Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
51. Which of the following is a Big Five personality factor that also corresponds to
integrity test scores?
a. openness to experience
b. emotional stability
c. extraversion
d. social dominance
52. In personality tests, which of the following factors is the strongest predictor of ethical
behavior?
a. conscientiousness
b. agreeableness
c. emotional stability
d. extraversion
53. In which of the following ways are personality and integrity tests similar?
a. They are most often used as an alternative to background checks.
b. They often punish members of protected classes.
c. They can cause disparate racial discrimination.
d. They can elicit intentionally false but socially desirable answers.
54. Janelle was recently hired at a nonprofit as an entry-level researcher. Although her
job only requires her to assist the executive staff with research, she often goes to other
departments and offers her help when she is not busy with other work. Based only on
this, we can surmise that Janelle would have scored very high on what measure of a
personality test?
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. social dominance orientation
b. emotional stability
c. organizational citizenship behavior
d. openness to experience
55. An employee scoring very high on the self-development component of an
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) measure might be expected to ______.
a. be particularly outgoing to new employees and try to make them welcome
b. volunteer to take a skills course to improve the range of tasks she can accomplish
c. volunteer to help others with particularly difficult tasks
d. take a leadership role among employees at similar hierarchical levels
56. Which is a factor of organizational citizenship behavior?
a. civic virtue
b. loyalty to supervisor
c. self-directedness
d. collaboration
57. Why is the use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory unacceptable
early in the hiring process?
a. It must be performed after an offer is given.
b. It requires disclosure of past treatment for mental health conditions.
c. It evaluates private information such as home life and marital status.
d. It violates protected applicants’ rights to be considered despite a disability.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
58. Why can’t general personality tests be used to detect a personality disorder?
a. Personality tests are incapable of detecting a personality disorder.
b. People with personality disorders have a protected class status.
c. Employers lack the training to properly interpret the results of a personality test.
d. Personality tests are too sensitive and result in personality disorder false positives.
59. A manager is hiring for a new and highly sensitive position in the human resources
department. An internal candidate has been referred to the manager for the interview
process, but the manager is worried, based on some informal information, that the
candidate has a serious mental health condition. How should the manager bring up the
issue?
a. The manager should not try to understand if the condition could affect job
performance.
b. Ask the candidate if he or she has any mental health conditions.
c. Ask the candidate if he or she is able to perform all job functions and meet the job’s
attendance requirements.
d. Ask the candidate if he or she has been treated for any mental health conditions.
60. At what point in the hiring process can medical or mental health tests be given to a
job candidate?
a. when the candidate first applies
b. after the interview process is completed
c. after a job offer has been made
d. after the candidate has been hired
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
61. Which of the following would not be an acceptable subject of a question asked of a
candidate in an interview?
a. clarification on an inconsistency in a résumé
b. five-year goals
c. ethical outlook
d. marital status
62. Which of the following interview questions about a candidate’s ethical behavior in
past work experiences would not be appropriate if the candidate is interviewing for a
sales position at a car dealership?
a. “Tell me about a time you witnessed a friend or family member do something
unethical.”
b. “Tell me about a time a customer asked you to act outside the parameters of your
job.”
c. “Tell me about a time, if it has occurred, when a supervisor asked you to inflate sales
figures to make your company look better.”
d. “Tell me about a time you witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace.”
63. What bodily tendencies should a manager look for to detect dishonesty during the
interview process?
a. lessened eye contact and increased blinking
b. no one bodily cue has been associated with dishonesty
c. lack of detail and pauses in responses
d. odd breathing and sweating
64. The text suggests benchmarking an individual’s behavior to help determine level of
honesty in responses. What might this benchmarking entail?
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. Asking the candidate if they have any reason to be nervous or feel threatened during
the interview.
b. Asking the candidate about their hometown or how they are feeling and noting how
relaxed or nervous they are.
c. Having another employee speak to the candidate before the interview and recording
reactions.
d. Asking the employee to describe a particularly scary incident in their life.
65. While giving an interview, Ari has noticed that some of the candidate’s responses
don’t sync up with information given in her résumé. What is the best way for Ari to
phrase a question asking about this issue?
a. “There’s a problem with some of your statements…”
b. “You stated that…”
c. “I’m wondering why you said…”
d. “I can’t imagine why you said…”
66. In what way do small businesses differ from large ones who make ethics an even
more important part of the job-screening process?
a. a more cut-throat competitive workplace
b. a less profit-based atmosphere
c. a higher propensity to hire unethical people
d. a greater need for task delegation
67. Which of the following is TRUE of giving a realistic job preview?
a. They contribute to higher levels of turnover.
b. They typically contribute to “entry shock.”
c. They usually reduce acceptance rates but not by much.
d. They should be clear about the tedious/unpleasant aspects of a job.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
68. Which of the following would be most common as an offer-contingent, post-interview
test for positions in private-sector companies?
a. integrity test
b. personality test
c. polygraph
d. drug test
69. Which of the following is TRUE of substance abuse and work in the United States?
a. Substance abuse is estimated to cost employers $120 billion a year.
b. Substance abuse by employees has fallen dramatically every year for several
decades.
c. Protected groups, especially racial minorities, make up the typical illegal drug user.
d. Substance abuse is a problem but rarely affects job performance.
