RC 18.03

It is said that for a corporation, the 'unhappy customers are its
greatest source of learning' and these words are frequently used in
business meetings and training workshops for employees engaged in
customer relationship management (CRM) activities. These famous words
were spoken by Bill Gates, at that time, when the world was
re-discovering the art of listening to the customers by implementing
better CRM practices.

A company could discover important insights from their customers
(whether happy or unhappy) and use these insights to improve processes
and products so that they can make it better for their future
customers. So when Whirlpool launched their washing machines way back
in India, they listened to their 'unhappy customers' and realized that
the typical Indian dress such as a saree or a dhoti were too big to be
washed properly in their machines. Hence, they did some product
redesign and launched a series of washing machines catering to the
Indian customer's needs – and this translated to increased sales and
market share for the company.

Some companies even went out and made drastic changes in their product
offerings – changes that were fundamentally opposite to their
corporate strategy – after they listened to their 'unhappy customers'.
Some of the examples are KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) offering a
'vegetable thali' to their customers in Delhi and Maxwell House Coffee
repositioning their product as a 'fruit drink' to attract Jewish
customers during the fasting season of 'Passover' in Israel. Companies
like Starbucks learned from their 'happy customers' that integrating
the shop design to suit the local culture was the key to success and
they started implementing this strategy with great success in their
global expansion.

Hence, there always was something to be learnt from the customers and
this has been the fundamental motivation for all CRM aficionados.
However, in the last couple of years, since the advent of a new kind
of communication medium, the customers have been empowered to reach
out to millions of other customers in a matter of seconds and this has
drastically changed the way in which they can share their experiences
about products and services – and the way in which companies can
respond (if at all) to such information.

This new medium called 'social media' has proved to be a game-changer
in the way people communicate with other people. So, when an American
Airlines customer was not happy with the way the cabin crew behaved
with him, he simply went ahead and posted his experience on a social
networking site which went viral i.e. got read and shared by millions
of other people, and within days, the Airways had to compensate him
for 'shutting up'. Incidentally, American Airlines is designated as
'most hated' on social media according to a research done by Amplicate
in October, 2011.

In such a communication environment, where any negative experience can
be shared with so many people instantaneously, the new reality for a
corporation is that the 'unhappy customers are its greatest source of
pain'.



1.According to the passage, how has social media changed the role that
unhappy customers play in a company's strategy?
a)
Unhappy customers are now more forthright in providing feedback to the
companies through the new communication channel called social media.
b)
Social media has made it easier for customers to voice negative
sentiments against any company.
c)
Unhappy customers can easily publicize their negative feedback against
any company and can rapidly damage the reputation of the company.
d)
Unhappy customers use social media to publicize their criticisms more
than happy customers do to publicize their commendations.


2.DIRECTIONS for question 2: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



Which of the following can be inferred with reference to the phrase
"new reality for a corporation" mentioned in the last paragraph of the
passage?



Select all that apply:

a)
Listening to unhappy customers will result in companies making changes
diametrically opposite to their corporate strategy.
b)
Since unhappy customers are able to share their negative feedback
rapidly, companies sometimes cannot address these issues in time.
c)
There is more to learn for companies from its unhappy customers and
not doing so will cause a great damage to the company's reputation.
d)
Unhappy customers can damage a company's reputation by filing
complaints in the consumer court.



3.According to the passage, what was the primary reason for American
Airlines being designated as 'most hated' on social media in October
2011?
a)
The customer who was not happy with the service provided by American
Airlines used social media to publicize his experience which resulted
in American Airlines being designated as the 'most hated' on social
media.
b)
American Airlines, instead of apologizing and promising a better
service in the future, tried to pay the customer who was not happy
with their service to stop publicizing his experience which was not
received well by the users of social media.
c)
The service of American Airlines was poor in general and the example
of the customer provided in the passage is only one among many.
d)
The incident of the customer given in the passage may or may not have
played a part in American Airlines being designated as 'most hated' on
social media and there is not enough information given in the passage
to deduce the exact reason.

4.The changes introduced by KFC and Maxwell House Coffee, as mentioned
in the passage, would be best described as
a)
oxymoronic.
b)
paradoxical.
c)
superficial.
d)
chicane.


**********************


Police-induced false confessions have long been recognized as one of
the leading causes of miscarriages of justice in America.
Nevertheless, the incidence and prevalence of false confessions is not
presently known.

