purpose, communicate, collaborate and make plans from consolidating knowledge from which future plans are made and decisions influenced (Brill, 1976).

Question 18

Definition of a Team Role

Answer 18

A team role is a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way (Belbin, 1981). Belbin’s team roles fall into 3 categories, thinking, action and people.

Question 19

Explain the Spearman’s ‘g’ Theory.

Answer 19

Spearman’s general mental ability is the idea that one GMA (‘g’) factor underlies all specific cognitive abilities and can explain the correlations between specific cognitive abilities. It can be tested using factor analysis and provides empirical support for there being an underlying ‘g’ factor. Meta-analytic support shows a strong correlation between GMA and job performance and is also useful for predicting training success and income. This support shows that people with a high GMA tend to learn more job knowledge and learn it faster. This is highly useful when hiring for a role and so is often used in selection processes.

Question 20

Explain the Thurstone’s PMA Theory.

Answer 20

Thurstone’s primary mental abilities is the idea that a set of PMA’s (verbal comprehension, word fluency, numerical ability, spatial visualisation etc) are all rather independent of one another. The benefit of Thurstone’s PMA’s is that it provides an intelligence profile as opposed to a single IQ score and so is often used in clinical (e.g. Wechsler’s intelligences scales, 1955) and organisational assessments.

Question 21

Evaluate Spearman’s G and Thurstone’s PMAs

Answer 21

a robust link between intelligence and success and highlights superior predictive performance for specific cognitive abilities when matched to the demands of the job. Furthermore, it shows the importance of motivation by testing a maximum performance paradigm, which is a test condition based examination as opposed to showing your everyday life performance. Lboro uni careers toolkit is a great example of applying specific cognitive abilities in order gain self-awareness and gain feedback on your strengths for when students are finding a career path that matches their abilities. An investigation shows that GMA and specific abilities predict task performance but they may also predict other outcomes like altruistic behaviours (e.g. helping others) and extrarole contributions (e.g. OCB). These intelligence tests strongly predict performance within and across each ethnic group but there is still potential bias against some minorities due to language barriers or other factors such as family income, access to learning materials and the safety of their environment.

Question 22

Explain and Evaluate Gardner’s Theory.

Answer 22

Garnder’s theory of multiple intelligences is the idea that all intelligences are completely independent, the following are his intelligences: linguistic, spatial, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. This theory is particularly useful in a teaching environment and curriculum development as it encourages a range of activities and learning techniques in order to absorb the content. When critically evaluated it is clear that Gardner’s theory lacks systematic research and a measure by Gardner himself as well as being incompatible with the well established ‘g’ theory. Empirically, several of these intelligences are also found to have very high intercorrelations which juxtaposes his original theory that they are all independent of one another. The key cognitive abilities that tend to be covered by other theories are not covered by the multiple intelligences theory (e.g. inductive reasoning and memory) which also makes this less useful in application.

Question 23

Explain and Evaluate Emotional Intelligence.

Answer 23

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour (Colman, 2006). Emotional intelligence extends the traditional models of intelligence and addresses an individual’s ability to perceive, process and manage emotions and emotional information effectively. It is measured via a performance based measure called a multifactor emotional intelligence scale (MEIS) and provides a small to moderate criterion validity with job performance. Emotional intelligence is important for jobs with emotional demands such as nurses or people in customer service. Emotional intelligence concepts such as Goleman’s lack coherent definition and there is limited data across jobs which makes emotional task analysis harder.

Question 24

Explain and Evaluate the Big 5 model.

Answer 24

A main trait theory is the big 5 model (Costa & McCrae, 1987) which scores individuals on a continuous normal distribution scale across 5 main factors that are relatively independent of each other: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. These are measured through a range of self-reported inventories that involve agreeing or disagreeing with a variety of statements and each trait contains a hierarchical, global and subfacet level that breaks down each trait into more specific items. When critically evaluated it is important to note the criterion-related validity as this shows the relationship between the predictor and the criterion which is useful when using these tests in application. The meta-analytic evidence (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Barrick et al., 2001; Wilmont & Ones, 2021) for the Big 5 is very useful for predicting job performance, although the relations may differ across different occupational groups. For example, conscientiousness positively predicts job performance across a range of jobs but low neuroticism tends to be positively associated with certain jobs such as law enforcement and the military. It can also be shown that extraversion has a positive relation in social jobs like sales and management, agreeableness is positively related to teamwork and openness positively predicts training performance.

Question 25

Explain and Evaluate Myer Brigg’s Type Indicator

Answer 25

Myer Brigg’s Type Indicator is developed from Jung’s 4 dichotomies, extraversion v introversion, sensing v intuition, thinking v feeling, judging v perceiving, which give 16 personality types. Each type measurement is classified on a bimodal distribution of the two types. In analysis, the MBTI doesn’t address emotional stability and many people would be reclassified after a few weeks if they took the test again. This is why, although popular in the UK and claimed to be useful for team development by some practitioners, its use is generally problematic and has been strongly criticized by Profs J. Antonakis, R. Briner, A. Grant, and Stein & Swan (2019). The MBTI personality test is used for in businesses everyday for recruitment and selection, team building and development and coaching. Discuss faking too.

