#19 - In the decade from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s

[Steve Stein]

Hey Kristin,

Good questions—this survey stuff can be frustrating, but tell me whether this clears everything up:

Surveys were distributed to employees of companies. Some people answered, presumably others did not, but among those who did respond, the results in 1984 were very similar to the results from 1994, after major downsizing had taken place: In both cases, only 55-58% of respondents felt secure in their jobs.

If we expected the downsizing to make people nervous, these survey results might seem like a paradox

But, if as answer choice (C) provides, people were not at all surprised by the downsizing, that would help explain why the level of insecurity had not changed much in the interim between the two surveys.


I hope that's helpful! Please let us know whether this is clear—thanks!

~Steve

[kristinaroz93]

I guess I am missing what the paradox is ! Were we expecting more people to feel insecure in 1984 than in mid 1990s since that was when major downsizing happened ? But instead they felt the same throughout because in on instance they anticipated it and in the next it was still sort of ongoing ?

I am still unclear on things, I apologize for that.

[Steve Stein]

Hey Kristin,

Consider what you would think if I were to provide only the following information:

• In 1984 surveys were distributed about job security.
  
  Between 1984 and 1994, there were huge waves of downsizing.

You might expect ten years of downsizing to make people less secure in their jobs—yet that doesn't seem to have happened—survey results showed that perceived security levels had remained about the same from 1984 to 1994.

Therein lies the paradox! Please let me know whether this is clear—thanks!

~Steve

[kristinaroz93]

I get the paradox now. But given this is the case, how does the answer choice help resolve the paradox of why the perception was constant when it should have been larger levels of insecurity towards the mid 1990s and lower levels in the mid 1980s?

So they anticipated not just the downsizing of 1984 as i initially percieved but 1984-mid 1990s (the whole period of downsizing essentially) and so over time they were able to feel the same when they should have felt more insecure as time went on? Is this it? So they already came in insecure, but again, just because they came into the situation insecure, why does that prevent them from feeling more insecure over time?

Why does coming in insecure to a disaster due to prior knowledge of it prevent their level of insecurity from changing to something greater/lesser as time went on, in this case to being greater?

(And actually there were less people feeling ssecure in the 1990s as it dropped from 58 - 55 % levels of security, how do we know this drop is in the realm of things being relatively constant? Maybe 3 % is still significant.

Do you see my confusion?

[Steve Stein]

Hey Kristin,

If they hadn't seen the downsizing coming we might have expected the layoffs to cause a big reduction in the average level of security felt by employees.

But they weren't surprised, so their perspectives didn't change much; they got the surprise out of the way beforehand. They knew layoffs were coming, so they didn't feel very secure. They the layoffs came, to no one's surprise, and they still felt insecure.

Hope that's helpful! Please let me know—thanks!

~Steve

[kristinaroz93]

I geuss I sort of see it now. But what about the point where survey respondants said they felt secure but we are saying many were insecure during that period already, how do we know that?]

And here "If they hadn't seen the downsizing coming we might have expected the layoffs to cause a big reduction in the average level of security felt by employees. " do you mean over time ? As in for it to grow stronger as the years went on and yet it was always constant?

[Steve Stein]

Hey Kristin,

That's an interesting question. An important distinction here is that we are looking at the overall picture: The survey responses don't show that each person felt about 55% secure—rather, they showed that only about 55% of respondents felt secure, meaning that 45% did not feel secure.

We still might have expected the percentage of insecure people to rise after a bunch of layoffs, but as we know that didn't happen.

I hope that's helpful! Please let us know whether this is clear—thanks!

~Steve

[kristinaroz93]

ALright let me put it all together. Thanks for bearing with me, this problem was just not sitting with me well at all and I will probably look at it again tomorrow.

I will add on to what you said earlier: If they hadn't seen the downsizing coming we might have expected the layoffs to cause a big reduction in the avg level of security felt by employees from 1980s to 1990s (with people feeling more insecure towards the mid 1990s). However, how people felt had remained the same throuhgout the entire period (since going from 58 percent to 55 is relativey still the same amount of people sayng the same thing) due to the fact that they were able to prepare acordingly for the change in their minds (i.e. take on an insecure attitude already going in that would last throughout the enire period of downsizing). And so had they not adopted that mindset beforehand they would have felt themselves growing more insecure over that decade in which there was downsizing (in other words their perceptions woud no longer have been constant, since waves of prolonged disaster without prior knowledge of it causes people's insecurities to increase with time). But it is an entirely different story when people can acocunt for the disasters in advance.

Do I finally have it?

[Nikki Siclunov]

Kristina,

Yes, you do have it, although I think you're overthinking this a bit Steve's and Robert's explanations are exactly on point. Simply put, if people could prepare for the downsizing ahead of time, their level of confidence in 1984 already accounts for the bad news: it's lower than it would have been had they not prepared. It only makes sense that this (lower) level of confidence continued through the 1990's, as things clearly didn't get any better.

Hope this puts the issue to rest

[kristinaroz93]

Dear everyone on this post,

Okay so I have thought about it for a few more hours and here is what makes sense to msyelf intuitively, without just trying to copy what everyone else was saying (even though I think Steve brought this similar point up earlier). Sorry for going overboard on this problem, seriously I just want to be 100 percent clear on it! It is 1 am right now but I am dedicated to know that I have it in the bag.
So for c, had they not known of all the turmoil to come in advance and the downsizing hit, their perceptions initially would probably have been insecure but still somewhat optimisitic. Like "oh this thing may blow over soon so let's not worry too much about it right now". In other words their insecurity would have started at a fairly low point. And then of of course once the turmoil hadn't blown over and was actually reaching its 10th or so year, their insecurity would have grown drastically over the situation because then people would have started to realize how bad things really were. And so we are trying to understand the anaomoly of why their shift in perspective actually remained constant over the 10 yr period. In other words why their level of insecurity was always the same throughout and not upward shifting as it should have been (thinking in terms of a line on a graph with a positive slope).
However, we resolve the anomoly by saying, "well they knew in advance that for around 10 yrs that there would be this downsizing issue". So they entered into the turmoil with their insecurity already having reached its hghest point, since they knew from the start that the problem would be very serious and that there was no hope for a quick blowover as most people would intially jump to think. So throughout the ten years their insecurity remained constant because it was already as high as it could possibly go.

This is what makes sense to me, so hopefully can someone tell me if that is a correct way to look at it and that will put it all to rest=) (Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel after all).

For choice E, if all of my thinking is right for choice c, then this is what I think for choice E. Given that we know people's level of insecurity over the period should have increased over time without prior knowledge of the situation and its actual duration period, people being more optimistic in the mid 1990s shows that while their insecurity shoud have been greater, their greater level of optimisim would offset that larger insecurity to create the same state of mind they would have in the mid 1980s.

I am holding my breathe but if someone says all of this is corrrect I will physcially jump for joy. Thanks so much in advance!