Workplace Psychology - Exam 2

Front 1

List 3 sources of performance appraisal data

Back 1

Objective Production Data (dollars in sales, amount produced) – things that are observable or accountable.

Personnel Data (absenteeism, written reprimands, compliments, number of complaints lodged against someone) to get a sense of an employee’s performance.

Judgmental Data (also called subjective data) - when one human being is making a judgment about another human being’s performance

Front 2

What are some reasons for giving performance appraisals?

Back 2

Administrative: used for decisions about who to give merit pay to, who to promote, who to transfer or even terminated. You tend to find lower levels of honesty among managers when they use the appraisals for administrative purposes.

Developmental (to help people improve on the job/ for the employees’ own benefit): it’s not uncommon for managers to get feedback from their subordinates on how they are performing. It’s not tied to anything, just used to help managers improve. (more honest)

Research: we have to make sure our selection devices are valid. One area of research is to test the validity of selection tests. Also used for training purposes/ where do people seem to be weak in terms of giving evaluations. (More honest)

Front 3

What is required to make judgment appraisals?

Back 3

The rater needs to have the opportunity to observe the employee and be familiar with their performance

Needs to understand the performance appraisal instruments (i.e. a form you fill out)

The rater has to be motivated to conduct a fair appraisal.

Front 4

List 3 types of ratings scales for measuring employees' performance.

Back 4

Graphic rating scales (most common): when someone is being rated in terms of their personal characteristics. People are asked to rate the degree to which an employee possesses a certain set of traits or factors.

Employee comparison methods: employees are being compared with one another.

Behavioral checklist: employees’ behaviors are being focused on.

Front 5

Graphic ratings scales are very prone to error. What are they?

Back 5

Leniency: raters have a tendency to evaluate everyone positively, e.g. giving everyone 4s and 5s
Strictness: the opposite (more unusual)

Central tendency: everyone is ‘average’

Halo: no variability in the rating, i.e. the person is being evaluated on a general overall impression about whether they are a good performer or not. Evaluator gives everyone either all 5s or all 3s or all 1s based on just an overall impression, not taking into account the fact that everybody has strengths and weaknesses