The New Professor (Scenario)

question 40

Multiple Choice

The New Professor (Scenario)
Samir has recently received his Ph.D. and has begun teaching at a large university. Prior to his first day of class, Samir's department head had lunch with him and explained what was expected of a new professor in terms of maintaining discipline in his classroom, providing students with a challenging course, and keeping grades down. Later that week Samir met with other professors in a faculty meeting. During that meeting, a number of issues were discussed and, although Samir did not agree with all of them, he did not feel comfortable discussing his position because he was a new assistant professor and the others were more senior. However, in watching the reactions of other professors, he got the feeling that some of them disagreed with a few issues, too, but did not want to say anything because doing so might be disruptive.
-The reluctance of Samir's senior professors to voice their opposition to several issues in order to maintain group harmony is an example of ________.

• A) role conflict
• B) role ambiguity
• C) social loafing
• D) groupthink