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The effect of regulatory focus on attention residue and performance during interruptions
Abstract
This paper explores how regulatory focus affects transitions between tasks following interruptions. Consistent with the research on attention residue (Leroy, 2009), we argue that in order to be cognitively available and perform well on an interrupting task, people must cognitively disengage from the task that is interrupted—that is they must fully switch their attention to the interrupting demand. Integrating the research on regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997) and attention residue (Leroy, 2009), we predict that both the framing of the initial/interrupted task and the framing of the interrupting task interact to affect how well people switch their attention to and perform on an interrupting task. This investigation allows the identification of when attention residue is most likely to occur, hindering performance on the interrupting task and how attention residue can be prevented or mitigated. Data across three studies support our predictions.
... Although intrusions may make teamwork more efficient (Fritz et al., 2020) and facilitate employees' work-life transitions (Derks et al., 2021), they may also alter employees' productivity. Indeed, prior studies suggest that, because of their uncontrollable and unpredictable nature, personal and professional intrusions may interfere with employees' work process and make it harder for them to reorient their attention to the interrupted task (Leroy and Schmidt, 2016). As such, experiencing frequent disruption in their work progress may slow down the attainment of employees' performance goals and achievements. ...
... Yet, research has not yet evidenced the implications of professional and personal intrusions for employees' counterproductivity (e.g., procrastination). However, prior studies did show intrusions to disrupt employees' attention and make it harder for them to reorient their attention to the interrupted task (Leroy and Schmidt, 2016). Instead of reorienting their attention to the interrupted task, employees may thus orient it toward less demanding and more pleasurable non-work-oriented thoughts or activities, in the form of daydreaming or work avoidance (i.e., soldiering), or of online non-work activities such as online shopping or checking social media (i.e., cyberslacking; Metin et al., 2016). ...
... We thus provide first evidence that intrusions trigger counterproductive behaviours. This new result could be explained by the fact that intrusions make it harder for employees to reorient their attention to the interrupted task (Leroy and Schmidt, 2016) and may instead result in self-undermining and destructive regulatory strategies (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017) in the form of daydreaming or work avoidance (Metin et al., 2016). ...
Purpose
When employees complete their work tasks, they often experience intrusions stemming from the work (professional intrusions) or the home domain (personal intrusions). Yet, little is known about the respective implications of these two types of intrusions for employees’ productivity. This paper aims to investigate how professional and personal intrusions at work relate to the bright (perceived performance) and dark (procrastination) sides of employees' productivity. Based on recent advances in Self-Determination Theory, the authors also examined the mediating role of psychological need unfulfillment in these relations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors relied on a cross-sectional survey design. A total of 229 French employees took part in the study.
Findings
Results from structural equation modelling indicated that need unfulfillment mediated the negative association between personal intrusions and employees’ performance and the positive relation between personal intrusions and procrastination. Professional intrusions were positively related to the soldiering dimension of procrastination only.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on the differentiated effects of personal and professional intrusions, while uncovering the psychological mechanisms at play. Personal intrusions, by triggering employees’ need unfulfillment, were found to have more extended detrimental consequences than professional intrusions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is also the first to demonstrate the mediating role of need unfulfillment in the relations between socio-contextual characteristics and individual functioning, and thus contributes to Self-Determination Theory.
... Interruptions are unexpected disruptions in behavioral patterns or attentional focus, typically considered a hindrance stressor (Keller et al., 2020;Ma et al., 2020;Pachler et al., 2018;Puranik et al., 2020). Disruptions force cognitive switching, which consumes cognitive and time resources, inhibiting performance on the interrupting task, as well as preventing a sufficient return to the interrupted task (Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). These processes are aligned with the characteristics of hindrance stressors rather than challenge stressors because they do not clearly promote growth and learning, but rather act as impediments to completing one's work. ...
... Although interruptions from family may also have benefits by forcing employees to take a break from work (e.g., Hunter et al., 2019;Pendem et al., 2016;Vaziri et al., 2020), we build upon research that views interruptions as a hindrance stressor to predict that interruptions from family during work hours will generally be detrimental due to the resources consumed (Ma et al., 2020). Interruptions consume resources by forcing task switching, an effortful cognitive process that consumes resources in the moment as well as after resuming the interrupted task (Altmann & Trafton, 2007;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Thus, individuals are likely to perceive interruptions as an obstacle, preventing them from reaching basic goals or partaking in anything beyond the fundamental job requirements. ...
... Furthermore, we expect the resource consumption by interruptions acts against any challenge stress response an individual may otherwise experience in remote work. That is, instead of viewing tasks as challenging and developmental, or devoting energy and attention toward accomplishing basic or stretch work goals, individuals may have to focus on managing the task switching demanded by the interruption (Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Upon returning to work, it takes more time and energy to resume focus, further preventing the employee from engaging in other enriching or replenishing activities (Altmann & Trafton, 2007). ...
