IO Psychology- Multiple Short Questions

1. Describe Maslows needs hierarchy theory.

This theory is most widely used theory of motivation in organizations developed by Abraham
Maslow.
- Maslow postulates five basic needs arrange in successive level and the first three levels
needs at the bottom are known as deficiency needs and the top two sets of needs are called
growth needs.
-

Self-Actualized Needs

Growth Needs

Esteem Needs
Social Needs
Security Needs

Deficiency Needs

Physiological
Needs
Physiological Need: This is to sustain the life itself and include the basic needs for food,
water, shelter and sex.
Security and Safety Need: These needs are for survival and include security, stability,
freedom from anxiety and structured and ordered environment.
Social Ned: It is the needs of belonging and acceptance and includes the needs for love,
friendship, affection and social interaction.
Esteem Needs: This is to attain recognition from others and it includes achievement,
prestige, status and power.
Self Actualization Need: This is the need to develop fully and to realize ones capacity and
potentialities to the fullest extent possible.
A person must acquire and fulfill the such level of needs before proceeding to the next level of
need.
2. How Behavioral Observation Scales (BOS) was developed and mention its
strengths and weaknesses.
Behavioral Observation Scales (BOS) is developed by the following steps.
step 1: Conduct a job analysis using the critical techniques.
Step 2: Cluster critical incidents into behavioral items.
Step 3: Cluster behavioral items into BOS criteria.
Step 4: Assess interjudge agreement.
Step 5: Assess content validity
Step 6: Instrument construction
Step 7: Elimination of infrequent items.
Step 8: Determine the reliability and weighting of each BOS criterion.

Strengths
1. They are developed from a systematic job analysis supplied by employees and vague and
irrelevant items to the job are minimized.
2. It can also serve as job description for potential job applicants.
3. Its contents are valid as the behaviors differentiation the successful and unsuccessful
performers are included on the instrument.
4. BOS can be scores as a total instrument as well as for each BOS criterion.
5. BOS can satisfy legal requirements in terms of validity and reliability.

Weaknesses
1. BOS is susceptible to rater biases.
2. BOS takes typically longer than other appraisal methods to fill out.
3. Scale length will be a problem if a manger has many subordinates to rate.
3. Describe functions of a manager.
- The managerial functions are: planning, organizing, directing and controlling.

Organizin
g

Directing

Planning

Controllin
g

Planning: - It is the
central function of management to determine an organizations direction and develop
process of making decision for future of the organization.
Organizing: Organization requires a formal structure of authority and flows of such
authority through subordinates, arrangements and coordination.
Directing: It is concerned with leadership communicating, motivating and supervising
employees to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently.
Controlling: Managers ensure that the events do not deviate from prearranged plans.
4. Who should carry out performance appraisal?
In the vast majority of organization, performance appraisals are conducted by the
immediate supervisor of the person being evaluated as he/she is often in the best
position to observe, analyze and interpret the employees performance frequently, be able
to link rewards to the performance of his subordinates.
- A group of panel of superiors may also conduct performance evaluation.
- They involved observing the performance of the employee during the evaluation period
and generate more reliable appraisal because of the variety of the opinions.
- Peer evaluation can be conducted by those who are from the same hierarchical level.
- It requires frequent opportunity to observe each other, high-level of trust and not direct
competition for the same raise or promotion.
- Subordinates also can be involved in the evaluation process. It is used for developmental
feedback.
- Self-evaluation is used for more developmental purpose. It can be particularly
helpful to think realistically about personal strengths and weaknesses.
5. Briefly discuss Fielders contingency theory.
- The theory was developed by Fred Fielder.
- It consists of (1) a method of classifying leaders ;(2) a framework for classifying leadership
situation (3) a model specifying types of leaders and situations.
- According to this theory, leaders can be classified either relationship- oriented or task
oriented.
- Managerial situations can be classified on a continuum raging from favourable to the
leader to unfavourable for the leader.
- Three factors determine, how favourable any managerial situation is for the leader.
- 1. Leader-member relations: if the relationships are good, the leader can count on the
followers and have high control on them.

2. Task structure: a high degree of task structure contribute to a favourable situation for
the leader.
3. Position power: the higher the position power, the greater the leaders control over
subordinates.

6. Give brief description of determinants of personality.

a. Heredity: genetic background from the parents deeply influence and constraint the
personality.
b. Cultural factors: cultural norms influence the nature and development of the
personalities of the members of the cultural group.
c. Social factors: they have direct and pervasive impact on the nature of personalities.
d. Environment and situation: the types of experience and context we have can
strongly influence the development of personality.
7. Briefly describe the consequences of job stress.
1. Physical health: it has a negative impact on physical health and frequency of minor
physical ailments. It can also lead to life-threatening diseases.
2. Psychological well-being: Stress has an impact on mental such as increase anxiety
and frustration. Several responses to frustration are: passivity, aggression, depression
and suicide.
3. Performance: Stress may has a negative impact on individual performance. If the
stress becomes too high or persists a long time, performance begins to decrease.
4. Individual decision making: When people have stress, they avoid or delay to make
decisions and often make bad decision that can cost a lot.
8. Briefly discuss the sources of job satisfaction.
1. Organizational factors: some of the organizational factors as sources of job
satisfaction are: salaries and wages, promotions and company policies.
2. Work environment factors: the work environment factors include supervisory style,
work group and working conditions.
3. Work itself: Two aspects of job contents such as job scope and variety play a major
role in determining the level of job satisfaction.
4. Personal factors: Personal attributes of individual employees play a very important
indicator that show their happiness. Personal factors such as age, seniority and tenure
have large amount on job satisfaction.
9. State Vrooms expectancy model.
- The expectancy model is based upon the belief that motivation is determined by the
nature of the reward people expect to get as a result of their job performance.
- There are three important elements in the model such as expectancy, instrumentality and
valence.
- Expectancy: a worker must be confident that his efforts will result in better productivity
and that he has ability to perform the task well.
- Instrumentality: The worker must be confident that such high performance will be
instrumental in getting desired rewards.
- Valence: The worker must value these rewards as desired and satisfactory. The model can
be described as M=ExIxV ; M= Motivation, E=Expectancy, I=Instrumentality=Valence
10.
Briefly discuss managerial skills.
- There are six managerial skills such as technical skills, interpersonal skills, conceptual
skills, diagnostic skills, communication skills and political skills.
1. Technical skills: they involve the use of knowledge, methods and techniques in
performing a job effectively.
2. Interpersonal skills: It is the ability to work with people amicably with patience, trust
and genuineness. It is the ability to lead, motivate and effectively interact with other.
3. Conceptual skill: It is the ability to view the organization as a whole. The skill generally
depend up on an organized thinking process which deals with understanding of various
functions of an organization and the external environments.

4. Diagnostic skills: It refers to a managers analytical ability where the manger can
logically and objectively investigate and analyze a problem to reach an optimal solution.
5. Communication skills: It is a basic and important skill for mangers at all levels to convey
the messages and information without distortion.
6. Political skills: It is the ability to get your share of power, authority and use it without
fear of losing it.