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Stress and performance
... Human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) theories and research have mostly emphasized sensory/perceptual, cognitive, and psychomotor processes (Proctor & Van Zandt, 2008;Sanders & McCormick, 1993;Wickens, Lee, Liu, & Gordon-Becker, 2003), although there has been some work on how emotion and personality affect human-technology interaction (e.g., Hancock, Pepe, & Murphy, 2005;Helander & Tham, 2003;Szalma, 2008Szalma, , 2009. With respect to emotion, authors of much of this work have been concerned either with the influence of stress on performance (e.g., Broadbent, 1971) and humanmachine interaction (Hancock & Szalma, 2008) or with the design of interfaces and tasks to be emotionally satisfying or even pleasurable (e.g., Hancock et al., 2005;Helander & Tham, 2003;Jordan, 2000;McDonagh, Hekkert, Van Erp, & Gyi, 2004;Norman, 2004). ...
... The (implicit) assumption has been that the operator or user is already motivated or that lack of motivation can be ameliorated by application of organizational science-that motivation is outside the purview of HF/E. However, it is now clear that technology itself can induce or exacerbate boredom (Cooke, Cummings, Hancock, Marras, & Warm, 2010;Cummings, Mastracchio, Thornburg, & Mkrtchyan, 2013;Hancock, 2013) and stress (e.g., Szalma, Hancock, & Hancock, 2012), which can place performance at risk (Hancock & Szalma, 2008). In fact, boredom and disengagement can be considered adaptive responses of individuals to poorly designed environments (Hancock, 2013), and the prevalence of boredom in technology use underscores the need for consideration of motivation theory in HF/E. ...
Motivation is a driving force in human-technology interaction. This paper represents an effort to (a) describe a theoretical model of motivation in human technology interaction, (b) provide design principles and guidelines based on this theory, and (c) describe a sequence of steps for the. evaluation of motivational factors in human-technology interaction.
Motivation theory has been relatively neglected in human factors/ergonomics (HF/E). In both research and practice, the (implicit) assumption has been that the operator is already motivated or that motivation is an organizational concern and beyond the purview of HF/E. However, technology can induce task-related boredom (e.g., automation) that can be stressful and also increase system vulnerability to performance failures.
A theoretical model of motivation in human-technology interaction is proposed, based on extension of the self-determination theory of motivation to HF/E. This model provides the basis for both future research and for development of practical recommendations for design.
General principles and guidelines for motivational design are described as well as a sequence of steps for the design process.
Human motivation is an important concern for HF/E research and practice. Procedures in the design of both simple and complex technologies can, and should, include the evaluation of motivational characteristics of the task, interface, or system. In addition, researchers should investigate these factors in specific human-technology domains.
The theory, principles, and guidelines described here can be incorporated into existing techniques for task analysis and for interface and system design.
... One such factor that is commonly attributed as a predictor of team cognition and performance is workload (Bowers et al. 1997). Research suggests that there is a complex relationship between workload and performance, i.e., to some degree there is a positive correlation between workload and performance, but when the workload becomes too high, it induces negative stress and consequently performance will drop (Hancock and Szalma 2008). More refined instruments have been created to measure specific components of teamwork or moderating factors thereof, such as the NASA 3 Task Load Index (NASA TLX), which focuses explicitly on workload by measuring individual (1) mental demand, (2) physical demand, (3) temporal demand, (4) performance, (5) effort, and (6) frustration level on interval scales (Hart and Staveland 1988). ...
Human factors research popularly employs perception-based techniques to investigate team performance and its dependency to cognitive processes. Such studies frequently rely upon either observer-based or self-assessment techniques to collect data. In this study, we examined behavioral observer ratings and self-assessment ratings for measuring team performance in virtual teams, with team performance regarded as a combination of task outcome and team cognition. Juxtaposing self-assessments and observer ratings from a quasi-experiment comparing team performance rating techniques reveals that they indeed produce overall similar results, with both singling out teamwork effectiveness ratings as the strongest contributor to overall team performance. However, the comparisons show remarkably low correlation on individual questionnaire items. The most striking difference is that the team members’ self-assessments of workload are lower than the corresponding observer ratings. In particular, the self-assessments do not correlate at all with overall team performance, whereas the observers’ workload ratings are more consistent with contemporary research that suggests a strong correlation between workload and team performance, suggesting that observer-based techniques are more reliable than self-assessments for assessing workload. For other ratings, the results show that the two techniques are fairly equal, suggesting that the choice between methods to employ can be deferred to other considerations such as obtrusiveness, accessibility, and resource availability.