We use the conservation of resources (COR) theory to propose a work-family model of stress in remote work. We propose that interruptions from family are a unique hindrance stressor, detrimental for the employee’s challenge and hindrance stress responses in remote work, which, in turn, have distinct effects on resource-oriented attitudes and states of both the employee and spouse. Namely, we expect that both partners’ satisfaction with the work arrangement, employee engagement, and spouse family overload will be associated with the way the employee experiences stress in remote work (stress response). We also integrate the effort-recovery model to examine whether two types of breaks taken by employees while working remotely replenish resources lost through interruptions. Using a sample of 391 couples, we find support for all hypotheses that pertain to the employee. Findings involving the spouse support the primacy of the resource loss tenet in COR theory, in that these detrimental effects are significant in crossing over to the spouse via hindrance but are not significant via challenge stress. We discuss the implications of these findings, emphasizing that interruptions are harmful for both types of stress experienced by remote employees (i.e., lower “good” and higher “bad” stress responses), and interruptions appear to have far-reaching effects on both partners. However, choosing to use breaks for both nonwork goals and self-care can buffer these otherwise detrimental effects.
... Last, we examine a management-focused moderator of the attention residue and work-family conflict relationship that buffers the negative effects of cross-domain attention residue. In the attention residue literature, moderators have been examined that focus on task characteristics (e.g., task completion, Newton, LePine, Kim, Wellman, & Bush, 2020; framing of the task, Leroy & Schmidt, 2016) and their impact on attention residue. We specifically examined a management-focused moderator of the relationship between cross-domain attention residue and its outcome of work-family conflict to determine whether the effects of cross-domain attention residue can be diminished through organizational practices (Kossek, Baltes, & Matthews, 2011). ...
... Traditionally, attention residue has focused on work tasks-transitioning from one work task to another. Attention residue occurs when thoughts about one task persist while performing another, reducing cognitive availability and negatively impacting the ability to perform at high levels (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016;Newton et al., 2020). From this research, we know that it is difficult for people to switch cognitive gears at work (e.g., Ancona & Chong, 1996;Freeman & Muraven, 2010;Louis & Sutton, 1991). ...
... In addition, attention residue has been found to be negatively related to work performance (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016;Newton et al., 2020). ...
... Just as occurrences of family demands interrupting work may negatively impact the work role (e.g., impaired concentration, increased attention lapses; Demerouti et al., 2007;Lapierre et al., 2012;Nohe et al., 2014), dealing with workrelated intrusions during nonwork time may hinder individuals' ability to resume and focus on nonwork tasks, and may impair the performance of nonwork tasks (e.g., keeping their child safe during play, meaningfully engaging in a conversation with one's spouse; Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Moreover, an inability to successfully pivot back to nonwork life may mark an unhealthy preoccupation with work and thereby strain employee well-being (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). ...
... Underlying and informing our conceptualization of nonwork role re-engagement (NWRR) are boundary management theory (Ashforth et al., 2000) and self-regulatory processes (Diamond, 2013;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016;Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Boundary management theory addresses the ways in which individuals actively manage boundaries to uphold order in their interdependent work-nonwork lives (Ashforth et al., 2000;Nippert-Eng, 1996). ...
... Self-regulatory processes likewise underlie NWRR (Diamond, 2013;Hamilton et al., 2011;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016;Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). While a deep discussion of these theories is space prohibitive, we take the position that individuals vary in executive control resources that help them exert self-control in the face of adverse conditions such as external stimuli that lure attention (e.g., messages from a manager) or create attentional residue (when thoughts about one task persist and intrude while performing another; Leroy, 2009). ...
As employees’ personal lives are increasingly splintered by work demands, the boundary between work and nonwork domains is becoming ever more blurred. Grounded within a self-regulatory approach and the executive control function of inhibitory control, we operationalize and examine nonwork role re-engagement (NWRR)—the extent to which individuals can redirect attentional resources back to nonwork tasks following work-related intrusions. In phases 1 and 2, we develop and refine a psychometrically sound unidimensional measure for NWRR aligned with the self-regulatory processes of self-control and interference control underlying inhibitory control. In phase 3, we confirm the factor structure with a new sample. In phase 4 we validate the measure using the samples from phases 2 and 3 to provide evidence of criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validity. NWRR was related to important well-being and work-related outcomes above and beyond existing self-regulatory and boundary management constructs. We offer theoretical and practical implications and an agenda to guide future research, as attentional agility becomes increasingly relevant in a home life replete with interruptions from work.
