Organizational Behavior Review Sheet

Foundations of Organizational Behavior

Describe the Hawthorne studies and explain what the “Hawthorne effect” means.

Briefly describe each of the following types of research designs: case studies,
correlational studies, and experiments. Highlight the strengths and weaknesses of
each, using examples from organizational behavior.

What does reliability mean? Validity? Provide examples of each.

Describe five facts about job performance and discuss what they mean.

Cognitive Ability and Personality in the Workplace

To what extent are vocational and occupational interests heritable? Discuss.

How and why, from an evolutionary perspective, do surface-level characteristics

(e.g., age, height, etc.) influence career success? Provide examples with relevant
supporting evidence.

Why did Charles Spearman propose that mental performance could be

conceptualized in terms of a general factor? What relevance does this have to OB
research?

Is ability a general factor?

What are some examples of intelligence test questions?

What outcomes can be predicted from cognitive ability and why?

Does cognitive ability predict job performance in some jobs more than others? If so,
which jobs?

Do personality and cognitive ability scores tend to be highly correlated? Why or why
not?

What are the problems with using the MBTI to make consequential decisions at
work?

Describe the Big Five model of personality and name at least two outcomes that can
be predicted from each trait.
How do managers’ and entrepreneurs’ personalities differ? Why might this be the
case?

Psychology of Hiring

What is the first step you should make in determining whether to change an
organization’s approach to hiring people?

Describe several methods for analyzing jobs. What are some strengths and
limitations of each?

What are the key principles for hiring? Why is each principle important?

How does job performance differ from contextual performance?

Describe and critically evaluate each of the following selection methods:

1) Weighted application blanks
2) Interviews
3) Work samples
4) Situational judgment tests
5) Assessment centers

Does structuring interviews improve their validity? Why or why not? What does
“structuring” mean?

Does personality predict job performance, above and beyond cognitive ability? If so,
what implications does this have for personnel selection?

What are some drawbacks of using cognitive ability tests in the workplace?

Finding Happiness at Work

What are job attitudes?

What are moods and emotions, and how can they be distinguished from each other?

Discuss the major findings in job attitudes research, including work on personality,
the job environment, leadership, and organizational practices. Provide an example of
how each factor could be used to improve employee satisfaction in some way.

What is affective events theory? Draw the diagram describing its major linkages.

What is positivity offset and how is it relevant to employee satisfaction survey

research?
What is emotional intelligence? Who developed the scientific research behind it?
Who wrote a popular book about it? Describe its relevance to job performance, in
which jobs it matters most, and whether it improves prediction beyond use of
cognitive ability and personality measures.

Are happy employees productive employees? Discuss.

What is the causal relationship between job attitudes and performance?

How to Read People

What is the 7%-38%-55% rule and what evidence exists for it?

What are meta-perceptions? What’s the difference between meta-perception bias

and accuracy?

What’s the difference between dyadic meta-accuracy and generalized meta-

accuracy?

When do people know their reputation? When do people not know their reputation?

In which mode of communication (email, voice, or face-to-face) are people most

likely to overestimate their accuracy at judging someone else’s emotions?

Describe the history of physiognomy

What is “neocultural theory”?

Describe the key findings from research on emotion recognition for 12 emotions

What are three strategies for recognizing emotions?

How should we define conversations? What is conversational flow and why is it

important?

What happens when unwanted conversation topics are brought up?

What is the liking gap? Do conversations end when people want them to?

Describe the differing perspectives on body language as a useful tool vs overhyped

nonsense

What are the major categories of gestures?

Motivation
What is motivation?

Describe equity theory and provide an example of how motivation changes when
(both positive and negative) inequity is perceived.

Describe expectancy theory and provide an example of how it can be used to

improve motivation at work.

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Draw the hierarchy and offer a critique.

How does Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation differ from other theories of
motivation? Describe how it could be used to improve motivation at work.

How do goals affect performance?

Name three factors that affect how strongly goals affect performance, and explain
why.

What is merit pay and how is it different from incentive pay?

Does incentive pay boost productivity? Discuss the pros and cons of using incentive
pay.

Social Identity and Diversity

What are self-fulfilling prophecies and how do they work?

Describe stereotype threat and how it impacts motivation at work.

Why do organisations and managers care about diversity? Be able to list and
discuss at least 3 reasons.

Decision-Making, Bias, and Influence

Describe the rational analysis model of decision-making, and contrast it against the
bounded rationality model of decision-making.

What are the six major decision-making biases people often make? Be able to define
and describe how each works, along with solutions to avoid them.

What is the major difference between how we judge others versus how we judge
ourselves, and how does this difference lead to social misunderstanding and
conflict?

What are the two routes to persuasion, and how do they work?
What are the six widely known persuasion tactics used for boosting one’s message,
and how do they work? What are the risks associated with using each tactic? How
can you defend yourself from being persuaded by each one?

Groups, Teams, and Culture

What is the common information effect?

What defines good team performance?

What is Tuckman’s model of group development and what are the pros and cons to
using it to understand group dynamics?

Describe social facilitation and how it can be used to understand individuals’

behavior in team settings.

Describe social loafing and how it affects individuals’ effort when in the presence of
others.

What is team cohesion and on which outcomes does it have the strongest effects?

Describe Solomon Asch’s famous line experiment that helped demonstrate the effect
of conformity.

What is groupthink and how does it occur?

What are two sources of process losses? What is synergy? Provide an example of
each.

Are groups more effective than individuals? When are they not?

What are the three types of group conflict, and what effects do they have on group
outcomes (on average)?

What is psychological safety, and what aspects of psychological safety lead to better
group performance (i.e., more collective intelligence)?

Describe Hofstede’s framework: what it is, what is its utility, and what are its
limitations.

Compare and contrast individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures. What are the traits,
norms, and behaviors that characterize each? What are the organisational
implications of this cultural distinction?
What is power distance, and how would you differentiate a low power distance
culture from a high power distance culture?

What effect does living abroad have on a person’s sense of self?

Negotiations

What is a BATNA? What advice would you give someone about their BATNA before
they negotiate?

What is a ZOPA? Why is it important?

What do the terms “reservation price” and “target price” mean?

How important is anchoring in negotiations? What should you do if your counterpart

anchors first?

When making concessions, you should…

What are the two major negotiation strategies? Discuss the three major findings
stemming from research on the two major negotiation strategies.

What are some things managers can do to attenuate gender differences in

negotiation?

Power and Status

What are social hierarchies and how common are they? Why?

Define power and status, and explain how they are different from each other.

Describe power-approach theory and explain at least five ways it can be used to
predict behavior at work.

Describe the social distance theory of power and its two main principles.

What are four known effects of social distance?

When do people actually prefer having lower status?

Leadership

What are the differences between leaders and managers?

How is the trait approach different from the “leaders are born, not made” approach?
Which personality trait predicts leadership effectiveness but not leadership
emergence, and why?

Which trait correlates most strongly with effectiveness and emergence as a leader?

What is the participation-leadership effect?

What is most surprising about the link between intelligence and leadership
effectiveness?

What three categories of skills can leaders develop? Which skills are most important
at the bottom levels of management? At the top?

What are the two main leadership styles? What are the advantages and critiques of
leadership style research?

Describe leader-member exchange theory and provide an example of how it can be

applied in organizations.

State the differences between transactional and transformational leaders. Explain

why transformational leaders achieve higher leader performance.

Describe role congruity theory and explain how it can be used to understand the
glass ceiling in organizations.

Be able to discuss what unique leadership skills people high in introversion may be
more likely to demonstrate compared to people high in extraversion.

What psychological mechanisms enable unethical behaviour?