70. Which of the following is TRUE of administering drug tests to job candidates?
a. Drug testing is optional in all private-sector industries, but it is not optional in
governmental ones.
b. Candidates are often asked to pay for the cost of their drug tests.
c. It is illegal without clear suspicion of abuse.
d. The cost is relatively low for the employer.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
71. In which of the following ways does drug testing differ from polygraph testing as part
of a hiring process?
a. Drug testing provides less conclusive test results than does polygraph testing.
b. Drug testing is far more controversial as a candidate screen than polygraph testing.
c. Drug testing is far more expensive than polygraph testing because it cannot be done
in-house.
d. Drug testing is sometimes mandatory in nongovernmental industries; polygraph
testing never is.
72. A manager wants to institute a drug testing policy for new hires. She wants the
testing to be as noninvasive as possible but have very high validity. She does not care
about how long it will take to get test results. What method should she choose?
a. urinalysis
b. blood testing
c. hair testing
d. saliva testing
73. Under which of the following conditions is an applicant most likely to be subjected to
a polygraph test?
a. applying for a private sector job and having a history of criminal behavior
b. applying for a job in a state judiciary
c. applying for a job as upper management at a major corporation
d. applying for a nonprofit job and having a history of mental illness
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
74. What did the first lie detector machine use as a criterion for detecting falsehood?
a. blood pressure
b. skin changes
c. eye movement
d. breath rate
75. Which of the following discoveries had a major influence on the Supreme Court’s
decision in United States v. Frye (1923)?
a. The polygraph only had about a 75–80 percent success rate at detecting falsehoods.
b. Employers were using the polygraph to punish current employees, not screen new
ones.
c. The polygraph caused mental exhaustion in those it tested.
d. The polygraph detected anxieties, not lies.
76. What is a major exception to the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988?
a. It does not apply to governmental entities.
b. It does not apply to protected status groups.
c. It does not apply to candidates with a criminal history.
d. All educational institutions may use a polygraph for hiring screens.
77. Many changes and improvements have been made to polygraph testing. What does
the modern polygraph detect?
a. half-truths
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. lying
c. nervousness
d. intent to act unethically
78. If ever legally cleared for use, what will likely be the biggest obstacle to widespread
adoption of the fMRI polygraph?
a. cultural bias
b. cost
c. public stigma
d. privacy concerns
79. Given the persistent questions, controversies, and inadequacies of the polygraph,
what should an employer do if using polygraph as a screening tool?
a. Give the candidate a chance to challenge any negative results.
b. Give each candidate a polygraph examination three times and take the average of
the results.
c. Use the results of the polygraph only if the candidate has other obvious problems in
his background check.
d. Present the findings to a candidate’s former employers for feedback on accuracy.
80. In which of the following ways was Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 altered in
2012?
a. restricted in application to exclude jobs with very high physical demands
b. restricted in application to exclude sensitive government agencies
c. expanded to include mental disability
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
d. expanded to included gender identity or sexual orientation
True/False
1. Ethics is typically not considered in hiring situations.
2. When crafting a job announcement, a hiring authority should seek to determine that it
is not violating any federal law through that process.
3. Ethics screens are inherent invasions of privacy.
4. There is somewhat less restriction about what an employer can ask a job candidate
now than there was in the 1950s.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
5. Drunken driving arrests are an acceptable subject of query on an application if driving
is pertinent to the job.
6. Résumés are the best source for determining an applicant’s prior work performance.
7. It is within a reference’s or former employer’s right to refuse to give detailed
information about a former employee’s performance.
8. Ethical problems often escalate from relatively minor deceptions.
9. A person who scores high on the organizational citizenship behavior will likely
improve an organization’s culture, and one who scores high on the social dominance
orientation will likely damage it.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
10. Visual lie detection is best implemented when discrepancies have appeared in a
candidate’s résumé.
Short Answer
1. Briefly describe the six steps and order of the ethics job screen process.
2. Describe the purpose and operation of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.
3. What advantage does a background check have over a résumé or reference check?
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
4. Why is visual lie detection not recommended in any interview process?
5. What is the current status of drug testing in the United States? Elaborate on the
legality of drug testing as well as commonality.
Essay
1. A new company CEO is weighing the pros and cons of making ethics a part of her
company’s screening process. What arguments should she consider?
2. Describe how disparate impact differs from overt discrimination in the hiring process.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
3. How does a personality test differ from or resemble an integrity test?
4. How should a manager design ethical dilemmas for an interview process with a new
employee?
5. Why is the polygraph more controversial than drug screening?