... The theory of attention residue also focuses on attentional division during an interruption and theorizes that people have a tendency to cognitively linger on the interrupted task, even after stopping it and starting a new task (Leroy, 2009). Such attention residue on the interrupted task reduces the amount of attentional resources available to perform the interrupting task, negatively affecting its performance (Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). ...
... That is, although the interrupting task and person are key constituents of an interruption, they are usually relegated to being design elements in lab studies or boundary conditions. As we note in the future research section, studies on the interrupter (e.g., Rivera, 2014) and the interrupting task (e.g., Leroy & Schmidt, 2016) can broaden our understanding of interruptions. In terms of outcomes, how interruptions affect team-and organization-level outcomes has been largely ignored in favor of This article is protected by copyright. ...
... Further, the regulatory framing of the interrupted task affects the attention residue or the extent to which thoughts about the interrupted task persist even after it has been stopped. Leroy and Schmidt (2016) found that participants found it easier to switch attention on being interrupted, leading to low attention residue, when the interrupted task was promotionfocused, and its completion was framed as helping them achieve their goals successfully. ...
Work interruptions are ubiquitous in today’s workplaces due to the proliferation of technology, and a growing emphasis on collaboration and open workspaces. Although a large body of research on interruptions has accumulated over the last two decades, this research is scattered across disciplines, with little integration. While this fragmentation indicates the complex nature of interruptions, it has also led to inconsistencies in how interruptions are defined and studied. Such differences reduce generalizability of results, lead to conflicting findings, and hinder knowledge development. We present here an integrative review of prior research on work interruptions, based on an analysis of 247 publications. As part of the review, we examine prior definitions of interruption and advance a new integrative definition that can anchor a range of future research. We also discuss and summarize the assumptions and implications of the different investigative approaches used to study interruptions. An awareness of these approaches can help scholars better align their theory and investigative approach to adequately capture constructs/ relationships of interest. We then synthesize theory and research, across disciplines, to present a process-based model that comprehensively captures our current understanding of how, when, and why work interruptions affect employees in different ways. Lastly, we highlight several avenues in need of more research attention and provide recommendations on how to advance the work interruption literature ahead meaningfully. Our review can act as an important reference for scholars new to interruption research, as well as for established interruption researchers looking to move their research in new directions.
... We propose a positive emotional pathway in which engagement in a task produces positive affect, which spills over to influence engagement in a subsequent task. We further propose a negative cognitive pathway in which engagement in a task causes individuals to experience attention residue-ruminative thinking about a prior task while engaged in a subsequent task (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016)which hinders engagement and performance in the subsequent task. We augment our theorizing with qualitative data provided by astronauts involved in missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and crew members confined in an analog environment on the ground who reported on their experiences transitioning between tasks. ...
... We developed our theoretical model a priori based on the literatures on engagement (Kahn, 1990;Rich et al., 2010;Shin & Grant, 2018), role transitions (Culbertson, Mills, & Fullagar, 2012;Rodríguez-Muñoz, Sanz-Vergel, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2014;Rothbard, 2001), and attention residue (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). However, to bring our theorizing to life and better situate it within our research context, we supplement the following section with illustrative quotes from a sample of 30 NASA crew members. ...
... The idea that individuals may not completely refocus their cognitive energies after a transition to a new task has been explored by Leroy and colleagues in their research on attention residue, which refers to persisting thoughts about a previous task after starting a new one (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Consistent with Leroy and colleagues' findings, as well as our prior arguments, we argue that task engagement engenders attention residue, which, in turn, inhibits engagement and performance in the subsequent task (e.g., Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). ...
Engagement is widely viewed as a motivational state that captures the degree to which individuals apply their physical, cognitive, and emotional energies to their jobs, and ultimately improves job performance. However, this job-level view overlooks the possibility that engagement may vary across the different tasks within a job and that engagement in one task may influence engagement and performance in a subsequent task. In this article, we develop and test hypotheses based on a task-level view of engagement and the general notion that there is "residual engagement" from a task that carries forward to a subsequent task. We propose that although task engagement (engagement in a specific task that comprises a broader role) positively spills over to influence task engagement and performance in a subsequent task, in part because of the transmission of positive affect, task engagement simultaneously engenders attention residue, which in turn impedes subsequent task engagement and performance. These predictions were supported in a study of 477 task transitions made by 20 crew members aboard The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Human Exploration Research Analog (Study 1) and in a laboratory study of 346 participants who transitioned between a firefighting task and an assembly task (Study 2). Our investigation explains how engagement flows across tasks, illuminates a negative implication of engagement that has been masked by the predominant job-level perspective, and identifies completeness as a task attribute that reduces this negative consequence of engagement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... By considering the possibility that work interruption events might generate positive as well as negative emotions, we respond to recent urging by management scholars to attend to the "bright side" of interruptions (e.g., Puranik et al., 2019;Sonnentag et al., 2018;Wajcman & Rose, 2011). In doing so, we upend traditional assumptions about work interruptions as events that-while often helpful to the interrupter (Carton & Aiello, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016;McFarlane & Latorella, 2002)-are necessarily negative experiences for the interruptee. ...