There are at least three reasons why this statistic has eluded
investigators. First, for the most part custodial interrogation is
conducted in secret: Police question suspects in private, and
typically do not record the entire interrogation in stenographic,
audio or video form. Second, police do not keep records or collect
statistics on the number or frequency of accusatory interrogations
they conduct. Therefore, we know neither how often suspects are
interrogated nor how often they confess, whether truthfully or
falsely. Third, many cases of false confession are likely to go
entirely unreported. Even in reported cases it is frequently difficult
to unequivocally establish the ground truth about the crime,
especially since in confession driven prosecutions the suspect is
likely to be convicted. Because it is not possible to reliably
estimate the actual number of unknown false confessions, it is also
impossible to estimate how often false confessions lead to wrongful
convictions.

Nevertheless, at least three sources of empirical evidence suggest
that false confessions occur regularly: case studies, laboratory
research, and these authors' published and unpublished study of
interrogations that result in false confession. First, in recent years
scholars and journalists have documented numerous cases of
psychologically induced false confessions in America. Because a
multitude of factors contribute to false confessions going unnoticed,
unreported or unacknowledged, it is reasonable to presume that the
reported cases represent the tip of the iceberg. Only the most
egregious and high profile cases involving demonstrably false
confessions are likely to be written about in the academic or the
popular literature.

Second, psychological research has demonstrated through controlled
laboratory experimentation that a very commonly used interrogation
technique has a coercive impact on suspects and is thus likely to be a
source of false confession. Kassin and McNall (1991) examined how the
sentencing expectations of seventy-five subjects were affected by the
two prongs of the accident strategy: "maximization" (i.e.,
exaggerating the strength of the evidence, magnitude of the charges,
or seriousness of the offense) and "minimization" (i.e., playing down
the strength of the evidence, magnitude of the charges or seriousness
of the offense). Using the video-tape of a police interrogation and
accompanying transcript but varying the information presented, Kassin
and McNall (1991) found that through "pragmatic implication,"
maximization effectively communicates a threat of harm, while
minimization communicates a promise of leniency. The technique is
advocated by the leading interrogation training manual and commonly
used in practice.

Reading "between the lines," suspects exposed to these tactics infer
harsh or lenient sentencing outcomes just as if the differing
consequences had been blatantly threatened or promised. Both direct
and indirect techniques for communicating threats or promises rely on
the same logic to precipitate a suspect's decision to confess. They
change the result of the person's rational calculation about what to
do through the introduction of a strong incentive to confess, and/or a
strong disincentive to remain silent. The modern interrogator's shift
from a direct to an indirect method for communicating benefits or
harms is little more than a method for eliciting confessions by
circumventing well-established legal protections.

Third, these authors have discovered numerous examples of probable or
confirmed false confessions. One line of research involves the
analysis of well over 150 interrogation transcripts, and the analysis
of sworn testimony describing interrogations. The second line involves
studying nearly 200 interrogations, interviewing approximately 100
police interrogators, analysing interrogation transcripts, and
collecting data on approximately 175 likely or proven post-Miranda era
false confessions. Both lines of inquiry have led to repeated
observations of the process whereby interrogators manipulate suspects
and coerce or persuade them to confess to crimes that they did not
commit. In some interrogations, such as those directed against the
mentally handicapped, false confessions can be elicited rapidly and
with minimal inducements. Most often, however, eliciting a false
confession takes strong incentives, intense pressure and prolonged
questioning.



5.Which of the following statements can be the closest inference from
the author's statement when he talks about modern investigators
"circumventing well-established legal protections"?
a)
Confessions drawn through pragmatic implication cannot be used to
convict a suspect in the court of law.
b)
Any technique, direct or indirect, that communicates threats and
impacts a suspect's decision to confess is illegal.
c)
Eliciting a confession from a suspect by directly threatening or by
directly communicating benefits to the suspect is illegal.
d)
It is easier and less time consuming to obtain a confession using
indirect methods rather than through direct methods.


6.Which of the following instances most accurately represents an
example of maximization technique?
a)
An interrogator threatens the suspect that unless he confesses, the
interrogation is not going to end.
b)
An interrogator tells the suspect that officers found his finger
prints on the murder weapon, even if they did not.
c)
An interrogator tells the suspect that the crime is justified because
the victim would have provoked him.
d)
An interrogator seemingly sympathizes with the suspect and tries to
elicit more information from the suspect.


7.DIRECTIONS for questions 7 and 8: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



Which of the following statements represent(s) a source of empirical
evidence which suggests that false confessions occur regularly?



