Chapter 7 organizational behavior

Assume you are a supervisor of ten employees, one of whom is clearly a Type A personality. Which of the following approaches would you follow to effectively manage this employee?

Assist the employee through encouraging time management applications and convincing the person to pace him or herself.

According to Harry Levinson and Freudian psychoanalytic theory, self-image is the embodiment of a person's perfect self.

False

Counterdependence is a healthy, secure, interdependent pattern of behavior that is useful when facing stressful situations.

False

Emotional toxins typically don't spread through a work environment and cause a range of disturbances.

False

Individuals who display hardiness tend to be Type A personalities.

False

Interrole conflict is caused by conflicting expectations related to a single role.

False

The cognitive appraisal approach to stress emphasizes the fit between a person and his or her environment in terms of individual abilities and task or role demands.

False

The natural stress response has been shown to be inherently bad or destructive.

False

Type B personalities display insecure behavior and may respond aggressively in conflict situations.

False

As a supervisor of claim adjusters for a property and casualty insurance company, you assign and reassign adjusters to handle routine and emergency situations. Your managerial skills have become severely tested because several adjusters, after short-term emergency assignments, are threatening to quit. What short-term approach to their stressful situation would be most appropriate?

Reduce task demands and make sure no adjuster works more than five days a week.

Change and lack of control are two of the most stressful demands people face at work.

True

Employee assistance programs have been designed in part to provide help to employees in coping with nonwork demands.

True

It is unfortunate that stress carries a negative connotation as though it were something to be avoided.

True

Men and women have different vulnerabilities to stress.

True

Nonwork demands may broadly be identified as home demands from an individual's personal life environment and personal demands that are self-imposed.

True

Primary stress prevention is designed to reduce and possibly eliminate the source of stress, or the stressor.

True

Problem-focused coping focuses on managing and controlling the stressor.

True

Psychological detachment from work can be a successful strategy for coping with work stressors and reduce the psychological strain associated with work place bullying.

True

Regardless of the stress approach used, the stress response can be characterized by a predictable sequence of mind and body events.

True

Role ambiguity and task uncertainty both indicate lack of information.

True

Self-reliant individuals tend to be better at transformational coping.

True

The fight-or-flight response to stress is based on an environmental demand that upsets a person's natural steady state according to the homeostatic approach.

True

The stress response can activate some bodily systems and cause others to operate at reduced capacity.

True

Transformational coping is actively changing an event into something less subjectively stressful by viewing it in a broader life perspective.

True

Type A behavior is also labeled coronary-prone behavior.

True

Which of the following people developed the idea of the stress response?

Walter B. Cannon

An individual who is relatively good at transformational coping is/has:

a hardy personality

Secondary prevention is intended to:

alter or modify the individual's or the organization's response to a demand

An employee assistance program is:

an individual prevention approach to stress relief or reduction

Psychosomatic disorders:

are physical ailments that begin in the mind

The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests the relationship between stress level and performance arousal is:

bell-shaped

Two of the most stressful demands people face at work are:

change and lack of control

Strain is the same as:

distress

The adverse psychological, physical, behavioral, and organizational consequence that may occur as a result of stressful events is known as:

distress

Healthy or normal stress is known as:

eustress

The person-environment fit approach to stress emphasizes the:

fit between external and internal role expectations

A positive consequence of organizational distress may take the form of:

functional turnover

Job redesign as a stress prevention method may involve any one or all of the following except:

giving the worker inspection responsibility or expanding the employee's job decision latitude

A personality that tends to be resistant to distress is:

hardy

The fight-or-flight stress response is most closely associated with which approach to stress?

homeostatic

The medical approach to stress is most similar to:

homeostatic approach

The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that:

in the midrange of the stress-performance curve, performance tends to be greatest

Role conflict results from:

inconsistent expectations

Self-reliance is a healthy, secure, _____ pattern of behavior.

interdependent

An employee with a major sales presentation on Monday and a sick child at home Sunday night is likely to experience:

interrole conflict

A manager who presses employees for both very fast work and high-quality work would likely cause:

intrarole conflict

All of the following are stress-related interpersonal demands of the workplace except:

intrarole conflict

Learned optimism is:

is non-negative thinking

Task demands include all of the following except:

leadership style

The biggest benefits of physical exercise come as a result of:

low intensity exercise

Utilizing the cognitive appraisal approach to stress, problem-focused coping emphasizes:

managing the stressor

Individuals possessing a Type A personality:

may become aggressive, even somewhat hostile when faced with conflict and other work-related difficulties

All of the following are approaches, services, or work arrangements intended to minimize the impact of nonwork demands on work except:

mentoring

Which of the following is NOT a mind-body change associated with stress?

normal physical fatigue

Benefits of eustress include all of the following except:

overstimulation

Costs associated with absenteeism, tardiness, strikes, work stoppages, and turnover are known as:

participation problems

Three direct costs of organizational distress include:

participation problems, performance decrements, and compensation awards

A manager instructs an employee to ship an item with a minor defect to a customer. This is an example of:

person-role conflict

The approach to stress that is based on the concept of homeostasis is known as:

physiological

Job redesign, goal setting, and career management would be organizational stress prevention strategies applied at which stage of prevention?

primary stage

Which of the following is NOT considered to be a source of stress at work?

psychological demands

The three forms of individual distress include:

psychological, medical, and behavioral problems

The stress-handling strategy that is considered an alternative to transformational coping and may lead to short-term stress reduction at the cost of long-term healthy life adjustment is:

regressive coping

Organizations need to be sensitive to sources of stress, which include all of the following except:

resource

All of the following would be considered a source of stress due to interpersonal demands except:

role ambiguity

The two major categories of "role stress" at work include:

role conflict and role ambiguity

Organizational costs of distress may take the form of all of the following except:

sabotage

The psychoanalytic approach to stress most likely include which of the following personality dimensions?

self-esteem

The person-environment fit approach to studying and understanding stress emphasizes:

social and organizational role stress

Evaluative feedback is an aspect of a(n) _____ approach to stress prevention.

social support system

The unconscious preparation to fight or flee that a person experiences when faced with any demand is known as:

stress

A manager's decision to reduce task demands in a stress management situation is:

stressor directed

A secondary prevention method of organizational stress is:

team building

The stage in preventive stress management designed to heal individual or organizational symptoms of distress and strain is called:

tertiary prevention

The job strain model presented in your text suggests:

that the combination of high job demand and restricted job decision latitude leads to a high-strain job

Role ambiguity is:

the confusion one experiences related to the expectations of others

The demand, person, activity, or event that triggers an uncomfortable encounter is known as:

the stressor

Which of the following is the best example of a positive (challenge) stressor?

time pressure