... We also found that subjective impressions of timing matter. Given that laboratory experiments have found that interruptions are experienced as more or less annoying depending on how much attention people are paying to something when they are interrupted (Adamczyk & Bailey, 2004;Iqbal & Bailey, 2005;Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016), our conclusions about timing are not entirely surprising. However, our study extends and deepens understanding about interruption timing. ...
Work interruptions are now ubiquitous in organizational life. However, our knowledge about how individuals experience work interruptions remains incomplete. Prior research has linked work interruption events to negative emotions, but scholars have yet to consider if—and when—such events might generate positive emotions. To explore this possibility, we adopted a temporal lens. Conceptualizing interruptions as emotionally charged events that involve changes to people’s time use, we conducted a qualitative field study of 251 work interruptions. Our inductive analysis revealed that many interruptions are experienced positively rather than negatively and that some are experienced neutrally (i.e., with no emotion). We found that this variation can be explained, in part, by four subjective temporal perceptions: time worthiness, timing, duration, and task expectedness. We also identified two contextual factors—relational context and work context—that moderate the effects of these temporal perceptions. Overall, our study underscores that emotional experiences of work interruptions vary far more widely that prior research suggests, identifies subjective temporal perceptions as key drivers of differing interruption experiences, and adds contextual richness to theories of interruptions.
... Additionally, the incidents prolonged the phase duration longer than their actual duration as measured by the observers through the ExplORer application. We believe that this finding may be explained by the disruption in the workflow that an incident causes, which leads to additional delays downstream that are difficult to measure with technical methods [9]. Finally, following a multivariable analysis to discover whether various factors contribute to the preparatory phase duration, we identified that more experienced scrubs were significant in reducing the preparatory duration time. ...
... To the best of our knowledge, no studies were found that have studied the various categories of inefficiencies taking place inside the OR during the preparatory phase. However, it has been studied that inefficiencies disrupt the workflow in many ways as they not only cause a direct delay/disruption during the time they happen but they also cause an aftereffect delay as well [9]. This delay has been found in our study by recording the time the incident delayed the preparatory phase using the ExplORer application and comparing it with the estimated delay an incident inflicted the various cases as found by the multivariable analysis. ...
IntroductionImproving operating room (OR) inefficiencies benefits the OR team, hospital, and patients alike but the available literature is limited. Our goal was, using a novel surgical application, to identify any OR incidents that cause delays from the time the patient enters the OR till procedure start (preparatory phase).Materials and methodsWe conducted an IRB approved, prospective, observational study between July 2018 and January 2019. Using a novel surgical application (ExplORer Surgical) three observers recorded disrupting incidents and their duration during the preparatory phase of a variety of general surgery cases. Specifically, the number and duration of anesthesia delays, unnecessary/distracting conversations, missing items, and other delays were recorded from the moment they started until they stopped affecting the normal workflow.ResultsNinety-six OR cases were assessed. 20 incidents occurred in 18 (19%) of those cases. The average preparatory duration for all the cases was 20.7 ± 8.6 min. Cases without incidents lasted 19.5 ± 7.4 min while cases with incidents lasted 25.9 ± 11.2 min, p = 0.03. The average incident lasted 3.7 min, approximately 18% of the preparatory phase duration.Conclusion
The use of the ExplORer Surgical app allowed us to accurately record the incidents happening during the preparatory phase of various general surgery operations. Such incidents significantly prolonged the preparatory duration. The identification of those inefficiencies is the first step to targeted interventions that may eventually optimize the efficiency of preoperative preparation.
... Third, the results of this study can be used for implementing decision-making-focused skills development training in which individuals become aware of their decision-making pacing styles and the importance of breaks when performing a decision-making task 40,41 . Furthermore, this research highlights the significance of physiological measures that can complement self-reported measures and provide a more objective indicator of task absorption when companies look for data about their managers. ...
In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, this study investigates the impact of new technology on organizational work dynamics. By integrating the Job Demands-Resources theory and the Episodic Process Model, we examine the cognitive mechanisms that influence task performance during decision-making episodes. Our research focuses on episodic job demands and resources, emphasizing the mediating role of task absorption in the relationship between these factors and task performance. Our findings reveal that episodic job resources positively affect task absorption and performance, while job demands moderate the relationship between job resources and task absorption. Employing the Beer Distribution Game alongside neuroscience-based eye-tracking techniques, we analyze visual attention dynamics during decision-making episodes, providing novel insights into the interplay between task absorption and task performance. Theoretically, our study highlights the significance of task absorption in understanding how episodic job resources impact decision-making performance. Practically, our results advocate for the implementation of decision-making-focused skills development through physiological measures such as neurofeedback training programs. This research underscores the importance of individual time management in enhancing task performance, contributing to a nuanced understanding of job resources, job demands, and task absorption in the context of technological transformation.
