No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
From law to folklore: Work stress and the Yerkes-Dodson Law
Journal of Managerial Psychology
Abstract
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine how a speculative animal behaviour modification experiment conducted over 100 years ago evolved into a scientific law of human behaviour that is now widely cited in managerial psychology texts and journals. The paper considers the implications of this evolution for the theory and practice of work stress management in particular, and managerial psychology in general.
Design/methodology/approach
– Using insights from social constructivist studies of science the empirical evidence supporting the Yerkes-Dodson Law (YDL) is examined and found wanting. The role played by the simple graphical representation of the YDL in its popularisation is considered.
Findings
– Analysis reveals that the YDL has no basis in empirical fact but continues to inform managerial practices which seek to increase or maintain, rather than minimise, levels of stress in the workplace as a means to enhance employee performance.
Practical implications
– Practitioners should not seek to increase performance through the manipulation of employee stress levels.
Originality/value
– The paper brings attention to the potentially harmful ways the publication of long-discredited models of stress and performance can influence management practice.
... Figure 2 below illustrates the CZM Model from an OAE Perspective. The CZM, rooted in Yerkes and Dodson's optimal stimulation theory [19], finds application in various fields, including management, mental health, and OAE [20][21][22]. However, the idea that the model can be applied uniformly is naive. ...
... However, the idea that the model can be applied uniformly is naive. For example, Corbett [20] raises concerns about managers using the CZM to justify piling stress and workload on employees. Russo-Netzer and Cohen ( [21], p. 394) emphasize the importance of self-determination and dialogue when it comes to "stretch interventions", in the context of well-being. ...
... Van Breda and Dickens [28] counter that differing resilience levels align more with the diversity of social connectedness than policy, which amplifies inequity. The CZM, rooted in Yerkes and Dodson's optimal stimulation theory [19], finds application in various fields, including management, mental health, and OAE [20][21][22]. However, the idea that the model can be applied uniformly is naive. ...
A convention in outdoor adventure education leadership is to stretch participants beyond their comfort zone to optimize engagement and learning. This article explores how an interpretation of the comfort zone model (CZM) might potentially enhance job role clarity within the youth work (YW) field. The CZM emerged as a strong theme from an ethnographic case study of the United Kingdom government’s flagship youth policy, the National Citizen Service (NCS). The findings indicate that the CZM has the potential to reinforce Dewey-derived YW principles and enhance young people’s social skills, self-esteem, confidence, and resilience. However, applying the CZM to YW practice presents risks such as misunderstandings, coercion, and overstretching. Further research should consider factors such as staff training, mental health, and welfare concerns, as well as the implications and limitations of integrating the CZM within the YW field.
... 3 This rationale echoes the oft-cited Yerkes-Dodson law, which asserts that performance increases as arousal (i.e., stress) increases until an apex is reached, after which performance decreases ( Figure 1). 8 Attendings may ascribe efficacy based on toxic quizzing that they received during training, believing: "It worked for me!" 3 A 2019 study found that 45% (56/125) of medicine attendings surveyed agreed with the statement that "being pimped by my teachers helped me learn when I was a medical trainee." 6 Multiple qualitative studies show that some medical students perceive toxic quizzing as motivating, valuable for learning, 7,9 or necessary for enculturation into medicine. ...
... While proponents of toxic quizzing may point to the Yerkes-Dodson law, few know that this flawed model was based on studies using Japanese dancing mice in 1908. 8 The findings transmuted over time to a "law" stating that increasing stress increases performance, a sentiment that was coopted by medical education. However, a review of subsequent research has shown that the Yerkes-Dodson law is not supported by robust evidence. ...
... However, a review of subsequent research has shown that the Yerkes-Dodson law is not supported by robust evidence. 8 Causing emotional or psychological distress may actually impede learning. 11 Despite this, the stress-performance sentiment of the Yerkes-Dodson lives on in pedagogical lore. ...
... The experiments demonstrated a curvilinear relationship between stimuli strength and performance and later studies have repeatedly verified its effect and curvilinear relationship, also in humans (Broadhurst, 1957;Cole, 1911;Levitt, 1967;Teigen, 1994;White, 1959). The Yerkes-Dodson Law has been reinterpreted numerous times since its development and its effects has often been criticized for being overemphasized and adapted for convenience (Corbett, 2015;Teigen, 1994). The only consistent representation has been that the law involves the said curvilinear relationship, where an increasing level of stress is beneficial up until a certain optimum, until it begins to worsen the intellectual performance (Gino, 2016;Teigen, 1994). ...
... The law has for example been used to explain the effects of psychosocial stress of prospective memory performance (Piefke & Glienke, 2017), to explain anxiety-or stress related problems in professional musicians (de Figueiredo Rocha, 2020) and to structure appropriate guidelines on goalsetting for PhD's striving to make a career in academia (Bielczyk et al., 2020). Merely, the law has evolved from defining the results of a study on specific rodent behavior into being a widely cited scientific law of human behavior (Corbett, 2015), as has also been the case with for example Pavlovian conditioning (Harris & Bouton, 2020;Rescorla, 1971Rescorla, , 1988. ...
... Simultaneously, and to our knowledge for the first time, we tested whether the magnitude of such a compensation scheme would have a positive or negative effect on the level of (cognitive/mechanical) performance in such a task, as theorized by the Yerkes-Dodson Law (Calabrese, 2008;Teigen, 1994;Yerkes & Dodson, 1908 (Brink & Rankin, 2013;Fryer Jr. et al., 2012;Hochman et al., 2014;Hossain & List, 2012;Imas et al., 2017;Marchegiani et al., 2016). Moreover, it contributes to the existing research on the Yerkes-Dodson Law and the relationship between varying magnitudes of an incentive and its impact on performance (Broadhurst, 1957;Calabrese, 2008;Corbett;Gino, 2016;Hockey, 1997;Piefke & Glienke, 2017;Teigen, 1994;Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). The primary practical application of an employee compensation structure based on Loss Aversion, is its implications for the economic viability of monetary bonuses, as empirical findings suggest that performance increases associated with Loss Aversion does not incur any additional costs, since the increase comes from altering the framing in the employee compensation contract (Hossain & List, 2012). ...
Monetary bonus schemes are one of the most well-used forms of employee compensation in the modern business world. Yet, such schemes are primarily constructed as gains to incentivize an increase in work effort and performance. Using insights from behavioral economics, we construct a novel extrinsic compensation system modelled after Loss Aversion and the Yerkes-Dodson Law. We test this system using two experimental designs that measure performance based on cognitive- and mechanical efforts, respectively. In study 1 we find no difference in cognitive performance between 4 different bonus schemes. In a pre-registered study 2 we again find no difference in mechanical performance between 4 different conditions. Contrary to previous research, our findings suggest no significant effect of bonus schemes modelled after Loss Aversion and Yerkes-Dodson Law, whether administered alone or in combination. We discuss limitations and implications for compensation design and research.
... The assumption that heightened arousal leads to increased performance, known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law, needs to be theoretically tested. Research suggests that this assumption is flawed and that long-term stress can lead to decreased performance at the individual and organizational levels [123]. The long-term autonomic arousal experienced by employees can negatively impact their health by leading to conditions such as heart disease, mental and physical depression, burnout, and anxiety [123][124][125][126]. Therefore, work-related stress factors, particularly technostress, need to be emphasized. ...
... Research suggests that this assumption is flawed and that long-term stress can lead to decreased performance at the individual and organizational levels [123]. The long-term autonomic arousal experienced by employees can negatively impact their health by leading to conditions such as heart disease, mental and physical depression, burnout, and anxiety [123][124][125][126]. Therefore, work-related stress factors, particularly technostress, need to be emphasized. ...
Background/Objectives: Information and Communications Technology (ICT) advancements and high customer expectations are boosting the use of digital transformation and tech tools in business processes in a competitive environment. This trend enhances business effectiveness and efficiency but also introduces technostress as a new workplace stress factor. Technostress, defined as stress induced by using ICT in the workplace, has become increasingly prevalent in modern work environments, especially in sectors such as banking, due to digital transformation. As technology use intensifies, it raises concerns about potential adverse psychological and physiological effects on employees, particularly in relation to burnout. From a physiological perspective, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are quite common among employees who use ICT for extended periods. MSDs can play a significant moderating role in the relationship between technostress and burnout. In this context, this study aimed to examine the moderating role of MSDs in the effect of technostress on burnout. Methods: This quantitative study surveyed a convenience sample of 220 bank employees, drawing on COR theory, the JD-R model, the P-E fit approach, and transactional stress theory. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling with SmartPLS 4.0 software, enabling examination of relationships between variables derived from these frameworks. Results: The results reveal that technostress increases bank employees’ burnout experience. Additionally, bank employees with MSDs experience higher burnout levels than those without MSDs. Conclusions: The study’s findings provide valuable insights into managing workplace stress, addressing mental health problems, and promoting employee well-being in the digital age. These results have potential implications for academic understanding and practical applications in sustainable management.
... So what is the connection between stress level due to overload and employee performance? From Figure 3 above, according to Corbett et al. (2015), it becomes clear that as the level of stress becomes too high, performance decreases [46]. As the task-related load increases, stress on every employee also increases proportionally. ...
... So what is the connection between stress level due to overload and employee performance? From Figure 3 above, according to Corbett et al. (2015), it becomes clear that as the level of stress becomes too high, performance decreases [46]. As the task-related load increases, stress on every employee also increases proportionally. ...
Workload management is a cornerstone of contemporary human resource management with widespread applications in private and public sectors. The challenges in human resource management are particularly pronounced within the public sector: particularly in task allocation. The absence of a standardized workload distribution method presents a significant challenge and results in unnecessary costs in terms of man-hours and financial resources expended on surplus human resource utilization. In the current research, we analyze how to deal with the “race condition” above and propose a dynamic workload management model based on the response time required to implement each task. Our model is trained and tested using comprehensive employee data comprising 450 records for training, 100 records for testing, and 88 records for validation. Approximately 11% of the initial data are deemed either inaccurate or invalid. The deployment of the ANFIS algorithm provides a quantified capability for each employee to handle tasks in the public sector. The proposed idea is deployed in a virtualized platform where each employee is implemented as an independent node with specific capabilities. An upper limit of work acceptance is proposed based on a documented study and laws that suggest work time frames in each public body, ensuring that no employee reaches the saturation level of exhaustion. In addition, a variant of the “slow start” model is incorporated as a hybrid congestion control mechanism with exceptional outcomes, offering a gradual execution window for each node under test and providing a smooth and controlled start-up phase for new connections. The ultimate goal is to identify and outline the entire structure of the Greek public sector along with the capabilities of its employees, thereby determining the organization’s executive capacity.
... In contrast, two papers by Corbett (2013Corbett ( , 2015 examine the empirical evidence for both the comfort zone concept and it popular origin in the Yerkes-Dodson Law. His first (2013) paper applied the ideas to lean manufacturing. ...
