A manager objects to the company’s efforts at improving job satisfacti

QUESTION

A manager objects to the company’s efforts at improving job satisfaction on the grounds that sophisticated employees cannot be made to feel more satisfied when their jobs have not changed.

Which of the following identifies an error in the manager’s reasoning?
A) It fails to consider the possibility that the people who designed the job satisfaction efforts are honest when they claim that they want the employees to be satisfied with their jobs.
B) It fails to distinguish job satisfaction and other kinds of satisfaction.
C) It assumes that the job satisfaction efforts will be limited to changing employees’ perceptions of their jobs.
D) It assumes what it claims to prove.
E) It does not establish that this view of job satisfaction is popular among researchers.

ANSWER

Answer: C
Explanation: C) The manager claims that smart people can’t be convinced that they are more satisfied when they aren’t. But so what? Job satisfaction programs can help change the jobs themselves, and not just perceptions of them. The manager ignores this possibility, and so commits the flaw in Choice C. Choice A: The honesty of the efforts isn’t the issue here. The manager is questioning the effects of the programs, and not the motivation behind it. Choice B: The manager only refers to job satisfaction, so there’s no such confusion here. Choice D: This argument isn’t great, but it isn’t circular. Choice E: This isn’t a popularity issue. It’s a logic issue.