... For instance, a person who switches their attention from work to nonwork may encounter attention residue, such that at the time that they intend to start focusing on their nonwork domain, they are still experiencing cognitions and memories pertaining to work. Attention residue can accordingly prolong the time until they can fully cognitively engage in the nonwork domain (LePine & Yoon, 2021; Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Domain switches that involve other resources, such as manual resources or other physical resources, could also similarly involve switch costs (Dom ınguez-Zamora & Marigold, 2019). ...
... RFT, first proposed by Higgins (1997), provides a valuable framework for studying attentional dynamics (cf. McMullen et al., 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016) by suggesting that individuals regulate their goal striving through two primary foci: Promotion and prevention. A promotion orientation involves striving for opportunities to fulfil one's ideals and avoiding the loss of such opportunities. ...
Based on 109 monthly interviews with 10 entrepreneurs over the course of a year, we analyse how early-stage entrepreneurs allocate and reallocate their attention over time. Building on Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT), our findings show that despite the possibility of (temporary) vertical misfit, entrepreneurs dynamically shift between promotive and preventive strategies and tactics in response to new cues and situational reframing. We present a process model of active regulation that demonstrates how entrepreneurs navigate critical events by reallocating their attention based on the perceived fit between the situational frame and previously employed strategies. The model emphasises the critical role of updating, as entrepreneurs continuously revise their situational frame based on new cues, leading to tactical (and sometimes strategic) shifts and reallocation of attention. Our findings contribute to RFT by highlighting the interactions between the strategic and tactical levels of regulatory focus and the environment. We emphasise the importance of understanding the temporal dynamics of regulatory focus in entrepreneurship and suggest that attention allocation decisions are determined by situational (re)framing, perceived horizontal (mis)fit, and the entrepreneur's ability to actively regulate his or her goal-striving efforts.
... According to boundary theory [12,13] there are boundaries that separate different domains (e.g., work and family). Telework makes these boundaries more permeable and transitions (i.e., sudden role changes) are more frequent [12,[14][15][16][17]. Boundary violations are a specific form of transition, and it are characterized by the unwanted intrusion of one domain into the other, which consumes resources (cognitive and temporal), during or after the interruption [18,19]. These violations can occur from work-to-family (e.g., answer a phone call from the boss after shift work) or family-to-work (e.g., help a child perform schoolwork during shift work) and they increased exponentially in the context of mandatory telework during COVID-19 with a negative impact on the well-being [12,[20][21][22][23]. ...
Background
This study aimed to explore the role of psychological detachment from work in the relationship of boundary violations and flourishing, as well as gender differences among university teachers during mandatory telework. We developed and tested a moderate mediation model where psychological detachment was the explanatory mechanism of the relationship between boundary violations with flourishing and using gender as the moderating variable.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 921 Brazilian university teachers (mean age 44 years, 681 women and 240 men) during mandatory telework. Multigroup analysis and moderate mediation were performed using Mplus 7.2.
Results
Psychological detachment mediated the relationship between boundary violations (in both directions) and flourishing and work-to-family violations were more harmful to women’ recovery instead family-to-work violations were more harmful to men’ recovery, among university teachers during mandatory telework.
Conclusion
By focusing on boundary violations in the context of mandatory telework, the study sheds light on the impact of blurred boundaries between work and personal life. This contributes both literature on work-life balance and literature recovery. Moreover, it helps to understand a crisis setting of remote work. Further, the study’s findings regarding gender differences highlight how men and women may experience and cope with boundary violations differently during mandatory telework, supporting future specific interventions across genders.
... Information and communication technology not only facilitates involvement in multiple tasks initiated by the worker (e.g., by frequently checking emails), but also permits interruptions by colleagues which often lead to additional tasks being imposed upon the worker. Interruptions and multitasking are also linked to irritation and negative affect [39][40][41][42][43]. Multitasking effects are increased error rates and a general slowing of performance [44,45]. ...
Purpose:
The aim was to examine the influence of office noise and multitasking on decision confidence, overconfidence, satisfaction, calibration, as well as affective wellbeing. Detrimental effects of noise and multitasking on perceived annoyance and concentration are well documented. Little is known about whether decision confidence and wellbeing during decisions are also affected.
Method:
Between-subjects laboratory experiment (n = 109) with a noise condition with office noise presented through headphones (A-weighted equivalent SPL of LAeq = 60 dB); a multitasking condition with an email-sorting task as primary task; and a control condition.