... His conclusion was that both Lean and comfort zone theories normalize an exploitative set of social relations, using unjustified readings of traditional literature. In his later paper, Corbett (2015), moves this argument further to note that while the Yerkes-Dodson law was not empirically verified in the early literature, its citation count has increased over the past 25 years and that it has been received rather uncritically by management theorists. ...
Comfort has been a staple of outcome measures in Human Factors / Ergonomics (HFE) for generations. We have theories of comfort and validated measures. But HFE is not alone in studying comfort. Here we review two adjacent applications of comfort: In patient outcomes and in management’s idea of comfort zones. We find some but not much overlap between these three fields and the ability for HFE to learn positive and negative lessons from each.
... Although the study's findings were not correctly hypothesized, they do converge with previous theory and other research studies findings and raise some interesting possibilities for future research. In relation to the body of research on stress more broadly, the notion that stress could serve a facilitative function is certainly not at all a new idea (Corbett, 2015;Regeher et al., 2008). The oft referenced "Yerkes-Dodson principle" suggests that moderate levels of stress tend to improve performance, while extreme high and low levels of stress interfere with performance. ...
... The oft referenced "Yerkes-Dodson principle" suggests that moderate levels of stress tend to improve performance, while extreme high and low levels of stress interfere with performance. Despite the popularity of this principle, it has been remarkably under-studied empirically (Corbett, 2015) and would perhaps be a fruitful new direction for researchers particularly in relation to police officers" decisions to use lethal force. In relation to research specifically on police lethal force decisions, our findings do converge with at least one study described in our literature review in which higher levels of stress indicated by increased cortisol levels correlated with fewer errors with Black armed (but not White armed) suspects, as well as greater ability to differentiate armed from unarmed Black suspects (Akinola & Mendes, 2012). ...
Here we investigated the role of physiological stress on participants' lethal force decisions with Black suspects using a novel virtual reality (VR) paradigm. We examined the conditional and mediational roles of implicit racism and visual attention to Black suspects. For this study, we filmed a series of high-risk suspect-police interactions with a 360° video camera which, when viewed through the VR headset, embeds the participants in these scenarios from the perspective of a police officer. Embedded eye tracking in the VR enabled assessment of both physiological stress (through pupil dilation) and attention (through gaze location). Analysis of these behavioral data with criminal justice majors ( N = 39) revealed a facilitative function of physiological stress for improving accuracy in lethal force decisions, specifically among those with low levels of implicit racism. Findings also indicated that dysregulated attention—characterized by either disorganized or fixated attentional patterns—compromised lethal force decision making. Results are discussed in relation to future applications of VR to inform our understanding of cognitive and affective precursors of poor decision making. Implications include the promise of cognitive-behavioral interventions for mitigating dysregulated attention patterns, ultimately towards the end of reducing unwarranted uses of lethal force against Black men and women.
... Anxiety is a normal emotion that individuals experience in response to situations that they perceive as threatening [1,2]. The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that there is a relationship between anxiety and performance [3]. A moderate level of anxiety or arousal can improve an individual's execution of tasks, but a high level of anxiety can reduce this efficiency [3]. ...
... The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that there is a relationship between anxiety and performance [3]. A moderate level of anxiety or arousal can improve an individual's execution of tasks, but a high level of anxiety can reduce this efficiency [3]. Associated physiological symptoms of anxiety include heart palpitations, high blood pressure and changes to breathing patterns. ...
Purpose of review
Anxiety is a prevalent mental health condition which manifests as a disproportionate response of fear to a perceived threat. Different types of anxiety disorders vary in their pathophysiology, symptoms and treatments. The causes of anxiety disorders are complex and largely unknown; however, it has been suggested that a number of brain mechanisms and neurotransmitters are involved in the development of these conditions. While there are non-pharmacological treatments for anxiety, many patients are prescribed medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors and/or benzodiazepines. Unfortunately, these medications have issues with efficacy and safety, and therefore, there is a continuing need for newer medicines. The cannabis constituents of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and terpenes have been proposed as a potential treatment for anxiety conditions.
Recent findings
Medicinal cannabis constituents act on the endocannabinoid system (ECS) and other targets. The ECS affects several physiological functions through modulation of the central nervous system and inflammatory pathways. In particular, CBD has been suggested to exhibit anxiolytic properties, whereas THC can either have an anxiogenic or anxiolytic effect, depending on the dose, route of administration and individual genetic and environmental factors. There is also evidence that terpenes could be effective in anxiety management.
Summary
Currently, there is a gap in the literature as to whether standardised CBD and/or THC preparations can be used for anxiety disorders. Further information is required to know the precise doses and CBD-THC ratios from human clinical trials and real-world patient use.
... However, this performance boost only occurs up to a certain point. If the physiological stress becomes too high, it will lead to a decline in performance (Broadbent, 1965;Corbett, 2015;Mellifont et al., 2016;Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). In other words, if we relate this law to the situation of students in the classroom, we can infer that when students experience extreme pressure (anxiety), it will lead to a decrease in their overall mathematical abilities. ...
This study is a study aimed at investigating the influence of emotional intelligence and inhibitory control on mathematical problem-solving ability, with math anxiety as an intervening variable. It is a quantitative, ex post facto research that uses questionnaires and tests as research instruments. The study involved 28 students as subjects. The analytical technique used in this study was path analysis. The study results are as follows: (1) There was no significant influence of emotional intelligence on mathematical problem-solving skills, with a p-value = 0,308. (2) There was no significant influence of inhibitory control on mathematical problem-solving skills, with a p-value = 0,956. (3) There was no significant influence of math anxiety on mathematical problem-solving skills, with a p-value = 0,743. (4) There was no significant influence of emotional intelligence on math anxiety, with a p-value = 0,184. (5) There is no significant influence of inhibitory control on math anxiety, with a p-value = 0,701. (6) There was no significant influence of emotional intelligence on mathematical problem-solving skills through math anxiety, with a p-value = 0,804. (7) There was no significant influence of inhibitory control on mathematical problem-solving skills through math anxiety, with a p-value = 0,914.
... Anxiety resides in working memory, so its consumption of working memory's limited resources thereby increases cognitive load -a given value of load divided across less capacity is greater than that same load divided across more capacity (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). An increase in effort can counteract these effects to a certain point, though, The Yerkes-Dodson law states that stress and arousal have an optimal level, at which they primarily enhance task performance, but past which the emotional impact becomes harmful (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908;Corbett, 2015). In line with these theories, recent research has shown that emotional impact, including that of anxiety, on WM stems not from valence, but from other aspects of the emotional experience, like the relevance of the emotion to the task being performed and the degree to which the emotion is motivational (Hur et al., 2016;Yuvruk et al., 2020). ...
... The notion that stress and cognitive performance can relate in a bell-shaped manner has long been discussed in the context of the Yerkes-Dodson law 85 . Despite the intuitive appeal of the idea that an ideal amount of stress increases performance, this assumption has been criticized for its lack of empirical evidence 86 . Yet, there is reason to assume that acute stress can be beneficial, as one of the core functions of the human stress response is to mobilize energy 2 . ...
Stress can detrimentally affect physical and mental health, especially during childhood. During this critical period, parental bonds can foster resilience or amplify stress. This study explored whether mothers’ everyday stress can act as a source of childhood stress, affecting children’s executive functioning. 76 healthy mother-child dyads participated, with mothers assigned to a stress-inducing or stress-free condition. Children observed their mothers and were subsequently tested for cognitive flexibility and working memory. Subjective stress, heart rate, and cortisol were measured repeatedly in mothers and children, alongside everyday stress perceptions. Linear mixed models showed that children’s acute stress response was associated with impaired cognitive flexibility. Maternal stress, both acute and past-month, was a better predictor of children’s cognitive performance than children’s own stress. Quadratic relationships indicated the highest error rates at very low and high maternal stress. We found no evidence that children’s working memory was impaired by their own or their mothers’ stress. Although expected covariations of acute or prolonged stress between mothers and children were not observed, an interaction between maternal past-month stress and acute stress condition provided insights into adaptive mechanisms in children. These findings underscore the significant impact of maternal stress on children’s executive functioning, illustrating how parental experiences shape children’s everyday outcomes.
... It suggests that the belief that increasing stress in the workplace will boost performance is a widely accepted misconception. The study also emphasizes that increasing or manipulating employee stress levels to enhance performance will negatively affect individuals and the organization [166]. Surpassing the optimal stress level can have detrimental effects, impair performance, and result in adverse consequences. ...
Rapid organizational changes due to technological advancements, high-efficiency expectations, and uncertainties, particularly in healthcare, have led to a global stress epidemic among em-ployees. This has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving workplace practices. Surface acting, or the suppression and faking of emotions, significantly contributes to this stress and burnout, impacting not only individual healthcare professionals but also healthcare systems’ overall effectiveness and sustainability. Providing adequate resources in high-demand work environments is, thus, essential to mitigate these negative experiences. Leader–member exchange (LMX) can play a pivotal role in understanding and addressing the needs and expectations of healthcare professionals. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR), Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), Social Exchange theories, and Grandey’s Emotional Regulation Model, this study analyzed data from a convenience sample of 350 healthcare professionals. The results reveal that surface acting intensifies healthcare professionals’ experiences of job stress and emotional exhaustion. Notably, the study empirically demonstrated that high levels of LMX in healthcare professionals’ relationships with their leaders can mitigate the impact of surface acting on job stress and emotional exhaustion. These findings offer valuable insights for managers and policymakers, highlighting the importance of LMX in maintaining sustainable management practices in complex and stressful healthcare organizations.
... Law (Corbett, 2015), which suggests that low to moderate stress is necessary for optimal performance. However, if stress surpasses an individual's coping abilities, the likelihood of experiencing high-burnout increases. ...
Aim:
To develop a predictive model for high-burnout of nurses.
Design:
A cross-sectional study.
Methods:
This study was conducted using an online survey. Data were collected by the Chinese Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (CMBI-GS) and self-administered questionnaires that included demographic, behavioural, health-related, and occupational variables. Participants were randomly divided into a development set and a validation set. In the development set, multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify factors associated with high-burnout risk, and a nomogram was constructed based on significant contributing factors. The discrimination, calibration, and clinical practicability of the nomogram were evaluated in both the development and validation sets using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, Hosmer-Lemeshow test, and decision curve analysis, respectively. Data analysis was performed using Stata 16.0 software.
Results:
A total of 2750 nurses from 23 provinces of mainland China responded, with 1925 participants (70%) in a development set and 825 participants (30%) in a validation set. Workplace violence, shift work, working time per week, depression, stress, self-reported health, and drinking were significant contributors to high-burnout risk and a nomogram was developed using these factors. The ROC curve analysis demonstrated that the area under the curve of the model was 0.808 in the development set and 0.790 in the validation set. The nomogram demonstrated a high net benefit in the clinical decision curve in both sets.