Select all that apply:

a)
Academic study of high profile cases which involve false confessions.
b)
Research about the psychological impact of established interrogatory techniques.
c)
Analysis of a number of interrogation transcripts through data
collection on false confessions.
d)
Analysing the confessions of suspects in those cases where the ground
truth about the crime has been established.


8.DIRECTIONS for questions 7 and 8: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



According to the passage, which of the following statements can be
inferred from the psychological research conducted through "controlled
laboratory experimentation"?



Select all that apply:

a)
The accident strategy blatantly communicates threats and/or benefits
to the suspect and results in false confessions.
b)
The accident strategy is effective for communicating threats rather
than for communicating benefits.
c)
The accident strategy coerces the suspect into providing false
confession by communicating veiled threats and benefits.
d)
The accident strategy is one of the primary techniques used for
eliciting false confessions from suspects.


*********************************



All over the world, languages are being lost at an alarming rate.
Field linguists do their best to preserve these languages, but find
their speaker communities apathetic. "Why should I learn
Wotʃa-Korlitt?" they ask, "It's Spanish I need to get a job." We need
to look at successful languages, whose speakers are engaged with their
language, to see what endangered languages can learn from them. When
we do, we inevitably find that the most successful languages are those
which possess a tradition of prescriptivist grammar. English has an
army of armchair pedants who tell us all to never split an infinitive,
that the passive should be avoided, and that prepositions must not be
used to end a sentence with. French has the Academie Française to
pronounce arbitrary bans on loanwords, and Spanish the Real Academia
Española, which aims to ensure everybody talks like Cervantes. The
Chinese are taught from an early age to regard all Sinitic languages
as dialects of Mandarin.

All these languages were originally documented by their own speakers,
who made up arbitrary rules to show off their own cleverness. The
results are invigorating. Such rules are endlessly debated, denounced,
defended and defied, and as a result, the speakers care about their
language.

Contrast the situation with endangered languages. These are documented
by outsiders, schooled in the descriptivist method, and content to
simply record what they find. Their work may result in a Bible
translation, but that is as close to arbitrary commandments as they're
likely to get.

A new approach is necessary. Fieldworkers should no longer passively
describe a language. They must set out to create new rules for the
language, so as to stimulate the debate that keeps a language alive.
As such rules must be internally unmotivated, the researcher needs to
think carefully about where to obtain them. A good strategy is to copy
rules from a language that the speaker community considers
prestigious, as English pedants do with Latin. In South America,
Spanish or Portuguese would be the first choice, although it may be
wise to base rules on the European form of the language rather than
the local one. This approach has two advantages – those who accept the
new rule will see it as conferring the prestige of the dominant
language on their own, whereas those who reject it will see the
dominant language as tainted by association with the hated rule.

Other researchers may prefer to manufacture rules based on theoretical
considerations. This raises the question of which framework to use for
the purpose. On one level, it makes little difference, as they will
all be equally incomprehensible to the speaker community, but I would
recommend Metasyntactic Heuristics, since it is now understood only by
two aging academics in remote English universities, and they haven't
spoken to each other for 25 years.

Our fieldworkers are now reporting back from the first trials of this
method. We are still analysing their findings, but one has reported
spectacular results from convincing an Amazonian tribe that they are
not allowed to discuss abstract concepts.



9.According to the passage, what can field linguists who are trying to
prevent a language from becoming endangered learn from successful
languages?
a)
The apathy of the speakers of successful languages that can be
replicated in the speaker communities of endangered languages.
b)
The importance of arbitrary rules in the successful languages which
results in speakers caring about their language.
c)
The benefits provided by learning a successful language which are not
present in endangered languages.
d)
The importance of academies like Academie Française for French, Real
Academia Española for Spanish, in keeping a language alive.


10.The fundamental difference between the prescriptivist and the
descriptivist method of studying a language, as can be inferred from
the passage, is that the prescriptivist method
a)
is used in successful languages whereas descriptivist method is used
in endangered languages.
b)
results in speakers of the language becoming apathetic whereas
descriptivist method results in speakers who are passionate about
their language.
c)
involves creation of arbitrary rules to spark linguistic debates
whereas descriptivist method involves passive description of a
language.
d)
is mostly applicable for European languages whereas descriptivist
method is applicable for Native American languages.



11.When the author humourously states that, "English has an army of
armchair pedants… to end a sentence with," he is most likely resorting
to which of the following literary devices?
a)
Irony
b)
Parody
c)
Hyperbole
d)
Allusion


12.DIRECTIONS for question 12: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



According to the passage, which of the following strategies can help
in keeping languages alive?