Results:
Compared to the control condition, subjects in the noise and multitasking conditions exhibited overestimation of confidence. There was also a significant decrease in wellbeing for people in the noise condition. Calibration was not affected.
Conclusion:
In the case of noise, wellbeing is affected even before the thresholds of workplace legislation are reached. Undue overconfidence can have detrimental effects upon subsequent decisions and risk taking. Findings suggest that there should be greater consideration of environmental influences during decision making in work environments.
... As if these issues are not concern enough in their own right, there are other pragmatic aspects of technology overuse and dependence that have been demonstrated to negatively affect attentional capacity and the ability to be an engaged worker. Leroy and Schmidt (2016) examined how cognitive abilities are reduced by distractions, diminishing the ability to be fully present and aware of key aspects of job duties when job tasks are interrupted, something Leroy (2009) dubbed "attention residue." The more we allow ourselves to be distracted and continue to build attention residue in our minds, the less likely we are to be fully engaged in life. ...
This think piece reflects on the pervasiveness of smartphones—and the constant connection to information, entertainment, and social connections through the internet—in our lives and the implications for this in leisure. While the benefits of smartphones are well-established, and it seems we are well-served by them, the nuanced, cumulative negative consequences of smartphone use have become apparent. Building from these concerns and employing the theoretical framework of digital well-being, this think piece explores the role, value, and functionality of digital disconnection to enhance meaningful leisure. Further, it explores the notion of digital consciousness, which describes not only self-control of technology use, but also the role of personal choice and agency in deciding where technology should exist within one’s life and their leisure.
... For example, people tend to linger cognitively on an interrupting task even after stopping it and starting a new task (Leroy, 2009). Residual attention to an interrupting task reduces the attentional resources available to resume the main task, negatively affecting work performance (Leroy & Glomb, 2018;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). E-mail interruption frequency relates positively to unwanted compensatory costs, such as emotional exhaustion, low job satisfaction, and low situational well-being (Baethge et al., 2015;Pachler et al., 2018;Russell et al., 2017). ...
Consumer research about interruptions either assumes interruption homogeneity or single‐product evaluations. To remedy these problematic assumptions, this research explores the interplay between different interruption features (i.e., timing, frequency, and duration) and information processing modes (i.e., on‐line versus memory‐based) through the lens of impression formation theory. Two experiments show overall evaluations and purchase intentions for single products are highly sensitive to interruption features. For bundled products, this sensitivity disappears, and overall evaluations and purchase intentions remain stable regardless of the interruption's features. These results explain why unexpected marketing outcomes associated with frequent later and short interruptions or one early interruption during a decision process always induce better single‐product evaluations. These results also suggest several salesperson‐customer interaction strategies for practitioners.
... The detrimental behavioral impact of interruptions has been explained in terms of memory for goals theory [5], focusing on memory-based deactivation of the interrupted task, or theory of attention residue [56], where the interruption retains attentional resources to some degree away from the user. Ultimately, the outcome is similar: interruptions have a negative impact on performance in the task at hand [57,58]. Those two theories are intrinsically and functionally connected to how PM works. ...
Social media platforms use short, highly engaging videos to catch users' attention. While the short-form video feeds popularized by TikTok are rapidly spreading to other platforms, we do not yet understand their impact on cognitive functions. We conducted a between-subjects experiment (N=60) investigating the impact of engaging with TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube while performing a Prospective Memory task (i.e., executing a previously planned action). The study required participants to remember intentions over interruptions. We found that the TikTok condition significantly degraded the users' performance in this task. As none of the other conditions (Twitter, YouTube, no activity) had a similar effect, our results indicate that the combination of short videos and rapid context-switching impairs intention recall and execution. We contribute a quantified understanding of the effect of social media feed format on Prospective Memory and outline consequences for media technology designers to not harm the users' memory and wellbeing.
... The detrimental behavioral impact of interruptions has been explained in terms of memory for goals theory [5], focusing on memory-based deactivation of the interrupted task, or theory of attention residue [56], where the interruption retains attentional resources to some degree away from the user. Ultimately, the outcome is similar: interruptions have a negative impact on performance in the task at hand [57,58]. Those two theories are intrinsically and functionally connected to how PM works. ...
Social media platforms use short, highly engaging videos to catch users' attention. While the short-form video feeds popularized by TikTok are rapidly spreading to other platforms, we do not yet understand their impact on cognitive functions. We conducted a between-subjects experiment (N= 60) investigating the impact of engaging with TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube while performing a Prospective Memory task (i.e., executing a previously planned action). The study required participants to remember intentions over interruptions. We found that the TikTok condition significantly degraded the users' performance in this task. As none of the other conditions (Twitter, YouTube, no activity) had a similar effect, our results indicate that the combination of short videos and rapid context-switching impairs intention recall and execution. We contribute a quantified understanding of the effect of social media feed format on Prospective Memory and outline consequences for media technology designers to not harm the users' memory and wellbeing.