Conclusion:
This study has developed and validated a predictive nomogram for identifying high-burnout in nurses.
Relevance to clinical practice:
The nomogram conducted by our study will assist nursing managers in identifying at-high-risk nurses and understanding related factors, helping them implement interventions early and purposefully.
Reporting method:
The study adhered to the relevant EQUATOR reporting guidelines: TRIPOD Checklist for Prediction Model Development and Validation.
Patient or public contribution:
No patient or public contribution.
... Z neurovegetatívneho hľadiska existuje mnoho typických príznakov úzkosti, ktoré postihujú prakticky všetky telesné orgány a funkčné systémy, ako napr. zrýchlené dýchanie, tachykardia, rozšírené zrenice, tras, svalové napätie, sucho v ústach, potenie, vracanie alebo hnačka (Corbett, 2015;Hartl a kol., 2010;Heretik a kol., 2007;Kryl, 2003;Vymětal, 2003;Vymětal, 2007). Podľa Praška (2009, s. 12-13) to spôsobuje aktiváciu sympatického nervového systému, ktorý nás pripravuje na reakciu "bojuj alebo uteč". ...
The aim of the scientific publication "Gender aspect of mathematical anxiety in younger school-aged children" was to present the results of a three-year research project supported by the scientific grant agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences VEGA 1/05092/20 entitled "Gender aspect of mathematical anxiety in younger school-aged children". The aim of the project was to clarify the influence of the gender aspect on math anxiety as well as to identify the causality between anxiety/anxiousness, gender, math performance and child's math anxiety.
... High levels of stress inhibit individual and team performance (Colligan & Higgins, 2006) and negatively impact employee wellness (Ganster & Rosen, 2013). The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that moderate stress (eustress) may be performance enhancing (Le Fevre et al., 2003), although recent investigations indicate that even moderate stress/arousal inhibits performance (Corbett, 2015;Hancock & Ganey, 2003;Hanoch & Vitouch, 2004). ...
Stimulating and sustaining teamwork can be a strategic asset for an organization. Yet, little has been done to objectively assess how office design affects team performance. We conducted a neuroscience field experiment of employees ( N = 96) to examine how different open-office configurations impact three measures of neurophysiologic stress, affect, and creative problem-solving in three existing office configurations that varied in their degree of openness. Physiologic stress was lowest in the most open work setting resulting in higher performance and more rapid post-work physiologic recovery compared to less open configurations. We identified three core factors driving these results: high perceived privacy, a more pleasant ambience, and increased autonomy. This multimodal approach identifies neurophysiologic mechanisms linking office design to team performance.
... This nding can be explained by the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which suggests that low to moderate stress is necessary for optimal performance. However, when stress exceeds coping resources, burnout becomes more likely to occur (17,45). The result indicates that appropriate stress and challenging work can motivate nurses, but nursing managers should be vigilant about high stress of nurses and prevent the occurrence of high-burnout. ...
Background
Nurses are one of the occupational populations that are most susceptible to burnout and high-burnout nurses experienced significantly impacts their physical and mental health, and even compromises patient safety and the quality of care. Therefore, it is crucial to identify and prevent burnout among nurses at an early stage. Developing a predictive model for high-burnout is essential for this purpose.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,750 Chinese nurses using an online survey. Data were collected by the 15-item Chinese Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (CMBI-GS) and self-administered questionnaires that included demographic, behavioral, health-related, and occupational variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis and nomogram were used to identify the factor associated with high-burnout risk. Stata 16.0 software was used for data analysis.
Results
A total of 2,750 nurses from 23 provinces of mainland China were included, with 1,925 participants (70%) in a development set and 825 participants (30%) in a validation set. Workplace violence, shift work, working time per week, depression, stress, self-reported health, and drinking were significant contributors to high-burnout risk and a nomogram was developed using these factors. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that the area under the curve (AUC) of the model was 0.808 in the development set and 0.790 in the validation set. For calibration analysis, the Hosmer-Lemeshow tests produced P values of 0.697 and 0.640 in the two sets, respectively. The nomogram demonstrated a high net benefit in the clinical decision curve in both sets.
Conclusion
This study has developed and validated a predictive nomogram for identifying high-burnout in nurses. The nomogram will assist nursing managers in identifying at-high-risk nurses, understanding related factors and implementing early interventions. Additionally, our study provides a tool for nurses to monitor their risk of high-burnout and overall mental health.
... Additionally, they discovered that there is a linear relationship between variables; the higher the shock, the faster the learning outcome (up to the optimal point); making the results graphically look like an inverted-U curve. Within the next 50 years, the original paper was only cited ten times in psychology journals [10]. However, by the 1970s, the YDL and inverted-U became the mainstream rule for the explanation of all psychological reasons [11], from human anxiety and task performance [12] to motivation and performance [13] and the contemporary interpretation of YDL as "some stress is necessary for optimal performance" [15, p. 359]. ...
... Such theories are sensible outcomes of interactions with the real world, which may not be consistent with the principles of physics but tend to continue as a common-sense and laypeople's explanation of the physical world (McCloskey 1983). Similarly, psychology has been populated with folk models of human behaviour, which are not necessarily wrong but compared to more articulated models, they tend to focus on descriptions rather than explaining phenomena, making them very hard to test and falsify (Corbett 2015). ...
... These 'laws' are widely cited, despite that they are immune to falsification (Kerr 1985;Christianson 1992;Teigen 1994), the supporting evidence is either lacking (Neiss 1988), a product of the experimental design (Näätänen 1973;Kerr 1985), or at best weak (Christianson 1992), scant and inconsistent (Westman and Eden 1996). Conversely, the evidence largely show a linear detrimental effect of stress (Corbett 2015). And the arousal concept itself is an over-generalized and vague construct (Kerr 1985;Neiss 1988;Hancock and Ganey 2003;Hanoch and Vitouch 2004). ...
... More broadly, our results may relate to the Yerkes-Dodson law which proposes an interaction between task difficulty and motivational variables in the form of a bell-shaped curve such that as stress increases so does performance; however, performance declines with too much stress (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Despite its influence on managerial practices, some reviews have questioned the translational value of this law (Corbett, 2015). Nonetheless, gaining a better experimental understanding of stress-procedural fidelity interactions could be potentially leveraged to improve performance for those staff with low levels of procedural fidelity. ...
Many variables may affect procedural fidelity to behavior intervention plans including intervention complexity, training, and resources. Chronic stress has been linked to staff member burnout and turnover; however, there is a dearth of information regarding how acute daily stressors may relate to procedural fidelity. We assessed procedural fidelity through direct observation and perceived daily stress among eight direct care staff. Overall, nonparametric analyses suggested that on days when staff members reported an increased number of daily stressors, their procedural fidelity scores were also higher. The results of this preliminary study support the need for continued research on how acute stress may affect direct care staff member’s job performance to promote high levels of procedural fidelity.
... First, despite that the Yerkes-Dodson law is often used as a post hoc explanation for various reward-related phenomena (Corbett, 2015;Teigen, 1994), there is little direct empirical evidence for its validity. That is, most studies on the link between reward and cognitive performance have used only two levels of reward (e.g., low and high; Chiew & Braver, 2014;Fröber & Dreisbach, 2016;Rusz et al., 2018), and thus cannot detect nonlinear relationships. ...
The relationship between reward value and cognitive performance is often thought to be curvilinear, shaped like an inverted U. Moderately valuable rewards should facilitate, but extremely valuable rewards should harm, performance. Despite the popularity of this idea, the dose–response relationship between reward value and cognitive performance is not yet well understood. Here, we present a set of experiments (total N = 254) that examine the effects of monetary reward (no reward, medium reward, extreme reward) on task-switching performance. Overall, more valuable rewards led to better performance. Yet, when physical reward cues were present (i.e., when the money at stake was placed on the table), we observed the predicted inverted U-shaped relationship. Together, our results suggest that (a) people are often able to maintain good cognitive performance when the stakes are high and that (b) physical reward cues may play a key role in triggering “choking under pressure.”
... Yerkes-Dodson Law: The optimal level of motivation is not fixed, but varies with the nature of the task. In the completion of simple tasks, the intensity of motivation is high and the efficiency of work is higher [23,24]. In general, the stronger the motivation, the higher the enthusiasm for work; the better the potential, the higher the efficiency. ...
Most factory production processes are completed by machines and workers on production lines. The operation schedule is arranged to reduce the cost of the enterprises to obtain the maximum economic profit for sustainable running. Previous studies usually investigated the working time while only considering the workers’ conditions. This study proposed a method to optimize the operation schedule by jointly considering the workers’ fatigue states and the operation states of machines. This method was proposed based on a system structure called the multistate consecutively connected system (MCCS), which has been widely applied in many areas, such as electronic communications. This structure is also an analogy of the production line. The corresponding model is constructed based on the universal generating function (UGF) since it is a powerful tool in modeling a consecutively connected system. The proposed model can be used to evaluate the different productivities of different types of workers in different states and to realize the screening of the whole scheme through simulation. According to the proposed method, we obtained the optimal operation schedule, including the working time, rest time and allocation strategy for a production line system. Some examples are provided to illustrate the proposed method.
... However, even though this law continues to be widely cited, this 100-year-old scientific law based on animal behavior has been criticized-particularly in managerial and organisational psychology. For example, Corbert's (2015) review concluded that Yerkes-Dodson law has "no basis in empirical fact but continues to inform managerial practices which seek to increase or maintain, rather than minimise, levels of demands in the workplace as a means to enhance employee performance" (p. 741). ...
Schools are critical organisational settings, and school principals face extreme stress levels. However, there are few large‐scale, longitudinal studies of demands and resources that drive principals' health and well‐being. Using the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) framework, we evaluated longitudinal reciprocal effects over 3 years relating to job demands, job resources (resilience), job‐related outcomes (burnout and job satisfaction), and personal outcomes (happiness and physical health) for a nationally representative sample of 3683 Australian school principals. Prior demands and resources led to small changes in subsequent outcomes, beneficial effects of resources, and adverse effects of demands, particularly for job‐related outcomes. Furthermore, we also found reverse‐reciprocal effects, prior outcomes (burnout and job satisfaction) influencing subsequent job characteristics. However, in response to substantively and theoretically important research questions, we found no support for Yerkes–Dodson Law (nonlinear effects of demands) or Nietzsche effects and inoculation effects (that which does not kill you, makes you stronger; manageable levels of demands build resilience). Relating our study to new and evolving issues in JD‐R research, we offer limitations of our research—and JD‐R theory and research more generally—and directions for further research in this essentially unstudied application of JD‐R to school principals' mental health and well‐being.
... Stres sıfır noktasından itibaren yükselmeye başladıkça performansın artışı için yararlı bir etki yapmaktadır. Ancak optimum noktaya ulaştığında artık stresin olumsuz etkileri görülmeye başlanır ve buna paralel olarak performansın düştüğü görülür (Corbett, 2015). Buna zaman baskısı örnek verilebilir. ...