... It is, therefore, of great concern that developers face many challenges to success, including the need to cope with large projects that are highly complex and volatile (Wallace et al. 2004). The challenges lead to increasing levels of stress among developers (CIO Magazine 2012), which interferes with their self-regulation of emotions and cognitions (Hancock and Szalma 2008), and negatively affects their performance. This raises a critical question that remains unanswered: how do technical ISD risk factors lead to developer stress? ...
The success of information systems development (ISD) projects depends on the developers who deliver them. However, developers face many challenges in bringing an ISD project to successful completion. These projects are often large, highly complex, with volatile targets, creating a stressful environment for developers. Although prior literature has considered how technical ISD risk factors, such as project size, complexity and target volatility, impact team- and project-level outcomes, their impact on developers has received limited attention. This gap in the literature is problematic for two reasons: (1) the interplay between individuals and project characteristics are unaccounted for, resulting in an incomplete picture of ISD; and (2) individual-level stress has been shown to reduce team performance. In this research, we examine the role of empowering leadership in reducing developer stress in ISD. We develop a multilevel model of the influence of empowering leadership on the relationship between technical ISD risk factors and developers’ role perceptions and explore the consequences for developers’ stress. The model was tested in a field study of 350 developers in 73 ISD teams from a large U.S.-based firm. Results showed that empowering leadership ameliorated the negative effects of project size and target volatility on role ambiguity, as well as the negative effects of project size, complexity, and target volatility on role conflict and stress. We also found that empowering leadership reduced role ambiguity, role conflict, and stress directly, and that role ambiguity and role conflict increased stress. Project size, complexity, and target volatility were found to increase empowering leadership behaviors. We conclude that empowering leadership can be an effective means of helping developers cope with technical ISD risk factors and discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice.
... Attempts to understand performance under stress, it is thought, will provide insights into how best to train individuals to perform in stressful domains such as aviation, law enforcement, the military, and emergency medicine (Inzana et al. 1996;Nieuwenhuys et al. 2009). Despite interest in performance under stress in these (real) domains, articles on this topic have mainly involved laboratory-based studies (Hancock and Szalma 2008). The laboratory allows researchers to isolate stress factors and their causal effects on specific performance parameters. ...
Research on decision-making under stress has mainly involved laboratory-based studies with few contextual descriptions of decision-making under stress in the natural ecology. We examined how police officers prepared for, coped with, and made decisions under threat-of-death stress during real events. A delayed retrospective report method was used to elicit skilled police officers’ thoughts and feelings during attempts to resolve such events. Reports were analyzed to identify experiences of stress and coping, and thought processes underpinning decision-making during the event. Officers experienced a wide range of events, coped with stress predominantly via problem-focused strategies, and adapted their decision-making under stress based on the available context. Future officer training should involve a greater variety of training scenarios than is involved in current training, and expose trainees to the possible variants of each situation to foster better situational representation and, thus, a more reliable and adaptive mental model for use in decision-making.
Practitioner Summary
This study concerns decision-making and coping strategies used by skilled police officers during real threat-of-death situations. Officers’ decision-making strategies differed according to the complexity of the situation and they coped with the stress of these situations via attempts to resolve the situations (e.g., by planning responses) and, to a lesser extent, via attempts to deal with their emotions.
... İlk olarak 1930'lu yıllarda kullanılan stres kavramı, vücudun dış kaynaklı bir uyarana verdiği bir reaksiyon olarak tanımlanmıştır (Selye, 1977: 23-25). Davranışsal bilimin birçok alanında olduğu gibi stresin de çok boyutluluğu ve karmaşıklığı nedeniyle stresin tanımı konusunda fikir birliğine varılamamıştır (Hancock ve Szalma, 2008: 4). Stres, aşırı iş yükü ve sürekli değişen planlar gibi bir takım çevresel durumlarla yüzleşen birinde görülen, bir takım fiziksel ve duygusal reaksiyonları da ifade edebilmektedir (Gangster, 2008: 260). ...
