Week 1 and Week 2 Self-Assessments
Week 1 and Week 2 Self-Assessments
eview your results from the Week 1 and Week 2 Self-Assessments (See details below)
• Self-Assessment: Assessing My Perspective on Ethics in Connect
• Self-Assessment: What is My Big Five Personality Profile?
• Self-Assessment: Assessing an Organization’s Diversity Climate
Consider how the information you’ve gathered can be used to solve a problem, work on a team, and function within a business environment.
Determine how you can use your findings to get along with co-workers that may have different assessment results. Evaluate how you would handle stressful situations, manage change, and stay motivated.
Complete the Week 2 Self-Assessment Reflection in no more than 175- words.
Self-Assessment 1.2: Assessing My Perspective on Ethics
There are many systems that attempt to capture ethical values. This self-assessment measures one possible approach to ethics. You are classified along two dimensions, and then these are used to create four categories of people.
Idealism
Score : 24 pts.
23 – 30 pts.
Feedback: You have high idealism.
Relativism
Score : 20 pts.
14 – 22 pts.
Feedback: You have moderate relativism.
Interpreting the Result
There are many systems that attempt to capture ethical values. This self-assessment measures one possible approach to ethics. You are classified along two dimensions, and then these are used to create four categories of people.
First, let’s define the two dimensions.
Idealism – This is the extent to which you think there is always a clear “right” or “good” action.
Relativism – This is the extent to which you think there are, or are not, absolute moral rules when making ethical judgments. Week 1 and Week 2 Self-Assessments
This then leads to the following four categories:
Situationists – Persons who are high on both idealism and relativism scales. The typical attitude is to “reject moral rules” and advocate that each situation should be analyzed individualistically.
Subjectivists – Persons who are low on idealism, but high on relativism. The typical attitude is to approach moral situations “based on personal values rather than universal moral principles.”
Absolutists – Persons who are high on idealism but low on relativism. The typical attitude is to approach moral questions with the assumption that “the best possible outcome can be achieved by following universal moral rules.”
Exceptionalists – Persons who are low on both idealism and relativism. The typical attitude is to think there are moral absolutes but to be “pragmatically open to exceptions.”
If your score is in the moderate range on one or both scales, you do not fit neatly into these categories. This is not a problem. It just means that your views are a bit more nuanced than those of other people. You can still place yourself in one of the four categories by moving your moderate score to the low or high range based on which is closest.
Action Steps
You will be faced with many ethical problems over the course of your lifetime. Some of these will be relatively easy to address. Others will be very difficult. Sometimes, you will see clearly what you should do, but you find it very difficult to follow through on what you know you should do. Other times, you will have two (or more) ethically ambiguous choices in front of you and you will not know how to choose.
Because you are a college or university student, you have the benefit of having an extended period of time to develop your ethical sensibility. You can do this in several ways. First, you should be in touch with your religious or philosophical perspective. One of the purposes of religion and philosophy is to allow for the development of a deeply thoughtful system of ethics. If you are required to take courses such as humanities, history, religion, and literature, you should not view these courses merely as something to be “gotten out of the way,” but rather you should use them to develop your ethical compass. Ethical problems are as old as humanity. Courses in these disciplines will expose you to some of the great questions in life, and allow you to think deeply about what the answers can and should be.
Second, you can do current reading. The business press is filled with stories of people who are dealing with ethical situations. Sometimes, there are dramatic illustrations of ethical failures, such as the fallacious accounting practices that led to the collapse of Enron or the decision by some Volkswagen employees to write software that would allow their cars to avoid detection of illegal levels of pollutants. However, there are also many less well known or dramatic stories. Read these and think about what you would have done if you were placed in a similar circumstance.
Third, talk with your fellow students, your faculty, and others about ethical situations they have faced and how they were handled. Some of the best learning comes from hearing stories from people who describe their ethical failures and the consequences that resulted from their decisions.
Finally, you should use your time as a student to practice your ethical standards. If, for example, you think people should not cheat on their taxes and they should not lie on their resumés, then you should practice not cheating and lying as a student. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you cut corners now, you will likely cut corners in the future. Now is the time to develop good habits.
Survey Caveat
Remember your score on this self-assessment, while useful for self-understanding, should not be over-interpreted. First, every person is complex and it is impossible to fully capture your uniqueness in a short self-assessment. Second, you may well find your approach to ethics may change over time, or you may come to understand what your ethical perspective actually is only later in life. Third, there are many ways to capture ethical sensibilities. If this one is not helpful, you should investigate other resources that will help you navigate the ethical problems you will inevitably face.
Source: Adapted from D. R. Forsyth, “A Taxonomy of Ethical Ideologies”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 1980, pp. 175–184.
Self-Assessment 4.2: Assessing an Organization’s Diversity Climate
The diversity climate of an organization is comprised of three conceptually distinct factors:
Organizational fairness
Organizational inclusion
Diversity promises
The following survey was designed to assess the diversity climate within your current organization.
Feedback: Week 1 and Week 2 Self-Assessments