Bu çalışmada konaklama ve yiyecek içecek sektöründe çalışan personelin demografik özelliklerinin iş stres düzeyleri üzerindeki etkisinin belirlenmesi ve analiz sonuçları doğrultusunda bazı önerilerde bulunmak amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma kapsamında, Ordu ilinin Altınordu ilçesinde faaliyet gösteren konaklama ve restoran işletmelerinde çalışanlara internet üzerinden anket gönderilmiştir. Kolayda örnekleme yoluyla belirlenen 300 kişilik örnekleme gönderilen ankete 92 kişinin katılımı ile dönüş oranı %30,6 olarak gerçekleşmiştir. Elde edilen verileri analiz etmek için SPSS 25 programı ile betimleyici istatistikler, güvenilirlik, geçerlilik, korelasyon, bağımsız örneklem t testi ve MANOVA analizleri kullanılmıştır. Analiz sonuçlarında, çalışanların demografik özelliklerinin örgütsel iş stres düzeylerini anlamlı biçimde etkilemediği bulgulanmıştır. Araştırma sonuçlarına dayalı olarak, uygulayıcıların çalışanlarının iş stresini azaltmaları için onların demografik özelliklerinden daha çok başka faktörleri dikkate almaları ve çözüm aramaları önerilmiştir.
... However, tests and the final examination might display more readily the impact of changes because they measure performance within a restricted time frame, and thus they are more likely to induce anxiety in the test taker. Evidence exists (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908;Cofer and Appley, 1967;Wiener et al., 1984;Dickman, 2002;Corbett, 2015;Piefke and Glienke, 2017) that physiological arousal is beneficial to performance when test demands are low (i.e., easy tests), but it is detrimental to performance when test demands are high (i.e., challenging tests). Thus, if students' acquisition of physics has been impacted by disruptions of their habitual learning environment, test performance rather than lab performance might be likely to display declines. ...
The academic performance of young women is particularly relevant to the success of societies that have only recently begun to address gender inequalities in education and the workforce. The present research examined the performance in a physics course of STEM and non-STEM female freshmen from such a society. It aimed to determine whether the change to online instruction, forced by the pandemic on students who had been accustomed to the face-to-face mode, affected their performance. In the study, performance on lab assignments and tests distributed across the semester (formative assessment measures) differed. Namely, STEM students performed better than non-STEM students on lab assignments and better online than face-to-face on tests. Non-STEM students’ performance on both lab assignments and tests remained insensitive to the mode of instruction. Performance on the final test and course grades, both of which were treated as summative assessment measures, replicated the pattern of effects exhibited by tests distributed across the entire semester. For all students, prior math proficiency made a limited contribution to performance. The findings of this study suggest that young women, who during the pandemic were brought back to the constraints of the home, were resilient in the face of change. According to physics instructors and students, by distributing study efforts more continuously in the online mode and taking advantage of recorded class meetings, they managed to promote performance (as per STEM students) or preserve it (as per non-STEM students).
... However, as these studies followed correlational study designs, they are criticised for lacking causality. Vice versa, for example, there is also evidence that productivity growth may have detrimental effects on health as a typical approach to cut costs is downsizing (fewer people do the same work), which in turn has been shown to result in higher job-demands and higher presenteeism [36,37]. ...
Background
Decision makers want to know if there is a financial benefit in investing scarce resources in occupational health management (OHM). Economic evaluations (EEs) of OHM-strategies try to answer this question. However, EEs of OHM-strategies which are strongly marked by quantitative methods may be limited by contextual, qualitative residuals. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to (1) explore important economic dimensions of OHM and (2) to discuss the methods used in current EEs for measuring these dimensions.
Methods
In this explorative qualitative study, OHM-specialists were recruited via the Swiss organisation for health promotion. Thirteen semi-structured interviews were performed from November 2020 until May 2021. Videotapes were transcribed verbatim and organised by using an open coding strategy. Codes were clustered and synthesised as themes (i.e. the dimensions of EEs of OHM) through a mix of inductive and deductive content analysis. Member check with eight participants was accomplished to validate the results.
Results
The interviews had an average duration of 70.5 min and yielded 609 individual codes. These codes were merged into 28 subcategories which were finally categorised into five main themes: Understanding of OHM, costs, benefits, environmental aspects, and evaluation of OHM. Participants stated that the greater part of costs and benefits cannot be quantified or monetised and thus, considered in quantitative EEs. For example, they see a culture of health as key component for a successful OHM-strategy. However, the costs to establish such a culture as well as its benefits are hard to quantify. Participants were highly critical of the use of absenteeism as a linear measure of productivity. Furthermore, they explained that single, rare events, such as a change in leadership, can have significant impact on employee health. However, such external influence factors are difficult to control.
Conclusions
Participants perceived costs and benefits of OHM significantly different than how they are represented in current EEs. According to the OHM-specialists, most benefits cannot be quantified and thus, monetised. These intangible benefits as well as critical influencing factors during the process should be assessed qualitatively and considered in EEs when using them as a legitimation basis vis-à-vis decision makers.
... Furthermore, parts of the critical literature on mental unhealth have interrogated the functionalist discourse on stress management and the allegedly positive aspects of stress, which are picked up by managers in organizations and used as a way to legitimate that stress levels are not minimised but kept at an 'optimal' level. According to Corbett (2013Corbett ( , 2015, a major problem is that empirical studies seeking to demonstrate the existence of good stress and its positive effects on performance tend to confuse terms such as stress, distress, eustress and arousal. Another problem is that some of this functionalist research continues to endorse the scientifically dubious 'Yerkes-Dodson Law' (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). ...
The worldwide spread of work‐related mental unhealth suggests that this is a major problem affecting organizations and employees on a global scale. In this paper, we therefore provide a thematic review of the literatures that address this issue in management and organization studies (MOS) and related fields. While these literatures examine how employee mental health is affected by organizational and occupational structures and managed by organizations and employees, they have paid relatively little attention to the capitalist labour relations which underpin the unhealthy conditions of contemporary working life. They have paid even less attention to how these conditions may be resisted. To help future scholarship in MOS challenge this state of affairs, we draw on some of the most basic but central notions of exploitation, alienation and resistance in classic and current critiques of capitalism, optimistic that this may help strengthen the field's capacity to confront mental unhealth in settings of work and organization.
... While stress is known to be associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk [2] and negative mental health outcomes [3], it is of interest to note that stress does not affect work productivity and performance purely in a negative manner. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law (also known as the inverted U law) [4], an individual's ability to perform a task at hand is negatively affected primarily when stress levels are either too high or too low. A moderate amount of stress positively impacts how well an individual performs. ...
... This implies that arousal/stress/workload (often analogously used terms) should be calibrated to not only impair performance due to overload but also to prevent underload. While the applicability of this theory to work contexts was heavily criticized (e.g., [199]), physiological proof for it was found in humans [65]. However, Diamond et al. [65] highlighted that the law is often misunderstood and thus wrongly interpreted, since the important aspect is that the inverted U-shape form only applies to highly demanding tasks, rather than all tasks, effectively excluding easy ones that exhibit a linear ...
The widespread implementation of mobile personal computing devices like notebooks and smartphones has changed knowledge work towards more mobility beyond the traditional office desk. Rising levels of driving automation on the road may initiate a similar shift. By changing the driver's role to that of the \emph{driver-passenger}, the demand for so-called \glspl{NDRT} grows. For example, commuters could use their time on the road to prepare for the upcoming office day, or truck drivers could do logistics planning between on- and offloading. However, driver-passengers still have the responsibility to stay ready to respond to \glspl{TOR}. They occur when a not-yet fully automated vehicle experiences a system failure or functional limitation.
Accordingly, in this thesis, we investigate the concept of a mobile office in a \gls{SAE L3} vehicle. Its goals are to enable productive \gls{NDRT} engagement during automated driving phases but also safe manual driving after \glspl{TOR}. Therefore, user interfaces that face these challenges for the typical office tasks of text entry and comprehension in \gls{SAE L3} vehicles are developed and evaluated. They account for both office work and \gls{TOR}/driving ergonomics issues based on the user-centered design process. The designs are informed by standards, applied \gls{HCI} research literature, and cognitive resource and multitasking theories. Mixed-methods user studies with medium- to high-fidelity prototypes allowed quantitatively and qualitatively assessing the interfaces and their features regarding users' objective and subjective performance with them and physiological responses to them. Thereby, we inferred generalizable results on the design features, underlying theories, and the methods used to design and evaluate them.
We found that merging knowledge from various areas of \gls{HCI} can promote safety and productivity of office work in \gls{SAE L3} vehicles to some extent when iteratively improving interface designs. Furthermore, the mixed-methods evaluations revealed detailed aspects of applying prevalent \gls{HCI} theory and applied research findings in a novel and complex domain. Overall, we report findings on various mobile office interface modalities and combinations concerning their impact on ergonomics factors such as performance, workload, situational awareness, and well-being. Additionally, we detail the methodological approach taken, including the infrastructure required to implement it.
... rough these processes, the human cognition is formed, which includes recognition, thinking, judgment, and memory [32]. e literature [33] proposed a theoretical framework to study the factors of phishing susceptibility, proposed the susceptibility of information processing to phishing emails, and explained how phishing emails affect human susceptibility. Information processing is an important aspect of cognition, through which people process and judge external stimuli to obtain information [25]. ...
While antiphishing techniques have evolved over the years, phishing remains one of the most threatening attacks on current network security. This is because phishing exploits one of the weakest links in a network system—people. The purpose of this research is to predict the possible phishing victims. In this study, we propose the multidimensional phishing susceptibility prediction model (MPSPM) to implement the prediction of user phishing susceptibility. We constructed two types of emails: legitimate emails and phishing emails. We gathered 1105 volunteers to join our experiment by recruiting volunteers. We sent these emails to volunteers and collected their demographic, personality, knowledge experience, security behavior, and cognitive processes by means of a questionnaire. We then applied 7 supervised learning methods to classify these volunteers into two categories using multidimensional features: susceptible and nonsusceptible. The experimental results indicated that some machine learning methods have high accuracy in predicting user phishing susceptibility, with a maximum accuracy rate of 89.04%. We conclude our study with a discussion of our findings and their future implications.
... Certainly the notion that stress can both impair and improve performance more generally is not at all a new idea (Corbett, 2015;Regeher et al., 2008). Indeed, at a physiological level stress and heightened cognitive activity (i.e., cognitive load) are not distinct and are simultaneously captured in variation in pupil dilation (Aminihajibashi et al., 2019;Krejtz et al., 2018). ...