Özet Bireyler ve örgütler zaman içerisinde çeşitli değişimlere maruz kalmaktadır. Bu değişimlere adapte olamayan bireylerin ve örgütlerin strese maruz kalmaları kaçınılmazdır. Bu araştırmada, bankacılık sektörü çalışanlarının maruz kaldıkları örgütsel (örgütsel yapı ve politikalardan, işin yapısından ve kişilerarası ilişkilerden kaynakla-nan) ve bireysel stres kaynakları arasındaki ilişkilerin belirlenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Ayrıca, stres kaynaklarının demografik değişkenlere göre farklılık gösterip göstermediği incelenmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda, bireysel stres faktörleri ile örgütsel stres faktörleri arasında anlamlı ilişkiler olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Demografik değişkenler açısından incelendiğinde ise; kurumdaki çalışma süresi ile işin yapısı ve kişilerarası ilişkilerden kaynaklanan stres faktörleri; statü ile kişiler arası ilişkilerden kaynaklanan stres faktörleri arasında anlamlı ilişkiler bulunmuştur. Ayrıca tüm stres faktörleri arasında pozitif ve anlamlı korelasyon-lar gözlenmiştir. Abstract Individuals and organizations face various changes during the time. If those individuals and organizations cannot adapt the changes, they are inevitably exposed to stress. In this study it is aimed to investigate the relationship between the sources of individual and organizational stress (occur from organizational structure and policies, structure of the job and the relations between the individuals). Besides, it is examined whether those stress sources differs according to socio-demographic variables. According to the results it is found that there is a significant relationship between individual stress factors and organizational stress factors. For demographic variables the results are as follows: there is a significant relation between the seniority and the job structure and stress factors arise from interpersonal relations, also significant relations found between status and stress factors arise from interpersonal relations. In general , there is a significant positive corelation among all stress factors.
... An inhibitory deficit implies lower selective attention performance (Hasher & Zacks, 1988;Zacks & Hasher, 1997) Perceived mental workload Perceived relative balance between the mental resources required to perform a task in a given time (e.g., working memory capacity) and the mental resources available (Hart & Staveland, 1988;Warburton, 1979;Wickens et al., 2004) Interruption self-efficacy Extent to which individuals believe in their ability to be successful at their tasks even in the presence of interruptions (Bandura, 1997) Stress Extent to which an individual responds to a perceived misfit between resource demands and availability for a task (Folkman & Lazarus, 1984;Lazarus, 1999) 1984, p. 19). Much contemporary stress research follows this view, which implies that stress arises from a perceived misfit between resource supply and demand (Hancock & Szalma, 2008). One key instantiation of this view of stress is the P-E fit perspective (French et al., 1982). ...
Background and objectives:
The ubiquity of instant messages and email notifications in contemporary work environments has opened a Pandora's Box. This box is filled with countless interruptions coming from laptops, smartphones, and other devices, all of which constantly call for employees' attention. In this interruption era, workplace stress is a pervasive problem. To examine this problem, the present study hypothesizes that the three-way interaction among the frequency with which interrupting stimuli appear, their salience, and employees' deficits in inhibiting attentional responses to them impacts mental workload perceptions, ultimately leading to stress. The study, further, probes a related form of self-efficacy as a potential suppressor of interruption-based stress.
Design:
The study used a 2 (low vs. high frequency) × 2 (low vs. high salience) mixed model design.
Methods:
The 128 subjects completed a test of their inhibitory deficits and rated their mental workload perceptions and experiences of stress following a computer-based task.
Results:
Inhibitory deficits and increased interruption salience can alter the perception of mental workload in contemporary work environments for the worse, but interruption self-efficacy can help offset any resulting interruption-based stress.
Conclusions:
This study extends the literatures on work interruptions as well as on stress and coping in the workplace.
Stress experienced by emergency medical providers during the resuscitation of critically ill or injured patients can cause cognitive and technical performance to deteriorate. Psychological skills training offers a reasonable and easily implemented solution to this problem. In this article, a specific set of 4 performance-enhancing psychological skills is introduced: breathe, talk, see, and focus. These skills comprise breathing techniques, positive self-talk, visualization or mental practice, and implementing a focus "trigger word." The evidence supporting these concepts in various domains is reviewed and specific methods for adapting them to the environment of resuscitation and emergency medicine are provided.
We investigated how the design of instructions can affect performance in preparing emergency stair travel devices for the evacuation of disable individuals. We had three hypotheses: 1) Design of instructions would account for a significant portion of explained performance variance, 2) Improvements in design of instructions would reduce time on task across device type and age group, and 3) There would be a performance decrement for older adults compared to younger adults based on the slowing of older adult information processing abilities. Results showed that design of instructions does indeed account for a large portion of explained variance in the operation of emergency stair travel devices, and that improvements in design of instructions can reduce time on task across device type and age group. However, encouragingly for real-world operations, results did not indicate any significant differences between older versus younger adults. We look to explore ways that individuals with disabilities can exploit these insights to enhance the performance of emergency stair travel devices for use.
