In the decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, large corporations were rocked by mergers, re-engineering, and downsizing. These events significantly undermined employees' job security. Surprisingly, however, employees' perception of their own job security hardly changed over that period. Fifty-eight percent of employees surveyed in 1984 and 55 percent surveyed in 1994 stated that their own jobs were very secure. Each of the following contributes to an explanation of the surprising survey results described above EXCEPT: ['The corporate downsizing that took place during this period had been widely anticipated for several years before the mid-1980s.', 'A large number of the people in both surveys work in small companies that were not affected by mergers, re-engineering, and downsizing.', 'In the mid-1 990s, people were generally more optimistic about their lives, even in the face of hardship, than they were a decade before.', 'Employees who feel secure in their jobs tend to think that the jobs of others are secure.']