Previous research based on documented incidents of police uses of lethal force and experimental studies using computer sorting programs have demonstrated that incorrect lethal force decisions tend to occur more frequently with Black relative to White suspects. Using virtual reality, the current study examined the psychophysiology underlying incorrect lethal force decision with Black suspects, and the interactive impact of racial essentialism. Forty-nine White criminal justice majors viewed 360 degree videos of high-pressure suspect interactions in VR, from the perspective of the police officer. A virtual police-issued handgun was used to make and record decisions to shoot; incorrect uses of lethal force were operationalized using signal detection theory. Physiological stress (i.e., variance in pupil dilation) and visual attention were measured with embedded eye tracking in the VR. As predicted, physiological stress led to more incorrect uses of lethal force with Black suspects through fixated visual attention, but only among those who scored high on a racial essentialism survey measure. Findings converge with more recent studies supporting the potent interactive role between cognition (e.g., racial essentialism) and affect (i.e., stress) on lethal force decisions with Black suspects. These studies point to the continued role of psychoeducation and cognitive–behavioral interventions in informing police training interventions aimed at mitigating incorrect uses of lethal force with Black men and women.
... Yerkes-Dodson Law has been criticized for its application in management practices as a method of managing work stress and to enhance employee performance (Corbett, 2015). However, there are areas in learning and development, particularly outdoor education that use challenging situations to encourage deep learning (Irvine & Wilson, 1994;Mortlock, 1987;Priest & Gass, 2018;Tuson, 1994). ...
Aim
During the COVID‐19 pandemic in the UK, clinical research nurses had to work in new ways and under significant pressure to generate evidence for the developing health crisis. Research nurse support needs, personal and professional challenges have not been explored. This study addresses that gap, generating learning for continued support and development of the research nurse specialty and its ability to respond to public health priorities.
Design
We employed a qualitative exploratory approach through online open‐ended interviews to explore research nurses’ experiences of delivering research during the pandemic using principles of Grounded Theory.
Methods
Fifteen research nurses in the local research taskforce were identified through purposive sampling. Qualitative interviews were conducted online between November 2020 and January 2021 and analysed using the principles of constructivist grounded theory.
Results
Three themes of adapting to uncertainty, inclusive leadership and finding validity in the stretch zone were generated in the analysis.
Conclusion
A model of inclusive leadership and support can facilitate high‐functioning performance in a research team, supporting a rapid, confident and efficient response to research needs.
Impact
Research nurses, a previously invisible workforce, have proved critical to the pandemic response. This study explores the experiences of a team of redeployed research nurses and develops a theory of their experience as they were undertaking the rapid delivery of urgent public health studies during COVID‐19. What was found was a process of adaptation and resilience through collaborative teamwork, a strong sense of purpose and role validation enabled by an inclusive leadership style. This work will drive future development of a model of research nursing with a focus on collaboration between research and clinical colleagues.
... Situational stressors, whether environmental, emotional, or cognitive, increase physiological arousal to prepare the individual to adapt to the environment, and all stressor categories essentially work on the same biological systems to activate the individual for action. Theories for optimal arousal suggest that there is an individual sweet spot for every person where arousal levels matched to a task maximizes performance, and arousal levels below or above this sweet spot is an impediment to performance (Yerkes-Dodson law [19,20]). Arousal levels change with shifts in attention but are dependent on the emotional valence of stimuli [21] and optimal attention-allocation for task-related performance appears to be associated with proxies for regulation of arousal that are also associated with affective variability [22]. ...
Cyber operations are increasingly automated processes that can occur at computational speed with the intent of reducing, or denying time for good decision making or time to ground communication between human agents. There is a lack of performance measures and metrics in cyber operation settings. One potential setting describing human performance could be emotional stability under stress. Measures of higher individual affective variability indicate more emotional adaptability and allows for measuring individuals as dynamic systems. Previous research in other security-sensitive high-stake situations has shown that individuals with less emotional adaptability display maladaptive behaviors while individuals with more emotional adaptability can adapt more efficiently to changing situations, show more confidence in their own abilities and skills, and display better performance. We hypothesized that measurements of affective variability during a cyber defense exercise will be associated with team workload demands. Data was collected from 13 cadets during the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy’s annual Cyber Defense Exercise. Three indicators of individual affective variability were measured daily with the Self-Assessment Manikin and compared to scores on the Team Workload Questionnaire. We found that affective variability was negatively associated with team workload demands. Participants with higher affective variability, as measured by the Self-Assessment Manikin, will impose less workload demands on the team, which can lead to better outcomes. This is the first study to assess how individual emotional adaptability affects team dynamics in a cyber defense setting. Future research should include variable measurements as they may have better explanatory power for performance measurements.
Despite efforts to implement innovative approaches such as flipped learning leveraging computer technology, the challenge of student failure persists. Understanding the factors that contribute to student success in flipped engineering courses remains a critical issue. This study addresses this issue by investigating the impact of student readiness, engagement, and gamified online formative quizzes on the academic achievement of low-achieving students. Logistic regression analysis was conducted on data from 122 university students who failed the pretest. The results reveal that flipped learning readiness, self-reported engagement, and digital footprints significantly influence success. Surprisingly, gamification and certain dimensions of the Flipped Learning Readiness Scale do not have a significant impact. Of note, success decreases with more time spent on quizzes and higher levels of motivation to learn, while success increases with more quiz attempts, indicating the value of seeking feedback. To our knowledge, such a relationship between digital footprints and success has not been reported in flipped engineering classrooms, making our study a novel contribution to the literature. Our findings have practical implications for the use of computers in flipped course design and offer insights into the theory of the testing effect. They highlight the importance of providing special support for overmotivated, underperforming students. They also inform the pedagogical aspects of incorporating digital footprints and formative assessment in flipped learning environments where quiz duration is limited to mitigate potential drawbacks.
Advances in robot teleoperation have enabled groundbreaking innovations in many fields, such as space exploration, healthcare, and disaster relief. The human operator's performance plays a key role in the success of any teleoperation task, with prior evidence suggesting that operator stress and workload can impact task performance. As robot teleoperation is currently deployed in safety-critical domains, it is essential to analyze how different stress and workload levels impact the operator. We are unaware of any prior work investigating how both stress and workload impact teleoperation performance. We conducted a novel study (
n=24
) to jointly manipulate users' stress and workload and analyze the user's performance through objective and subjective measures. Our results indicate that, as stress increased, over 70% of our participants performed better up to a moderate level of stress; yet, the majority of participants performed worse as the workload increased. Importantly, our experimental design elucidated that stress and workload have related yet distinct impacts on task performance, with workload mediating the effects of distress on performance (
).
Music performance anxiety (MPA) is most often defined as a negative experience that is harmful to successful performance, but potential facilitating effects of MPA often are acknowledged. The distinction between facilitating and debilitating effects often is attributed to various cognitive frameworks based on the quantity of anxiety, where smaller amounts may be helpful and larger amounts harmful. The hypothesis underlying the present study holds that the difference between facilitating and debilitating MPA is more a matter of quality than quantity, specifically the qualities associated with the other positive and negative emotions that accompany MPA. A web survey recruited 114 musicians to test for differences in MPA and accompanying emotions by responding to descriptions of four specific musical contexts. Results show that between roughly one-quarter and one-half of the musicians in the study viewed MPA as facilitating, depending on context. Respondents endorsing the facilitating quality of MPA (compared with the debilitating group) showed significantly higher levels of positive emotion accompanied by lower levels of both MPA and negative emotion in three of four contexts. Results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that emotions accompanying MPA shape the quality of its effect on musical performance.
This study examines the effects of motivation and aggression on the sports performance of athletes aged 16 to 22 in the district of Okara, Pakistan. Sampled from Government Boy’s College, 300 participants were chosen through simple random sampling. Logistic regression analysis revealed that aggression doesn't significantly impact sports performance (p = 0.907), while motivation does (p = 0.001). These findings emphasize the importance of motivation in enhancing sports performance among youth in district Okara, urging the promotion of motivational strategies for athletes.
The value of great leaders seems to be an unquestioned assumption. The goal of this Element is to explore the counterintuitive idea that great leaders can pose a hazard to themselves and their followers. Great leadership, which accomplishes morally commendable and difficult objectives by leaders and followers, requires competence, morality, and charisma. A hazard is a condition or event that leads to human loss, such as injury, death, or economic misfortune. A leader can become a hazard through social psychological processes, which operate through the metaphor of Seven Deadly Sins, to create negative consequences. Great leaders can undermine their own success and accomplishments, as well as their followers. They can become a threat to the organization in which they are employed. Finally, great leaders can become a danger to the larger society. The damage great leaders can create can be reduced by applying the corresponding virtue.
Since COVID-19 was officially listed as a pandemic, online schooling has become a more pervasive form of learning, and cyberloafing has become a widespread behavior, even among adolescents. However, less research has explored the influencing mechanism of adolescents’ cyberloafing. Based on relevant studies and the real lives of adolescents, this study aimed to examine the association between a competitive class climate and cyberloafing among adolescents, its underlying mechanism, the mediating role of perceived stress and the moderating role of self-esteem. A total of 686 adolescents were recruited to complete a set of questionnaires assessing cyberloafing, perceived stress, self-esteem, and perceived competitive class climate. The results showed that a competitive class climate was positively associated with perceived stress, and the U-shaped relationship between perceived stress and cyberloafing was significant. Perceived stress mediated the relationship between a competitive class climate and cyberloafing. Meanwhile, self-esteem moderated the U-shaped relationship between perceived stress and cyberloafing and the linear relationship between a competitive class climate and perceived stress. The results of this study indicate that the influence of a competitive class climate on individual learning behavior may be nonlinear, and proper competition can contribute to reducing individual cyberloafing.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES
This study examines life stress, dietary attitudes, and snacking frequency for college students living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The purpose of this study is to assist college students feeling stressed by offering desirable dietary attitudes and choices of the appropriate snacks by providing educational materials that offer appropriate nutrition education and nutritional information.
SUBJECTS/METHODS
A survey was conducted on a total of 600 college students aged 19–29-year-olds living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province (234 male students and 366 female students). Collected data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 28.0 program.
RESULTS
Life stress among college students did not differ significantly between the genders. Male students were more stressed about lover (P < 0.01), while female students were more stressed about value problems (P < 0.01) and future problems (P < 0.05). Dietary attitude ratings were 3.1 for both male and female students with no significant difference. The overall snacking frequency was 4.1 times/day—4.2 times/day for male students and 4.0 times/day for female students—thus, there was no significant difference. Male students consumed ‘beverage’ (P < 0.01) more frequently than female students. Life stress and snacking were positively correlated for ‘biscuit/cookie,’ ‘chip,’ ‘cereal,’ ‘juice/smoothie,’ ‘café americano,’ ‘café latte,’ ‘tea,’ ‘jelly,’ ‘chocolate,’ ‘rice cake,’ ‘milk,’ ‘flavored milk,’ and ‘ice cream’ among male students. Among female students, life stress and snacking were positively correlated with ‘cereal,’ ‘caramel,’ and ‘soymilk,’ and negatively correlated for ‘biscuit/cookie’ and ‘carbonated drink.’