Select all that apply:

a)
Manufacturing rules on the basis of a theoretical framework which will
spark debate and improve the connection between speakers and
languages.
b)
Borrowing linguistic guidelines from a dominant language which will
improve the prestige of the endangered language in the eyes of the
speaker community.
c)
Creating new rules borrowed from a dominant language which will result
in the dominant language losing its reputation in the eyes of the
speakers of the endangered language.
d)
Manufacturing rules according to the preferences of the field
researcher such that he can modify and improve the endangered
language.



*********************************



The mystical approaches to the study of creativity have probably made
it harder for scientific psychologists to be heard. Many people seem
to believe, as they do about love, that creativity is something that
just doesn't lend itself to scientific study, because it is a
spiritual process. We believe that it has been hard for the scientific
approach to shake the deep-seated view of some people that, somehow,
scientific psychologists are treading where they should not.
Equally damaging to the scientific study of creativity, in our view,
has been the takeover of the field, in the popular mind, by those who
follow what might be referred to as a pragmatic approach. Those taking
this approach have been concerned primarily with developing
creativity, secondarily with understanding it, but almost not at all
with testing the validity of their ideas about it.

Perhaps the foremost proponent of this approach is Edward De Bono,
whose work on lateral thinking and other aspects of creativity has had
what appears to be considerable commercial success. De Bono's concern
is not with theory, but with practice. For example, he suggests using
a tool that focuses on the aspects of an idea that are pluses,
minuses, and interesting (such as PMI). Or he suggests using the word
po, derived from hypothesis, suppose, possible, and poetry, to provoke
rather than judge ideas. Another tool, that of "thinking hats," has
individuals metaphorically wear different hats, such as a white hat
for data-based thinking, a red hat for intuitive thinking, a black hat
for critical thinking, and a green hat for generative thinking, in
order to stimulate seeing things from different points of view.

De Bono is not alone in this enterprise. Osborn (1953), based on his
experiences in advertising agencies, developed the technique of
brainstorming to encourage people to solve problems creatively by
seeking many possible solutions in an atmosphere that is constructive
rather than critical and inhibitory. Gordon (1961) also attempted to
simulate creative thinking by a method called synectics, which
primarily involves analogies.

More recently, authors such as Adams (1974/1986) and Von Oech (1983)
have suggested that people often construct a series of false beliefs
that interfere with creative functioning. For example, some people
believe that there is only one right answer and that ambiguity must be
avoided whenever possible. People can become creative by identifying
and removing these mental blocks. Also, Von Oech has suggested that we
need to adopt the roles of explorer, artist, judge, and warrior in
order to foster our creative productivity.

These approaches have had considerable public visibility, in much the
way that Leo Buscaglia has given visibility to the study of love. And
they may well be useful. From our point of view as psychologists,
however, these approaches lack any basis in serious psychological
theory, as well as serious empirical attempts to validate them. Of
course, techniques can work in the absence of psychological theory or
validation. But the effect of such approaches is often to leave people
associating a phenomenon with commercialization and to see it as less
than a serious endeavour for psychological study.



13.According to the passage, the similarity between mystical approach
and the pragmatic approach to the study of creativity is that both the
approaches
a)
contribute to the scientific study of creativity by providing
knowledge about the nature of creativity.
b)
serve as road blocks to the scientific study of creativity.
c)
use techniques for fostering creativity among individuals.
d)
are similar to the study of love.


14.The similarity between the various pragmatic approaches proposed by
the authors in the passage is that these approaches
a)
rely on empirical evidence to validate the theories related to these approaches.
b)
are easily comprehensible to the common man.
c)
are all commercially successful.
d)
provide constructs for thinking creatively.

15.According to the author, the major shortcoming common to all the
pragmatic approaches mentioned in the passage is that
a)
these approaches do not yield any results.
b)
these approaches are only a means of commercializing the study of creativity.
c)
these approaches are not validated through evidence.
d)
the popularity of these approaches hinder the scientific study of creativity.

16.Which of the following would most likely be a technique in the
creative thinking method called synectics mentioned in the passage?
a)
The original problem is alienated by creating a comparable situation
to develop creative solutions.
b)
Participants assume different roles to develop solutions with
different points of view.
c)
Participants do not reject any theory and listen to all possible
solutions with an open mind.
d)
The repercussions of every solution are considered so that the optimal
solution can be determined.