If you read last week’s article, you might be ready to take the multiple choice section of final exam. If you missed it or if you want to better your chances of passing the exam, please click here to go back and read or reread the course summary. Otherwise, start here with the Reader’s Digest version.

Around the turn of the century, the leaders of a few of the world’s leading MBA programs became aware of a growing body of evidence showing that leaders who had an above average understanding of human behavior led more successful organizations. They also saw that students who graduated without learning anything about human behavior would be ill-prepared for leading organizations. Officials concluded that developing a basic understanding of human behavior was one of the few remaining sources of sustainable competitive advantage in modern organizations. So they did something about it. They asked outsiders to create new courses in human behavior, made them mandatory for all MBA students, and a trend began. One official who knew a good idea when he saw it asked me to design and teach a brand-new course at his school.

What were students expected to take away from this course?

• The value of starting with the questions and not with the answers.
• The need for objectivity and discipline.
• The importance of evidence-gathering and fact-based decision-making.

What were students expected to have a working knowledge of?

• The foundations upon which all our knowledge and assumptions are based.
• The processes used for understanding and decision-making.
• How understanding human behavior increases understanding of ourselves, our social environments, and our work environments.

What were students expected to be able to do?

• Apply tools and processes to understand thinking, behavior, and interactions.
• Apply knowledge of basic principles to decision-making.
• Use the concepts of cultures, behaviors, and learning to improve understanding and decision-making and to address issues and situations in the workplace.

Part one of the three part final exam is 10 multiple choice questions

1. Which two types of questions are the concern of social scientists?

1. 1. Theoretical questions and moral questions
   2. Moral questions and empirical questions
   3. Empirical questions and theoretical questions
   4. All the above

2. Averages

1. 1. Are usually not clearly-defined
   2. Don’t tell us much
   3. Can be misleading
   4. Are more useful when we understand the variance
   5. All the above

3. Why are intelligence scores hard to compare across cultures?

1. 1. Differences in cultures
   2. Differences in testing 
   3. Differences in norms
   4. All the above

4. Judgments and decisions are most often guided directly by

1. 1. Feelings of liking and disliking
   2. Careful deliberation and reasoning 
   3. The scientific method
   4. All the above

5. System 1 and System 2 Thinking can also be described as

1. 1. Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow
   2. Automatic responses and considered responses
   3. Involuntary operations and voluntary operations
   4. All the above

6. System 2 Thinking involves 

1. 1. Awareness
   2. Choice 
   3. Concentration
   4. Effort
   5. All the above

7. The test of learning sociology or psychology or anthropology (the SPA courses) is

1. 1. If you have learned new facts
   2. If you have learned new definitions
   3. If your understanding of situations you encounter has changed
   4. if you have been able to apply learnings in your workplace
   5. All the above

8. Which of these sequences lists research methods from least to most structured?

1. 1. Ethnography – interview – survey
   2. Survey – ethnography – interview
   3. Interview – survey – ethnography 
   4. All the above

9. Early sociologists were

1. 1. Philosophers
   2. Historians
   3. Economists
   4. Thinkers
   5. All the above

10. They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea,” and “Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn” are examples of:

1. 1. The Emic Perspective
   2. The Etic Perspective
   3. System 2 thinking
   4. Closed-mindedness
   5. All the above

Score your multiple choice exam here

1. Which two types of questions are the concern of social scientists?

1. 1. Theoretical questions and moral questions
   2. Moral questions and empirical questions
   3. Empirical questions and theoretical questions 
   4. All the above

Social scientists are concerned about honest, objective facts. Because sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists don’t moralize, you don’t even have to know what empirical and theoretical questions are to get this one right. 3: Empirical questions and theoretical questions.

2. Averages

1. 1. Are usually not clearly-defined
   2. Don’t tell us much
   3. Can be misleading
   4. Are more useful when we understand the variance
   5. All the above

Averages are calculated three different ways, but most of the time you will not be told whether the average is a mean, median or mode. People making arguments or selling things can be relied upon to choose the one that makes them look best, especially if they are purposefully trying to mislead you. 5: All the above.

3. Why are intelligence scores hard to compare across cultures?

1. 1. Differences in cultures
   2. Differences in testing 
   3. Differences in norms
   4. All the above

Another easy one that you don’t need a teacher to tell you. Unless you think every culture around the world is exactly the same, the only possible answer has to do with differences. 4: All the above.

4. Judgments and decisions are most often guided directly by

1. 1. Feelings of liking and disliking
   2. Careful deliberation and reasoning 
   3. The scientific method
   4. All the above

Most people are not scientists. When you rule that out, it can’t be all the above. Rational decision making doesn’t stand a chance because MBA programs don’t teach it. What’s left is 1: Feelings, particularly gut feelings.

5. System 1 and System 2 Thinking can also be described as

1. 1. Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow
   2. Automatic responses and considered responses
   3. Involuntary operations and voluntary operations
   4. All the above

The question and the choices are all pairs. If you notice that fast-slow, automatic-considered, and involuntary-voluntary are all dichotomies, the answer is simple even if you didn’t pay attention in class the many times we talked about this Nobel prize winning author’s book. 4: All the above.

6. System 2 Thinking involves 

1. 1. Awareness
   2. Choice 
   3. Concentration
   4. Effort
   5. All the above

We spent a lot of time on System 1 and System 2 thinking. Again, you can work out the answer just by noticing that by concentrating and making an effort your are likely to be aware of choices. 5: All the above.

7. The test of learning sociology or psychology or anthropology (the SPA courses) is

1. 1. If you have learned new facts
   2. If you have learned new definitions
   3. If your understanding of situations you encounter has changed
   4. if you have been able to apply learnings in your workplace
   5. All the above

Learning, understanding, and applying knowledge are the whole point of this course. You read that in the overview. 5: All the above.

8. Which of these sequences lists research methods from least to most structured?

1. 1. Ethnography – interview – survey
   2. Survey – ethnography – interview
   3. Interview – survey – ethnography 
   4. All the above

Survey are rigid questionnaires, so they can’t come first or even second. This is not a great question, so I gave credit for either 1 or 3 even though the proper answer is 1.

9. Early sociologists were

1. 1. Philosophers
   2. Historians
   3. Economists
   4. Thinkers
   5. All the above

The course overview pointed out many times how we will draw from multiple disciplines. How could you make an argument for any single one of these? 5: All the above.

10. “They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea,” and “Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn” are examples of:

1. 1. The Emic Perspective
   2. The Etic Perspective
   3. System 2 thinking
   4. Closed-mindedness
   5. All the above

Key word analysis says ignorance and unwillingness to learn go really well with closed-mindedness. 4.

Come back next week for the 10 question True-False portion of the final exam.