CONCLUSIONS
College students should manage their stress by identifying its causes and learning how to deal with stressful situations. Additionally, providing them with proper nutrition education based on the correct nutritional information is essential for promoting good food attitudes and snacking behaviors.
Although traditional views of workplace stress assume that all job demands have deleterious consequences, research indicates that some job demands may benefit employees. Notably, the Challenge–Hindrance Stressor Framework (CHSF) proposes that, although job demands that constrain, hinder, or thwart personal growth and achievement (hindrance stressors) have negative effects on work-related outcomes, job demands that provide the potential for personal growth and achievement (challenge stressors) have positive effects on these outcomes. Despite the attention generated by the CHSF, several criticisms and limitations hinder the potential of this framework. Thus, this article reviews our current understanding of the CHSF, addresses important criticisms about the nature and effects of challenge and hindrance stressors, and discusses how future research should approach conceptual and methodological challenges to lay the foundation for the next iteration of this framework—CHSF 2.0. Building on this new framework, we discuss some implications for cross-cultural research and for practitioners.
The productivity of work meetings is mostly assessed through post-hoc questionnaires. These questionnaires are impractical as they require additional time after the meeting has ended. Thus, measuring meeting productivity in a non-intrusive manner is of practical and theoretical importance. Extending research on physiological arousal and the healthy physiological variability thesis to the context of work meetings, we take a novel approach and investigate whether physiological arousal and the variability in implicit body signals of meeting participants (heart rate, arm movements, and speech intensity) can be accurate predictors of perceived meeting productivity. In a preliminary field study, we used smartwatches and tracked the body signals of 16 team members in 26 team meetings. The perceived meeting productivity was assessed at the end of the meetings. Partly supporting our assumptions, multilevel analysis showed that the variance in arm acceleration was a significant predictor of perceived meeting productivity. Further, using a random forest classifier, we accurately predicted perceived meeting productivity in roughly 60% of the cases with body signals. This study adds to previous work on meeting effectiveness by tapping into the potential of wearables to provide valid information about perceived meeting productivity. Cultivating our findings, we discuss lessons learned for future research.
To improve the productivity of individuals, this study proposes a method to identify stress, which is also divided into positive or negative one. The method takes features in the time course into account. The paper presents important variables to estimate stress states. Whether the proposed method can identify stress states is confirmed through experiments, whose details are explained in the paper. The paper also discusses how to use non-invasive and low-cost wearable sensors along with the method.
There are many pressures on elite footballers. They work in a meritocracy, where only the best are selected and play at the highest levels. From the moment they enter an academy to their retirement there is a fear of deselection and rejection. Elite players need to contend with criticisms from fans and via social media; team and management dynamics can be stressful. Fears of injury are major concerns. In addition, the players are likely to face everyday difficulties experienced by the rest of society, such as relationship, family and financial problems. There is a great deal of stigma associated with mental health problems in footballers, hence approaches are required that are destigmatising. This article presents two frameworks conceptualising stress in footballers: the Power Threat Meaning Framework, which describes stress in non-diagnostic terms; and the Yerkes–Dodson curve, which describes how stress can affect footballers’ mental and physical performances on the pitch. Both frameworks can combine to enable therapists to understand players’ distress and its impact and to guide towards appropriate treatments, as we show in a fictitious case study.
Stress is present in our everyday lives and it is considered to be the driving force of evolution. Anxiety, chronic worries and panic attacks are the most common consequences of long-term and exhausting stress. The most significant fundamental contribution that is crucial for the development of the modern concept of stress was made by Claude Bernard who proposed the theory that the body was constantly maintaining a stable and well-balanced internal environment or "milieu interieur". Maintaining the internal environment constant was defined as homeostasis by Cannon who proposed two maintenance mechanisms - through negative feedback from the autonomic nervous system and through sensory organs. Hans Selye proposed stress as non-specific strain on the body, caused by an altered body function which is followed by the release of stress hormones. He named this process the general adaptation syndrome which had three stages: alarm reaction, initial phase exhibiting "fight or flight" response; resistance, when body is getting used to being stressed, and exhaustion, when resistance to stress is gradually decreased and collapses. Hans Selye was the first to coin the term "heterostasis" representing the procedure by which a new stable state was achieved by the activation of physiological adaptive mechanisms. Lazarus highlighted emotions as an important factor in behavior in response to stress and provided a description of various reactions to stressors. He emphasized the process of cognitive assessment as a mediator in dealing with stressors - how a person imagines or evaluates an event in order to understand stress reactions in people. Eustress, considered to be positive stress leads to toned emotions, motivation and focused energy, while distress, negative stress, occurs after prolonged stress that exceeds our ability to deal with it. Distress causes anxiety or withdrawal (depression and anxiety), and is accompanied by unpleasant feelings and reduced work ability leading to mental and physical illnesses.
Stress is often associated with negative consequences, and this also applies in the context of memory retrieval. However, Smith, Hughes, et al. (2019) proposed that this relationship only holds for information stored in episodic memory, because it relies on the hippocampus. In contrast, conceptual knowledge is stored in semantic memory, which is associated with neocortical and striatal brain regions that are upregulated during stress. Indeed, Smith, Hughes, et al. (2019) found that people experiencing acute psychosocial stress performed better on a subsequent trivia questionnaire compared to a control group. Moreover, performance correlated positively with cortisol reactivity. These findings are important, novel, and perhaps somewhat surprising, hence it is important to establish their generalizability. The latter is accomplished in the present study through a multiverse analysis. The results showed that the effect is relatively robust to variations in the scoring rules for the trivia questionnaire, the type of statistical model being used, and the inclusion versus exclusion of gender as a covariate in the analyses. However, we obtained mostly null effects when using the change in psychological stress levels as a predictor variable, and/or when only considering questions that were actually answered. The latter finding in particular is worrisome as it might point to alternative explanations. That is, stress might improve performance, because participants are more engaged with the task or are more prone to guess, regardless of its (potential) impact on semantic memory retrieval. Hence, it is premature to conclude that stress enhances semantic memory.
This review of research dealing with psychologically induced arousal and motor performance focuses on the hypothesized inverted-∪ function relating arousal to performance. The inverted-∪ hypothesis is supported only in a weak and psychologically trivial fashion: Subjects with incentive will outperform either those with none or those responding to a serious and plausible threat; the arousal level of the first group will be intermediate to those of the other two. However, debilitating states (e.g., anxiety) can occur at arousal levels equal to that optimal for performance (the state of being “psyched up”). The concept of arousal cannot distinguish between these and other states (e.g., anger, sexuality, and fear) because it is an excessively broad physiological construct artificially severed from its psychological context. More useful research in human motor performance would investigate discrete psychobiological states, which include affect and cognition as well as physiology. Examination of profound individual differences in response to incentive and threat suggests that psychobiological states have their genesis in response expectancies and hypnotic-like self-inductions. The cognitive and affective components of these states are highly interactive and perhaps not profitably separated. Because performance anxiety is a central problem in the motor realm, it is carefully delineated and the test anxiety literature is scrutinized. Psychophysiological test batteries and other investigations in the area are described, and guidelines for future research are provided.
"Downsizing" seems to the (widely applauded) order of the day for giant firms like General Motors, IBM and General Electric. Is big business on the way out? Are small firms better at generating new jobs and spurring technological innovation? This book shows that in response to international competition, big companies are becoming leaner. Powerful multinational corporations are focusing on their core businesses and contracting out other activities, forming strategic alliances with domestic and foreign partners (many of them small firms). The book helps the reader to understand, and learn to live with the brave new world of business organization, where economic activities are decentralized, but where big firms continue to be in control. How to reconcile the private advantages of networks with the public purpose of ensuring high labour and environmental standards is the great challenge of today. Bennett Harrison is the author of "The Great U-Turn" and "The Deindustrialization of America".
Examined relationships among stress, coping behaviors, and performance for 93 owner-managers of small businesses damaged by hurricane floods. It was hypothesized that (a) perceived stress and performance display an inverted-U relationship, and (b) emotional coping mechanisms increase under higher stress. Ss were interviewed regarding their handling of critical incidents under stress and completed a subjective stress scale by H. H. Kerle and H. M. Bialek (1958). Type of recovery effort following the flood was recorded, organizational performance was rated on a 5-point scale, and final loss data were acquired. Perceived stress and organization performance displayed a curvilinear, nearly inverted-U relationship. Actual financial loss (or stress level) did not account for performance differences. Problem-solving coping behaviors revealed an inverted-U relationship with perceived stress, while emotional coping behaviors displayed a positive linear relationship.
Recent controversies in psychology have spurred conversations about the nature and quality of psychological research. One topic receiving substantial attention is the role of replication in psychological science. Using the complete publication history of the 100 psychology journals with the highest 5-year impact factors, the current article provides an overview of replications in psychological research since 1900. This investigation revealed that roughly 1.6% of all psychology publications used the term replication in text. A more thorough analysis of 500 randomly selected articles revealed that only 68% of articles using the term replication were actual replications, resulting in an overall replication rate of 1.07%. Contrary to previous findings in other fields, this study found that the majority of replications in psychology journals reported similar findings to their original studies (i.e., they were successful replications). However, replications were significantly less likely to be successful when there was no overlap in authorship between the original and replicating articles. Moreover, despite numerous systemic biases, the rate at which replications are being published has increased in recent decades.
© The Author(s) 2012.
Baritz’s historical analysis demonstrated that in the first half of the 20th century, groups of social scientists in the service of management emerged, with their offerings being received warmly in general. The author’s reactions to an initial reading of Baritz’s story in the 1970s and a recent reading in the 1990s are presented. The principal intent of doing so is to stimulate other management researchers to question who they should serve.
This article examines the relationship between workplace transformation (or restructuring) and the well-being of employees, in terms of both psychological and physical health, at a large manufacturing corporation in the United States. While the previous literature has been largely divided over the issue - some researchers providing unqualified enthusiasm and others equally strong criticism of workplace changes - we found, after decomposing workplace transformation into five distinct dimensions of intensity, autonomy, team-work, skilling and computing, that certain components were harmful while others were beneficial to the employees. Furthermore, some effects of reengineering varied between managers and non-managers. Overall, increases in workplace intensity were associated with the largest increases in stress and symptoms of poor health. The data were produced by a longitudinal (two-wave) survey questionnaire of over 1000 employees and were analyzed by means of a structural equations model.
