Describe what psychologists have discovered about attitudes to work.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2018). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [criterion] Attitudes to work, including the following: workplace sabotage (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1987)
2. [criterion] Attitudes to work, including the following: absenteeism (Blau and Boal, 1987)
3. [criterion] Attitudes to work, including the following: measuring organisational commitment (Mowday et al., 1979)
4. [criterion] Workplace sabotage (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1987): Unionised factory workers rated reasons that would justify the use of sabotage. Those that did accept a variety of reasons for sabotage justified all forms except dishonesty.
5. [criterion] Absenteeism (Blau and Boal, 1987): Used job involvement and organisational commitment to see the effect of these on turnover and absenteeism. High involvement and commitment was predicted to have the lowest turnover and absenteeism due as they put a great deal of effort into their jobs and are highly valued by the organisation. Low involvement and low commitment were predicted to have the highest levels of turnover and absenteeism due to them not putting in much effort into their job and not valuing the organisation. In turn, these employees are not valued and would be easy for the organisation to replace.
6. [criterion] Measuring organisational commitment (Mowday et al., 1979): Developed the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) using 2563 employees from 9 different organisations. The paper explains how the questionnaire was developed as well as it having both internal and external reliability and validity in terms of its development and use.
7. [Table A] Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table A.
8. [criterion] Other appropriate responses should also be credited.
9. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: Named issue – Generalisability – the Giacalone and Rosenfeld study looked at unionised workers in a factory. This can only be generalised to this type of setting and these type of workers. It may be easier to sabotage at a factory where there is machinery than in an office environment. Blau and Boal is a theory about absenteeism so could be generalised to Western employees. Mowday studied 2563 individuals so very generalizable (in nine different organisations that cover a range).
10. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: qualitative and quantitative data with reference to the data collected in the research in this topic – Giacalone and Rosenfeld used qualitative data to collect results. Factory workers were asked to rate on scale.
11. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: Evaluation of methods use to collect data. – OCQ used by Mowday
12. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: Reliability
13. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: Validity - issues with questionnaire data.
14. [criterion] A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: Application to everyday life/usefulness of theories and evidence about attitudes to work. can be used to help improve the attitudes of employees to work or at least identify to the company those employees they might have problems with in future.
15. [Table B] Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table B.
16. [criterion] Other appropriate responses should also be credited.