Final answer:
In an exothermic process, heat is released to the surroundings, increasing the entropy due to the higher temperature and increased molecular motion.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a system process is exothermic, it adds heat to the surroundings, increasing the entropy of the surroundings. An exothermic process occurs when heat is released by the system into the surroundings, resulting in the surroundings gaining heat and an increase in temperature. The sign of q for an exothermic process is negative because the system is losing heat. Entropy, a measure of disorder or randomness in a system, tends to increase when a system gains heat, since the molecules in the surroundings move more vigorously and become more disordered.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of the surroundings increases during an exothermic process. Since the release of heat to the surroundings corresponds to the dispersion of energy, it can be concluded that this transfer of heat from a hotter system to a colder surroundings will always result in a net increase in entropy.