The paper traces the vicissitudes of the Yerkes-Dodson law from 1908 to the present. In its original form, the law was intended to describe the relation between stimulus strength and habit-formation for tasks varying in discrimination difficultness. But later generations of investigations and textbook authors have rendered it variously as the effects of punishment, reward, motivation, drive, arousal, anxiety, tension or stress upon learning, performance, problem-solving, coping or memory; while the task variable has been commonly referred to as difficulty, complexity or novelty, when it is not omitted altogether. These changes are seldom explicitly discussed, and are often misattributed to Yerkes and Dodson themselves. The various reformulations are seen as reflecting conceptual changes and current developments in the areas of learning, motivation and emotion, and it is argued that the plasticity of the law also reflects the vagueness of basic psychological concepts in these areas.
Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped relationship, initially established by Yerkes and Dodson, between emotional arousal and performance. The basic tenet of the theory assumes that high levels of arousal lead to restriction of the amount of information to which agents can pay attention. One fundamental derivative of the theory, as typically conceived in psychology, is the assumption that restriction of information or the ability to process a smaller set of data is fundamentally disadvantageous. To explore the merits of this point, we first argue that the relationship depicted by this collapsed version of the Yerkes-Dodson law is far too simplistic to account for the complex relationship between various cognitive functions and emotional arousal. Second, conceptualization of arousal as a unidimensional construct needs to be rejected. Finally, and most importantly, we challenge the notion that having more information available is necessarily preferable to having less information.
Even though researchers have been exploring the relation between stress and job performance for nearly a century, there remains controversy about whether the relation is best characterized as a negative linear relation, a positive linear relation, or as an inverted-U. The inverted-U theory has a great deal of intuitive appeal, yet research results weigh in favor of the negative linear relation. We reviewed studies performed over the past 25 years on the stress-performance relation. The results of our review identified three primary sets of problems with prior research: neglect of the understressed condition, negative connotation of stress, and contextual range restriction. All but one of the studies in our review were found to have at least one of these problems. Based on these results, we make suggestions for refinements in future research to provide a fair test of the inverted-U theory.
Replication is one of the most important tools for the verification of facts within the empirical sciences. A detailed examination of the notion of replication reveals that there are many different meanings to this concept and the relevant procedures, but hardly any systematic literature. This paper analyzes the concept of replication from a theoretical point of view. It demonstrates that the theoretical demands are scarcely met in everyday work within the social sciences. Some demands are just not feasible, whereas others are constricted by restrictions relating to publication. A new classification scheme based on a functional approach that distinguishes between different types of replication is proposed. Next, it will be argued that replication addresses the important connection between existing and new knowledge. To do so it has to be applied explicitly and systematically. The paper ends with a description of procedures how this could be done and a set of recommendations how to handle the concept of replication in the future to exploit its potential to the full. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The term evidence-based management (EBMgt) is relatively new, though the idea of using research evidence to help make managerial decisions is not. In this paper we identify and clarify a number of common misconceptions about EBMgt. Rather than a single rigid method, EBMgt is a family of approaches that support decision making. It is something done by practitioners, not scholars, although scholars have a critical role to play in helping to provide the infrastructure required for EBMgt. Properly conducted systematic reviews that summarize in an explicit way what is known and not known about a specific practice-related question are a cornerstone of EBMgt. T he virtues of using research evidence to inform management practice have permeated manage-rial writings and organizational research over the past 50 or more years, as the lead article by Reay, Berta, and Kohn (RBK, this issue) points out. Evidence-based management (EBMgt) as a concept in itself is new and can be defined as follows: Evidence-based management is about making decisions through the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of four sources of information: practitioner expertise and judgment, evidence from the local context, a critical evaluation of the best available research evidence, and the perspectives of those people who might be affected by the decision.
This article argues that our understanding of absence and absenteeism, deriving from seminal studies in the sociology of work and employment, has been overtaken by hugely significant developments in political economy, regulation and employment relations. A new research agenda that addresses the changed organisational politics of absence management and the consequences for employees is urgently required.
This paper presents a discussion of the susceptibility of human factors to the use of folk models. The case of automation-induced complacency is used as a guiding example to illustrate how folk models (1) substitute one label for another rather than decomposing a large construct into more measurable specifics; (2) are immune to falsification and so resist the most important scientific quality check; and (3) easily get overgeneralised to situations they were never meant to speak about. We then discuss the link between models and measurements, where the model constrains what can be measured by describing what is essential performance, and where the model’s parameters become the basis for specifying the measurements. We propose that one way forward for human factors is to de-emphasize the focus on inferred and uncertain states of the mind, and shift to characteristics of human performance instead.
If The Machine That Changed the World is a description of the Toyota system in the industry of its origin, Lean Thinking is a generalization of the basic concepts so they can be applied to any company in any industry. The authors begin by summarizing the five inherent principles in any lean system: 1 correctly specify value so you are providing what the customer actually wants, 2 identify the value stream for each product family and remove the wasted steps that don't create value but do create muda (waste), 3 make the remaining value-creating flow continuously to drastically shorten throughput times, 4 allow customer to pull value from your rapid-response value streams as needed (rather than pushing products toward the customer on the basis of forecasts), and 5 never relax until you reach perfection, which is the delivery of pure value instantaneously with zero muda. (The first part of Lean Thinking devotes a chapter to each of these principles.) In the second part, the authors describe in detail how managers in a wide range of companies and industries - small, medium and large, North American, European and Japanese - transformed their business by applying the principles of lean thinking. Chapters are devoted to Pratt and Whitney, Wiremold, Lantech in North America, Porsche in Germany, and Showa Manufacturing in Japan. Lean Thinking has sold more than 300,000 copies in the English language hard-cover version alone, because it's an indispensable companion for every manager making the lean journey.
The Yerkes-Dodson relationship is one of the oldest 'laws' behavioral research. It is used repeatedly as an explanation for stress effects on performance and is a fixture of undergraduate psychological texts. However, as is the case of most classics, it is more cited than read. In actuality, Yerkes and Dodson's report dealt with animal learning under states of compulsion and is only tangentially related to human performance in stress filled conditions. Our re-evaluation is motivated by two primary circumstances. The first is the evident failure of the unitary arousal notion, which has commonly been invoked as the causal source to explain the Yerkes-Dodson, inverted-U relationship. The second relates to criticisms of the curvilinear description itself and its interpretations, which we present here. Together, these concerns demand not simply a re-evaluation, but a replacement of this over-simplistic and fundamentally flawed proposition. In repealing this 'law,' we offer a more sophisticated and hopefully more veridical representation, which is given primarily in the following reprinted article of Hancock and Warm (1989). This approach posits an 'extended-U' description founded upon attention and adaptability as central mechanisms of response.
To justify its existence as a practical subject, statistics must ultimately influence people's decisions. It can only do this if statisticians succeed in communicating their findings to the decision makers. The task is difficult, requiring courage and skilful use of words, tables and pictures. Pictures (graphs, charts, etc.) are particularly useful for showing relationships; one type of pictorial device, the cusum chart, is especially powerful and could, with advantage, be much more widely used.
Some studies have assumed close proximity to improve team communication on the premise that reduced physical distance increases the chance of contact and information exchange. However, research showed that the relationship between team proximity and team communication is not always straightforward and may depend on some contextual conditions. Hence, this study was designed with the purpose of examining how a contextual condition like time pressure may influence the relationship between team proximity and team communication. In this study, time pressure was conceptualized as a two‐dimensional construct: challenge time pressure and hindrance time pressure, such that each has different moderating effects on the proximity–communication relationship.
The research was conducted with 81 new product development ( NPD ) teams (437 respondents) in W estern E urope ( B elgium, E ngland, F rance, G ermany, and the N etherlands). These teams functioned in short‐cycled industries and developed innovative products for the consumer, electronic, semiconductor, and medical sectors. The unit of analysis was a team, which could be from a single‐team or a multiteam project. Results showed that challenge time pressure moderates the relationship between team proximity and team communication such that this relationship improves for teams that experience high rather than low challenge time pressure. Hindrance time pressure moderates the relationship between team proximity and team communication such that this relationship improves for teams that experience low rather than high hindrance time pressure.
Our findings contribute to theory in two ways. First, this study showed that challenge and hindrance time pressure differently influences the benefits of team proximity toward team communication in a particular work context. We found that teams under high hindrance time pressure do not benefit from close proximity, given the natural tendency for premature cognitive closure and the use of avoidance coping tactics when problems surface. Thus, simply reducing physical distances is unlikely to promote communication if motivational or human factors are neglected. Second, this study demonstrates the strength of the challenge–hindrance stressor framework in advancing theory and explaining inconsistencies. Past studies determined time pressure by considering only its levels without distinguishing the type of time pressure. We suggest that this study might not have been able to uncover the moderating effects of time pressure if we had conceptualized time pressure in the conventional way.
The trustworthiness of research findings has been questioned in many domains of science. This article calls for a review of the trustworthiness of the scientific literature in industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology and a reconsideration of common practices that may harm the credibility of our literature. We note that most hypotheses in I–O psychology journals are confirmed. Thus, we are either approaching omniscience or our journals are publishing an unrepresentative sample of completed research. We view the latter explanation as more likely. We review structural problems in the publication process and in the conduct of research that is likely to promote a distortion of scientific knowledge. We then offer recommendations to make the I–O literature more accurate and trustworthy. ''False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science for they often endure long.'' Charles Darwin (1981/1871, p. 385)
This paper is about how natural objects are made visible and analyzable in scientific research. It is argued that the objects scientists actually work upon are highly artificial, in that their visibility depends upon complex instruments and careful preparatory procedures. Instruments and laboratory procedures do more than provide a window to the world; they lay the groundwork for specific analytic operations which utilize literary resources to represent phenomena graphically. Two specific cases from biology are discussed. The first is from a popular field manual, and is used to introduce themes for analyzing a more complex case, a neuroscience project using electron microscopy of brain tissue. The discussion of both cases concerns how specimens are modified into `docile objects' for purposes of investigation. These modifications are summarized under the headings of `marking', `constituting graphic space', and `normalizing observations'. Finally, it is claimed that these practices make up an `externalized retina' for scientific perception — a `retina' that depends upon disciplined conduct within the laboratory setting.
It is held that many of the current problems in the field of motivation arise from the acceptance of a conceptual nervous system of an earlier day. To develop this thesis, the author examines the concept of motivation as it relates to the conceptual nervous systems of the period before 1930, of the period 10 years ago, and of today. It is shown that today's physiology provides common ground for communication among the differing conceptions of motivation. 51 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The literature indicates that dysfunctional individual and organizational consequences result from the existence of role conflict and role ambiguity in complex organizations. Yet, systematic measurement and empirical testing of these role constructs is lacking. This study describes the development and testing of questionnaire measures of role conflict and ambiguity. Analyses of responses of managers show these two constructs to be factorially identifiable and independent. Derived measures of role conflict and ambiguity tend to correlate in two samples in expected directions with measures of organizational and managerial practices and leader behavior, and with member satisfaction, anxiety, and propensity to leave the organization.