Question 26

Explain and Evaluate Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs (1943, 1970)

Answer 26

The Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943, 1970) consists of psychological, safety, social, esteem and self actualisation needs in a hierarchical structure.It shows people are driven by fundamental needs which influence behaviour and that lower needs must be satisfied first. Organisations can do many things to meet each need; money and work conditions for psychological needs; work practices, health and safety, pensions for safety needs; formation of cohesive work teams for social needs; responsibility and recognition, reward structures for esteem needs; creative and challenging job tasks for self-actualisation needs. The critical evaluation of this model brings up many points which question its reliability. Does everyone have the same needs? Can people go down the hierarchy? This is a popular model in practice such as management education but it is unclear what the timespan of the hierarchy is and is unclear how one need activates another.

Question 27

Explain and Evaluate McClelland’s Motivational Needs Theory (1961)

Answer 27

Motivational Needs explain how the need for achievement, power and affiliation affect the actions of people (McClelland, 1961). The need for achievement, derive satisfaction from mastering tasks in achievement-related situations and having a high standard of excellence. Accordinging to (Spangler, 1992) this also relates to career success. Need for affiliation, motivated by social contact and working with other people, want to be accepted by others, prefer collaboration over competition. Need for Power, strive for status & holding positions of power in groups or in society, derive pleasure from having impact on others.

Question 28

Explain and Evaluate the Goal-setting Theory.

Answer 28

A key process theory of motivation is the goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990), the idea is that the more difficult and specific a goal is, the harder people tend to work to try and achieve it. Goals provide direction, release energy, enhance persistency, and enable the search for alternative strategies of action, they must be specific and difficult in order to achieve high performance results. The goal-setting cycle implies that the satisfaction from a good task performance gives individuals a willingness to commit to new challenges. However, there are some moderator factors between this willingness and the beginning of the cycle including goal importance, self-efficacy, feedback and task complexity. The goal-setting theory has strongly empirically supported with meta-analytic and experimental data and offers a clear approach to organisations to be used in different contexts such as appraisals. However, there are many potential setbacks with this theory. It only really measures task performance, there is potential for conflicting goals, quantity vs quality could become an issue so goals should relate to both and there is a very static view of motivation as individuals are focused on one moment at a time. Lboro use goal-setting theory as part of their personal development review and encourage individuals to set SMART objectives. It not only allows people to set goals and strive to achieve them, but gives them a deadline so that they can review what they have achieved and understand potential improvements.

Question 29

Explain and Evaluate Scientific Management (Taylorism, 1910)

Answer 29

Scientific management or Taylorism is a systematic method of determining the best way to do a job and specifying the skills needed to perform it. (Taylor, 1910). The core principles of Taylorism involve deciding on a degree of task fragmentation, deciding the most efficient way to perform each section of work and training employees to perform tasks in the way that has been decided is optimal. It requires close supervision and control by management and must offer extrinsic rewards in order to motivate employees. Although this seems like a simple theory that can implemented and provide optimal results, it is not always the case. Taylorism and simplification lead to low job satisfaction and poor health, strikes, absenteeism. This is due to the repetitive and boring nature of the work, which has triggered research into motivation beyond pay looking at job characteristics. Although simple, low autonomy jobs became the work design of choice in manufacturing in organisations such as Foxconn in China.

Question 30

Explain and Evaluate Job Characteristic Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1980)

Answer 30

Job characteristics model is the idea that when employees and given more mentally stimulating jobs, it puts them in a better psychological state and leads to better outcomes. For example, providing skill variety, task identity and task significance leads to employees experiencing meaningfulness of work and so has high internal motivation, job performance and job satisfaction outcomes (Hackman & Oldham, 1980).
Skill variety - variety of activities (how much someone can use skills, mechanic)
Task identity - how much job requires completion of whole bit of work (one customer vs one aspect for all customers, customer support)
Task significance - (degree job has substantial impact on live or work of others, cleaner at NASA, surgeon)
Autonomy - freedom for individuals to take/implement decisions (coder)
Feedback - job itself provides info on how someone is doing (sales jobs)
5 core job characteristics relate to important work outcomes e.g. job satisfaction and job performance - meta-analytic support (Humphey et al. 2007). There is limited support for JCM aspects as there is no support for specific mediators for different JC’s (experienced meaningfulness is the key mediator). Minimal support for moderator growth need strength but other personality variable do moderate. Extensive JCM to also include social and contextual work characteristics; development of comprehensive measure: work design questionnaire (Humphey et al. 2007, Morgeson et al. 2006)

Question 31

Explain and Evaluate Theory of Purposeful Work Behaviour

Answer 31

Theory of purposeful work behaviours are individual differences in motivational strivings – communion, status, autonomy, achievement (related to Big 5 personality) which are linked to people’s preferences for goals and job characteristics (Barrick et al., 2013). Extraverted people will strive more for power and status so jobs with task significance give them an opportunity to exert significance. Openness (Big 5) is related to striving for autonomy so jobs providing autonomy give opportunity to show creativity. TPWB integrates many aspects and is useful to create a fit between people and work characteristics but it would be better to just directly access motivational strings. There is empirical support for TPWB which says that task significance strengthens the positive relations between extraversion with job performance & OCB (Dietl & Kombeiz, 2021).