... Research has linked task interruptions to an increase in perceptions of demands (Bertolotti et al., 2015;Pachler et al., 2018;Zika-Viktorsson et al., 2006). Because individuals on multiple teams must frequently shift between the competing tasks associated with MTM, often occurring within the same workday (Finuf, 2020;Mark et al., 2005), the ensuing task and workflow interruptions associated with these shifts can increase the cognitive load of individuals with MTM (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). Hence, we expect that as MTM and the associated switching increases, employees' subsequent perceptions of demands will increase. ...
To better understand the implications of multiple team membership (MTM) for employee well-being, we explored: (1) how MTM relates to stress and engagement; (2) demands as an underlying mediator; and (3) polychronicity and instrumental support as moderators. Participants who were full-time employees completed an online survey regarding their experiences with MTM. Results showed MTM predicted greater stress through increased demands, but individuals higher on polychronicity were less likely to experience these negative consequences. Interestingly, demands related positively to engagement, suggesting those associated with MTM may be beneficial (e.g., perceived as challenges rather than hindrances). Contrary to expectations, instrumental support did not buffer MTM’s relationship with demands. These findings expand the literatures on teams and employee well-being, and provide practical insights for organizations utilizing MTM structures.
... Although authors often do not explicitly specify the type of interruption being examined, Leroy et al.'s (2020) review suggests that intrusions might be mostly detrimental to performance, whether on the interrupted task (Monk et al., 2008;Trafton et al., 2011) or the interrupting task (e.g. Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). This may extend to nonworkbased intrusions. ...
We examine how the shift toward intensive work-from-home during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the experience of interruptions during work time. We conducted a two-wave survey of 249 employees working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on a conceptual framework and typology (Leroy et al., 2020), we examine changes in the prevalence of interruptions since-COVID-19 as a function of interruption type (intrusions, distractions, breaks, multitasking, and surprises), source (work-based vs. nonwork), and timing (pre- vs. since-COVID-19). We find a large increase in interruptions since-COVID, with the largest increases observed for nonwork intrusions, distractions, and multitasking. Women reported a greater increase in interruptions, particularly with regard to nonwork interruptions of all types, in addition to work-based intrusions, multitasking, and surprises, uncovering an important source of gender inequity. A dedicated unshared workspace at home was associated with fewer nonwork interruptions, while more nonwork responsibilities predicted more nonwork interruptions. Further differentiation of interruption types and sources was observed with regard to outcomes of interruptions. Nonwork interruptions predicted higher family-to-work interference, emotional exhaustion, and lower performance. Notably, these relationships varied meaningfully across specific interruption-type/outcome combinations, highlighting the value of differentiating interruptions by type. Work-based interruptions—especially intrusions and multitasking—were associated with higher work–family interference and emotional exhaustion, as well as lower performance. The results of this study provide valuable insights to help understand and, ultimately, improve work experiences in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic while also contributing to the broader literatures on interruptions and remote work.
... We are immersed in a media ecosystem centered on the concept of multitasking, victims of a condition of incessant distraction, vulnerability and agitation (Ophir, Nass and Wagner 2009;Leroy 2009;Wang and Tchernev 2012;Becker, Alzahabi and Hopwood 2012;Srivastava 2013;Downs et al., 2015;Leroy and Schmidt 2016;Kirschner andDe Bruyckere 2017, AAgaard 2019;Zane, Smith and Walker Reczek 2020). We are increasingly willing to accept that during a conversation our interlocutor looks at their smartphone screen or answers a call (Przybylski and Weinstein 2012;Hall, Baym and Miltner 2014;Misra et al., 2014), and we ...
The digital era seems to have led to the atrophy of our ability to converse with ourselves and to empathize. Thus, in the school environment it is increasingly necessary to emphasize sharing the energy of students' emotions, generating a climate that is highly dynamic, rich, fluid, and creative. This chapter describes a didactic activity that sees conversational agents as a key to generating engaging learning experiences, thus reconsidering and reinterpreting the traditional class period. Technology can facilitate the return to a form of learning centered around conversation itself, not only between man and machine but above all between humans. It can do this by stepping aside at the right time. To help achieve this goal, we hereby present a didactic tool for the study of Greek literature — the conversational agent “Sappho the Poet” (it. “La poetessa Saffo”), modeled after one of the most mysterious and iconic figures of all classicism.
