Final answer:
Leniency is the correct answer as it represents a type of distributional error in performance ratings where evaluators rate all employees too positively, ignoring their actual performance levels.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student has asked which of the following performance rating errors is an example of a distributional error. The correct answer is b) Leniency, which signifies a type of distributional error where an evaluator rates all employees on the high side of the scale, regardless of their actual performance. This contrasts with halo and horn effects, which are consistency errors where an evaluator allows one trait to influence all other areas of performance positively or negatively. The recency effect is a temporal error that occurs when the most recent behavior of an employee unduly influences their evaluation.