Long-duration space flight demands prolonged exposure to a myriad of stressors which manifest and interact over time. Despite a significant body of work dedicated to identifying, mitigating, and managing the effects of stress on performance, a clear theoretical foundation explicating the ways in which interactions among stressors occurs, as well as how and when stress develops chronically remains unclear. Additionally, it is not yet well understood how such temporal and interactive effects impact performance at multiple-levels of analysis, including both individual and team performance. The current paper presents an innovative theoretical approach for unpacking these complex relationships, forming a foundation for understanding their impact on dynamic episodes of individual and team performance. Copyright 2010 by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
This study examined associations between sensation seeking and perceived need for structure, and changes in reported well-being among deployed soldiers. Participants (n = 167) were assessed before and after a six-month deployment to south Afghanistan. Results indicated that although well-being declined in the soldier sample as a whole following deployment, the degree of decrease was significantly different among soldiers with different personality profiles. Differences were moderated by soldiers’ level of sensation seeking and perceived need for structure. Results are discussed in terms of a person-environment fit theory in the context of preparation and rehabilitation of deployed military personnel.
Evidence from various experiments indicates that under conditions of arousal, Ss are less attentive to information occurring in the visual periphery. It is not clear whether these findings resulted from the fact that the information presented to S's visual periphery was irrelevant to his primary task or from the fact that aroused Ss are less sensitive to peripheral visual information of any kind. In this study, with undergraduates, the peripheral visual cues were task relevant. Aroused Ss showed no reduction in range of cue use, and findings indicate that they used the peripheral visual cues to a significantly greater degree than did nonaroused Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter begins with a brief overview of the major conceptual approaches to the study of stress, including a short historical account and a précis of the more recent stress theories. It discusses how an understanding of stress helps shape and direct new, emerging concepts in neuroergonomics. It then considers the issue of individual differences and the effects on stress in individuals, and ethical issues related to monitoring and mitigating stress in the workplace.
This paper examines the combined effects of heat and noise upon behavioral measures of human performance. Specifically, capabilities on a variety of neuromuscular and mental tasks are reviewed with respect to their vulnerability to joint thermal and acoustic action. The majority of evidence indicates that such stressors do not interact significantly within the ranges experienced commonly in the industrial setting. However, various experimental and methodological inadequacies in the meager data base caution at the present time against a simple interpretation of this apparent insensitivity.
Carried out an experiment with 12 enlisted navy men, who performed 3 tasks (a) in 102-db low-frequency noise, (b) at 38./33.C (dry-bulb/wet-bulb temperatures), (c) with the 2 stresses combined, and (d) in a control condition. The 3 tasks were tracking with peripheral lights, the 5-choice task, and visual vigilance, in that order. The low-frequency noise had a beneficial effect upon all 3 tasks. It interacted with the mild heat on the tracking task and on false detections in the vigilance task. Results are related to behavioral arousal. When compared with a previous experiment on mild heat and loss of a night's sleep, performance in the control conditions was found to be influenced by the stresses included in the within-Ss experimental designs. This raises doubts about the validity of the interactions. (26 ref)
Eighteen, heat-acclimatized subjects were exposed to temperatures of 70/60° F. and 105/95° F. (air velocity 120 ft./min.) in three experiments requiring them to respond to a peripheral task concurrently with a continuous central pursuitmeter task. The peripheral signals were presented randomly in order and time at six positions, 20°, 50°, and 80° left and right to the point of fixation. The experimental findings suggest that when, while being subjected to high thermal conditions, operators are engaged in a central task consistently demanding their attention, there is a tendency for the field of awareness to be funnelled towards the centre. Signals presented at greater eccentric angles have a higher probability of being missed in the hotter condition. The longer the previous exposure to heat, the greater is the tendency to miss signals—but the effect does not always appear to be progressive during the actual performance. Operationally, the funnelling is defined by the proportional increase in the number of signals missed as the eccentric angle of the stimulus increases relative to the point of fixation. The phenomena does not occur when the perceptual load on the central task is reduced. Central attentional processes rather than mechanisms peripheral to the CNS are therefore implicated.