This study examines the role of downsizing in the deinstitutionalization of permanent employment among publicly listed companies in Japan between 1990 and 1997. We found that although economic pressure triggered downsizing, social and institutional pressures shaped the pace and process by which downsizing spread. Large, old, wholly domestically owned, and high-reputation Japanese firms were resistant to downsizing at first, as were firms with high levels of human capital, as reflected by high wages, but these social and institutional pressures diminished as downsizing spread across the population. We argue that this breakdown of social constraints was due to a safety-in-numbers effect: as downsizing became more prominent, the actions of any single firm were less likely to be noticed and criticized, and the effect of the institutional factors that once constrained downsizing diminished.
This article presents evidence that published results of scientific investigations are not a representative sample of results of all scientific studies. Research studies from 11 major journals demonstrate the existence of biases that favor studies that observe effects that, on statistical evaluation, have a low probability of erroneously rejecting the so-called null hypothesis (H0). This practice makes the probability of erroneously rejecting H0 different for the reader than for the investigator. It introduces two biases in the interpretation of the scientific literature: one due to multiple repetition of studies with false hypothesis, and one due to failure to publish smaller and less significant outcomes of tests of a true hypotheses. These practices distort the results of literature surveys and of meta-analyses. These results also indicate that practice leading to publication bias have not changed over a period of 30 years.
We examine the concepts of stress, distress, and eustress and develop three tenets that are used to relate these concepts to three major theories or models of occupational stress. Selye's concept of eustress or "good stress" appears to be largely ignored in the literature, while the Yerkes Dodson Law is illustrated as a model for management practice. We suggest that the meaning assigned to the word stress has shifted from Selye's original formulation, and that this shift, in conjunction with the use of the Yerkes Dodson Law leads to inappropriate management of stress in organizations. We conclude that the concept that some stress is good and enhances performance should be rejected in favour of more useful and accurate concepts.
Each of the 18 human subjects was given one trial in running a stylus maze for each of three intensities of shock. One trial was given without shock. The authors wished to discover "whether learning and efficiency are affected in a similar manner under like intensities of punishment." Time and errors were automatically recorded. The results showed that an increase in the intensity of the punishment reduced the average reaction time, i.e., of withdrawal from the cul-de-sac. The authors attribute this result to an increased degree of "attention" with an increase in the intensity of the punishing factor. They say, "an increase in the intensity of punishment created a readiness and an eagerness to react that was not typical for the preceding intensity." Increases in the intensity of punishment, however, were generally accompanied by an increased number of entrances into blind alleys. There were a few exceptions but, "the records in general indicate that learning progresses more slowly as the intensity of the punishment for errors becomes greater." Increased time with an increase in the intensity of punishment was also noticeable. However, a few subjects required less time with a high degree of punishment than with a low degree of punishment. The authors conclude that "the span of attention for any motivating condition is fully as important as the motivating condition in determining the character of the response." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studied the relation of strength of stimulus, to rapidity of learning in 18 kittens. The kittens had to discriminate between the light-dark boxes. The experiment box was divided into a nest box, an entrance chamber and 2 electric boxes. The electric boxes were placed in the circuit of a constant electric current. The kittens received electric shock in these boxes. The results indicate that: (1) it took less number of trials to perfect a correct habit with a strong stimulus than with a medium stimulus, under conditions of learning of varying difficulty (2) the relation of the painfulness of the electric stimulus to the rapidity of habit formation depended upon the difficulty of the visual discrimination, and (3) the discrimination was difficult to make when the difference between the unpleasant and the very unpleasant stimuli was not marked. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigated the ability of chicks to make an easy, medium, and a difficult discrimination, under varying strengths of stimulus. A series of experiments, involving 68 barred Plymouth Rock chicks, was carried out. The chicks were given a preliminary training to familiarize them with the apparatus. The apparatus comprised 3 divisions or boxes: the hover box, the illumination box, and the experiment box. It was found that under the condition of easy and medium discrimination, the rate of learning was more rapid the stronger the stimulus. Under the conditions of difficult discrimination, the chicks which were most sensitive to the electric stimulus, and learned most rapidly under the influence of weak stimuli. The results have been compared with those of R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson (1908), who worked with mice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Throughout the preparation of this volume I have been guided by a central purpose rather than by any fixed and predetermined point of view. This purpose is to examine the determination of human and animal behavior in its varied aspects. From one standpoint the study of motivation is concerned with energetics, i.e., with those conditions which evoke specific bodily movements and which regulate the general level of activity. From another standpoint the study is an investigation of the factors which regulate and control the course of activity. This includes all those activities designated by psychologists as purposive behavior. From still another point of view our problem relates to the development of motivating factors: it is a genetic study of the change and interplay of interests, desires, habit organizations, and similar determiners of behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Tested an extension of the inverted-–U curve hypothesis by defining low, moderate, and high arousal levels as an athlete's lowest, median, and highest pregame state anxiety values across 3 games of a basketball tournament. Performance was measured by a game statistics composite (PER) and by total points (TP) in each game. Ss were 30 female university varsity basketball starters from 6 teams. They were trichotomized on competitive trait anxiety (A-trait), and a 3 by 3 ANOVA with repeated measures on A-state categories was used. Ss were administered the Sport Competition Anxiety Test before a practice session and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory 20–30 min before each game. Significant A-state effects were found for both PER and TP. Although A-trait predicted absolute A-state levels extremely well, it failed to achieve a significant relationship with performance. When intra-S T-scores for PER and TP were regressed separately on intra-S A-state T-scores, the relationship of variables consisted essentially of a quadratic function that explained 18.4 and 16.9% of within-S variance for PER and TP, respectively. High A-state scores were associated with poorest performances in all 3 trait groups, but plotting performance T-scores across A-state categories indicated this effect to be particularly pronounced in high-competitive trait-anxious Ss. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reviews the literature on the Yerkes-Dodson law, showing that the efforts to replicate the experiment on habit-formation in mice conducted by R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson (1908) or to otherwise verify the law have led in most cases to negative results. Additionally, some experiments or observations that seemed to prove the law are not convincing by methodological reasons, and this is also true for the original Yerkes-Dodson experiment. Thus, no less than 85 yrs after the Yerkes-Dodson experiment, it seems necessary to replicate their original experiment under very controlled conditions. (Slovak abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
It has been claimed that most research findings are false, and it is known that large-scale studies involving omics data are especially prone to errors in design, execution, and analysis. The situation is alarming because taxpayer dollars fund a substantial amount of biomedical research, and because the publication of a research article that is later determined to be flawed can erode the credibility of an entire field, resulting in a severe and negative impact for years to come. Here, we urge the development of an online, open-access, postpublication, peer review system that will increase the accountability of scientists for the quality of their research and the ability of readers to distinguish good from sloppy science.
This commentary was distributed at the Mexico City meeting of the Strategic Management Society, and forms the basis for the Call for Papers made for the 1996 SMS meeting to be held in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, November 10–13, 1996 at The Pointe Hilton Resort. The Editors of the SMJ thought it worth drawing to our readers' attention and offer it here as an interesting perspective on our field, the issues it now faces, and by implication, what research and practice must confront over the years ahead.
This research examined linkages between mentor leadership behaviors (laissez-faire, transactional contingent reward, and transformational), protégé perception of mentoring functions received (career development and psychosocial support) and job-related stress of 204 mentor–protégé dyads. Results of Partial Least Squares analysis revealed that mentor transformational behavior was more positively related to mentoring functions received than transactional contingent reward behavior, while mentor laissez-faire behavior was negatively related to mentoring functions received. Both mentor transformational behavior and mentoring functions received were negatively related to protégé job-related stress. The relationship between mentor transformational behavior and protégé job-related stress was moderated by the level of mentoring functions received. Results are discussed as they relate to researchers and practitioners who are becoming interested in finding ways to develop organizational members and allay job-related stress. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Executive Overview The Toyota Production System (TPS) has been lauded as the pinnacle of flexible, just-in-time manufacturing and design and the founder of "lean work" systems, which claim to improve product quality and employee productivity. American automobile manufacturers readily adopted the "Toyota Way" and many of the man-agement practices in service industries, such as Total Quality Management (TQM) are biased on its fundamental principles. The author of this paper, Darius Mehri, is an American-born computer simulation engineer who worked in a Toyota group company for three years, observing this system firsthand and conducting his own qualitative research on what he considers the true impact of lean work: the human cost. As a participant observer who was inculcated in Japanese social and workplace culture, Mehri takes an examination of TPS well beyond what many studies American and European scholars have been able to go. His assessment is guided by a distinction which is fundamental to understanding Japanese culture and business: tatemae (what you are supposed to feel or do) and honne (what you actually feel or do). Mehri believes that international enthusiasm for the Toyota Production System results from western observers' failure to discern the honne within the tatemae. He lifts the curtain of formality and messages from management at Toyota—the tatemae—that obscures the realities— the honne— of the Toyota Way: limited potential for creativity and innovation, narrow professional skills, worker isolation and harassment, dangerous conditions on the production line, accident cover-ups, excessive overtime, and poor quality of life for workers.
The adaptation of lean techniques in public services is viewed as an innovative managerialist response to government demands for more efficient services amidst large reductions in public spending. This paper explores workers' experiences of the impact of lean on work organisation and control and provides new insights into developments within contemporary back office clerical work.
This paper provides a historical analysis of the changing significance of the most influential statement ever made on inequality and development—Simon Kuznets’s “inverted U-curve hypothesis.” The shifting interpretations and appropriations of the hypothesis over time—from its status as a speculative supposition in 1955, to its rise and fall as a reified socioeconomic law, to its contested standing in the social sciences today—demonstrate how Kuznets’s arguments, originally advanced under more limited conditions, became transformed into overarching theoretical, empirical, and political constructions. This history suggests that even empirically grounded and testable social science models are contingent on the broader social and political contexts in which they are produced and negotiated.
In the wake of high-profile controversies, psychologists are facing up
to problems with replication.
his paper seeks to map a decade of organizational downsizing in Australia utilizing a comprehensive longitudinal data set of 4153 firms. Aggregate downsizing measures conceal extensive change within organizations. We seek to assess these processes by comparing a conventional downsizing measure with more specific occupational downsizing measures. The results show the contours of change in Australia over the 1990s; indicate that there are distinctive and contrasting trends; and raise significant issues for future theoretical and empirical research.
"This volume presents an attempt to construct a unified cognitive theory of science in relatively short compass. It confronts the strong program in sociology of science and the positions of various postpositivist philosophers of science, developing significant alternatives to each in a reeadily comprehensible sytle. It draws loosely on recent developments in cognitive science, without burdening the argument with detailed results from that source. . . . The book is thus a provocative one. Perhaps that is a measure of its value: it will lead scholars and serious student from a number of science studies disciplines into continued and sharpened debate over fundamental questions."âRichard Burian, Isis "The writing is delightfully clear and accessible. On balance, few books advance our subject as well."âPaul Teller, Philosophy of Science