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Question

Difficulty: MediumWeaken

Organizational Psychologist: A study tracked twenty mid-sized technology firms that replaced assigned private cubicles with unassigned, open-plan workstations. Over the subsequent two years, documented collaborations between employees from different functional departments increased by thirty percent. The researchers concluded that eliminating assigned seating directly increased interdepartmental collaboration by encouraging spontaneous daily interactions among employees who otherwise would not meet.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the organizational psychologist's argument?

  1. A
    Prior to the workstation transition, employees in these firms spent the vast majority of their working hours interacting solely with colleagues seated immediately adjacent to them.
  2. B
    Employees at technology firms that maintain assigned seating generally report higher overall job satisfaction than employees who share unassigned desks.
  3. The firms transitioned to unassigned workstations as part of a broader corporate restructuring that mandated cross-departmental project teams for all major product initiatives.Answer
  4. D
    The tracking methods used during the two-year study failed to record several informal, undocumented conversations that occurred in hallway areas.
  5. E
    No employee in any open-plan work environment can ever maintain sustained concentration on complex individual assignments.

Answer

The statement showing that the firms adopted unassigned workstations concurrently with a corporate restructuring that mandated cross-departmental teams directly undermines the conclusion by introducing an alternative cause.
The correct response introduces an alternative explanation for the thirty percent increase in cross-departmental collaborations. If the firms simultaneously enacted a restructuring that explicitly mandated interdepartmental project teams, this corporate requirement—rather than spontaneous daily interactions enabled by open-plan seating—is likely responsible for the documented increase. This severs the inferred causal connection between the physical seating layout and the collaborative outcome.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the argument's structure and identify the conclusion and premises.
Premise: Moving to unassigned workstations correlated with a 30% increase in interdepartmental collaborations. Conclusion: The seating change directly caused the increase via spontaneous interactions.
Weaken questions require identifying the exact causal gap between the evidence (correlation) and the author's claim (causation).
2
Identify the primary flaw or underlying assumption in the author's reasoning.
The author assumes that no other concurrent policy or confounding factor was responsible for the increase in cross-departmental collaborations.
Causal conclusions are vulnerable to alternative explanations, reverse causation, or third-variable confounders.
3
Evaluate the answer choices to find the one that introduces an effective alternative cause.
The finding that the workstation change was part of a company-wide restructuring requiring joint project teams provides a direct alternative explanation for the rise in collaborations.
Demonstrating that an institutional mandate occurred simultaneously undermines the claim that seating-induced spontaneous interactions were the cause.

Key Concept

Causal reasoning and alternative explanations in Logical Reasoning arguments
Estimated Time:1m 15s
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