In the decade from the mid-1980s

Answer choices

1. A

   Helps Explain5% picked this

   A large number of the people in both surveys work in small companies that were not affected by

   Since the threat to job security was occurring at large corporations, if the surveys were based primarily on people at small companies, then it makes sense why their impressions of job security didn't necessarily change. We have no reason to think that job security at small companies changed during that decade.

   5%
2. B

   Correct69% picked this

   Employees who feel secure in their jobs tend to think that the jobs of

   Why this is right

   One of the giveaways that this answer probably doesn't help us explain this Paradox is that there's no timeline attached to it. It's a timeless rule, so it would affect people the same in 1984 as it would in 1994. If events from 1984 to 1994 significantly undermined job security, wouldn't we expect surveys of job security to reflect that? Is this answer saying that "employees always feel secure in their jobs, irrespective of background economic conditions"? No. It's just saying that "If they feel secure about their job, they feel like other people's jobs are also secure." Two problems: 1. Do they feel secure about their job? If so, why? Haven't they noticed the massive downsizing that has significantly undermined job security? 2. Who cares how they feel about whether the jobs of others are secure. This survey data is only addressing the question of "How secure do you consider your job?"

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   69%
3. C

   Helps Explain12% picked this

   The corporate downsizing that took place during this period had been widely anticipated for several

   This helps to explain by making the 1984 statistic already an indicator of the downsizing that would take place in the next ten years. In other words, the paradox is thinking that 1984's survey should be the high water mark of employee job security. Then, in the decade that follows, they see all the downsizing and see the threats to job security, and so by 1994, we're expecting the survey to reflect their newfound pessimism. But this is saying that the 1984 survey already reflected that pessimism. It didn't develop in the years after 1984 once the layoff began. It developed in the years prior to 1984 because people knew the layoffs were coming.

   12%
4. D

   Helps Explain6% picked this

   Most of the major downsizing during this period was completed within a year after

   This allows us to tell a story where 1984 showed average employee confidence in job security. Then, most of the major downsizing happened within a year or two of that survey. So, if 1984 saw 58% of employees confident in job security, by the time 1986 rolled around, a survey would have shown only 35% of employees were confident (after having witnessed the major downsizing that took place in 1985). But from 1986 - 1994, there wasn't much major downsizing, so employee confidence re-grew back to around its 1984 level by the time we get to 1994.

   6%
5. E

   Helps Explain9% picked this

   In the mid-1990s, people were generally more optimistic about their lives, even in the face of hardship, than

   This allows us to tell the story that even though job confidence should have been lower in 1994, in the face of the hardship of a decade of downsizing, people had become more optimistic. So it's counteracting the force of pessimistic realism with extra doses of optimism. An optimist facing a bad jobs market (1994) and a pessimist facing a good jobs market (1984) might have the same overall confidence level.

   9%