Question 32

Explain and Evaluate Equity & Justice Theories

Answer 32

Equity theory is the idea that people will be motivated at work when they perceive that they are being treated fairly (Adams, 1969). People expect a fair return for their work (equity norm) and will compare their own with others’ input and rewards (social comparison). The core behind justice theories are that people are motivated by fairness and so are willing to put effort in to bring it. Distributive justice and to do with the fairness of outcomes and rewards. Procedural justice is whether to reward allocation process is fair and so absence of bias and fair representation is required. Interactional justice is that people relate to them in a fair way so respect and courtesy is key. However, when people are overcompensated the theory doesn’t explain behaviour so there is an overlap of outcome favorability and perceptions of distributive justice. Justice perceptions motivate work behaviours: performance, withdrawal, and citizenship, this has meta-analytic support (Ryan & Wessel, 2015). Applying theories: JCM enhance 5 JC - job redesign & enrichment, TPWB creates a match between people’s motivational strivings and fitting work characteristics. Equity and justice theories correct major inequities, make sure decision-making and reward allocation is fair and communicated.

Question 33

Explain and Evaluate Stages of Team Development

Answer 33

The seven stages of team development are split into 2 categories of creating and sustaining stages, then 4 sub-categories of forming, storming, norming and performing. The stages are in the following order: orientation, trust building, goal/role clarification, commitment, all of which are in the creating stages, then implementation, high performance and renewal which are all in the sustaining stages (Tuckman 1965, Tuckman and Jensen, 1977).
Each of the 4 sub stages have common characteristics. Forming - people withhold participation, mission is understood but doesn’t motivate, communication from leaders to members. Storming - working out who to trust, purpose becoming clear, aggressive communication, team processes start to be worked on. Norming - Informal experts emerge, reluctant to challenge others, clear focus on goals, communications with each other and leaders. Performing - team is proactive, strong ‘high accountability’ culture, trust high, team manages its own performance.
This theory promotes effectiveness of work groups, is a stating point for team development practitioners and for understanding team processes across different organisations. When critically evaluated, there are limitations to the model as there’s no representative sample of settings where small group development is likely to occur. Lack of quantitative research as the model was based off of a limited number of small group setting observations. The complexity of today’s group dynamics are not easily represented in a normal model. (Bonebright, 2010; Humphrey et al., 2014).

Question 34

Explain and Evaluate Types of Team Roles

Answer 34

The action-oriented team roles are shaper - thrives under pressure and overcomes obstacles but offends feeling and provoked, implementer - disciplined and reliable, turns ideas into actions but is somewhat inflexible and slow to respond to new possibilities, and completer/finisher - searches out errors and delivers on time but inclined to worry and reluctant to delegate.
People-oriented team roles are coordinator - confident, promotes decision making, delegates well but off loads personal work and can be manipulative. Team worker - co-operative, diplomatic, averts friction but indecisive in crunch decisions. Resource Investigator - explores opportunities and develops contacts but over optimistic, loses interest once enthusiasm passes.
Cerebral-orientated team roles are plant - creative, unorthodox, solves complex problems but too preoccupied to communicate effectively. Monitor Evaluator - strategic, sees all options and judges accurately but lacks drive and ability to inspire others. Specialist - self-starting, dedicated, provides rare skills and knowledge but contributes only on a narrow front and dwells on technicalities.

Question 35

Explain and Evaluate Belbin’s Team roles

Answer 35

Belbin’s team roles are about behavioural preferences not personality and most individuals can play multiple roles. They should not be used for recruitment or selection, only as a tool to be aware of one’s own strengths and abilities to be optimal in a team environment. According to Belbin each member performs a functional role (professional knowledge) and a team role (pattern of team interaction) and a team needs an optimal balance of both. This balance is dependent on the task and goals the team faces. Belbin’s team roles discriminate validity i.e overlap between the roles, reductionist -we are more than team roles. The interaction between situation and task requirements needs to be better understood. Behaviour can change depending on the situation.
Factors affecting group cohesiveness and performance are membership, work environment, organisation and group development. Pros of decision making in teams are more info about different sources, mutually acceptable solution, legitimacy of solution and commitment towards implementation. Cons of decision making in teams include pressures to conform, groupthink, extreme decisions, takes more time and lines of responsibility can become unclear. One example of conformity experiment in teams is a group look at a line and say which one matches (Asch, 1951).

Question 36

Explain and Evaluate Groupthink

Answer 36

Groupthink is the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups (Janis,1982) and occurs when powerful members of the group coerce less powerful group members to go along with a decision in public even though they may disagree in private (Dyer, 1998). Some systems of groupthink include illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship and illusion of unanimity. To minimise groupthink you could have an impartial leader, have a devil’s advocate or engage in a good climate of constructive controversy.