Summary
Psychologists have discovered that allowing flexible work schedules does not cause managers’ job satisfaction or efficiency to increase. These flexible schedules do cause job satisfaction, productivity, and attendance to increase among nonmanagerial employees. However, these benefits decrease over time and are reduced even further if schedules are too flexible.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The benefits of flexible work schedule policies are better observed among nonmanagerial employees than among managers.
A
Implementing flexible schedules would be an effective means of increasing the job satisfaction and efficiency of managers who do not already have scheduling autonomy.
We don’t know if flexible schedules would in fact increase satisfaction and efficiency among managers. We can’t assume that the explanation given for why managers don’t reflect these benefits is true, it is only suggested as one possible explanation.
B
Flexible-schedule policies should be expected to improve the morale of some individual employees but not the overall morale of a company’s workforce.
We don’t know if flexible schedule policies would not improve the overall morale of a company. We could reasonable assume that overall morale would improve if the morale of the nonmanagerial workforce improves.
C
Flexible schedules should be expected to substantially improve a company’s productivity and employee satisfaction in the long run.
We don’t know if flexible schedule policies improve satisfaction in the long run. We are told that the benefits of these policies decrease over time.
D
There is little correlation between managers’ job satisfaction and their ability to set their own work schedules.
We don’t know if there is in fact little correlation between these two ideas. The explanation offered for why managers don’t experience increased job satisfaction or efficiency is only one possible explanation.
E
The typical benefits of flexible-schedule policies cannot be reliably inferred from observations of the effects of such policies on managers.
The effects of flexible schedule policies cannot be observed among managers because these managers did not experience an increase in job satisfaction or efficiency. On the other hand, nonmanagerial employees did see increases in these areas.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that the viewers responded that Lopez gave better arguments during a televised political debate may have been biased in favor of Lopez. This is based on the fact that Lopez eventually won the election.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the fact Lopez eventually won the election suggests that the people thought Lopez’s arguments were better in the debate were biased. This overlooks the possibility that Lopez’s arguments were in fact better and convinced people to vote for him.
A
Most people who voted in the election that Lopez won did not watch the debate.
The author never assumed that most people who voted in the election watched the debate. There could have been a tiny number of people who watched the debate; the author simply thinks those people may have been biased toward Lopez.
B
Most people in the live audience watching the debate who were surveyed immediately afterward said that they thought that Tanner was more persuasive in the debate than was Lopez.
It’s not clear what live viewer reactions have to do with a survey of people who saw the debate on television. In any case, (B) is consistent with the author’s theory, since the survey respondents’ opinion about who won the debate still can be due to bias.
C
The people who watched the televised debate were more likely to vote for Tanner than were the people who did not watch the debate.
This compares the likelihood of voting for Tanner among viewers and nonviewers. But what matters is whether the viewers were more likely to vote for Tanner or Lopez. (C) could just mean 1% of viewers were likely to vote for Tanner (as long as that is greater than for nonviewers).
D
Most of the viewers surveyed immediately prior to the debate said that they would probably vote for Tanner.
This is strong evidence most viewers were not biased in favor of Lopez before the debate, which suggests bias was not the reason viewers of the debate said Lopez had better arguments.
E
Lopez won the election over Tanner by a very narrow margin.
The narrow nature of the victory doesn’t change the fact Lopez won. The author never suggested that the victory was dominant or that the specific magnitude of the win affects the likelihood that viewers of the debate were biased.