... Yet, whether arguing for negative or positive outcomes of work intrusions, the emphasis of prior research has mainly been on how the interruption of an ongoing task, or the facilitation of another task, during an intrusion affects employees (e.g., Altmann & Trafton, 2002;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). This task-focused approach is certainly important, but as the opening example shows, it captures only a part of a work intrusion's core experience, since intrusions also have a social component-interaction with the interrupter. ...
Work intrusions—unexpected interruptions by other people that interrupt ongoing work, bringing it to a temporary halt—are common in today’s workplaces. Prior research has focused on the task-based aspect of work intrusions and largely cast intrusions as events that harm employee well-being in general, and job satisfaction in particular. We suggest that apart from their task-based aspect, work intrusions also involve a social aspect—interaction with the interrupter—that can have beneficial effects for interrupted employees’ well-being. Using self-regulation theory, we hypothesize that while work intrusions’ self-regulatory demands of switching tasks, addressing the intrusion, and resuming the original task can deplete self-regulatory resources, interaction with the interrupter can simultaneously fulfill one’s need for belongingness. Self-regulatory resource depletion and belongingness are hypothesized to mediate the negative and positive effects of work intrusions onto job satisfaction respectively, with belongingness further buffering the negative effect of self-regulatory resource depletion on job satisfaction. Results of our 3-week experience sampling study with 111 participants supported these hypotheses at the within-individual level, even as we included stress as an alternate mediator. Overall, by extending our focus onto the social component of work intrusions, and modeling the mechanisms that transmit the dark- and the bright-side effects of work intrusions onto job satisfaction simultaneously, we provide a balanced view of this workplace phenomenon. In the process, we challenge the consensus that work intrusions harm job satisfaction by explaining why and when intrusions may also boost job satisfaction, thus extending the recent research on work intrusions’ positive effects.
... In today's work organizations, employees often are part of complex work projects and processes that create high levels of task interdependence (Griffin et al. 2007). This requires frequent communication and coordination in work teams which increases the likelihood of intrusionsi.e., interruptions while in the middle of a core work task (Leroy and Schmidt 2016). In addition, the increased use of communication technologies at work (e.g., instant messaging, email, text messaging) adds to the frequency and forms of intrusions employees experience. ...
While common in many workplaces, intrusions –i.e., interruptions in task progress while engaged in a task – have not been well studied yet. Building on conservation of resources theory and the job demands-resources model, we examined relationships between intrusions, increased fatigue, and decreased perceived job performance. Three pilot studies were conducted to develop a survey measure of intrusions and to establish its psychometric properties. The main study examined relationships between intrusions at the beginning of the workweek and fatigue and perceived job performance over the course of the week. Results indicate that intrusions on Monday were indirectly related to increased fatigue on Thursday through increased fatigue on Tuesday and Wednesday. Results were not significant for perceived job performance. The results highlight the relevance of intrusions at work for employee experiences beyond the day on which they occur pointing to a loss of individual resources over the course of the workweek.
... • Email may prompt multi-tasking which is antithetical to performance and productivity [30,31], as well as to deliberate, uninterrupted concentration needed to master challenging tasks [32][33][34]. ...
Background:
There is a need to unpack the empirical, practical, and personal challenges within participatory approaches advocated to optimize implementation. The unpredictable, chaotic nature of participatory approaches complicates application of implementation theories, methods, and strategies which do not address researchers' situatedness within participatory processes. As an implementation scientist, addressing one's own situatedness through critical reflection is important to unearth how conscious and unconscious approaches, including ontological and epistemological underpinnings, influence the participatory context, process, and outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this exploratory work is to investigate the heretofore blind spot toward the lived experience of implementation researchers within the participatory process.
Methods:
We developed an integrated research-practice partnership (IRPP) to inform the implementation of a gestational weight gain (GWG) control program. Within this IRPP, one investigator conducted a 12-month autoethnography. Data collection and triangulation included field notes, cultural artifacts, and systematic timeline tracking. Data analysis included ethnographic-theoretical dialogue and restorying to synthesize key events and epiphanies into a narrative.
Results:
Analysis revealed the unpredicted evolution of the GWG program into a maternal health fair and three themes within the researchers' lived experience: (1) permeable work boundaries, (2) individual and collective blind spots toward the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of implementation paradigms, and (3) maladaptive behaviors seemingly reinforced by the research culture. These themes contributed to the chaos of implementation and to researchers' experience of inadequate recovery from cognitive, emotional, and practical demands. These themes also demonstrated the importance of contextual factors, subjectivity, and value-based judgments within implementation research.
Conclusion:
Building on extant qualitative research guidelines, we suggest that researchers anchor their approach to implementation in reflexivity, intentionally and iteratively reflecting on their own situatedness. Through this autoethnography, we have elucidated several strategies based on critical reflection including examining philosophical underpinnings of research, adopting restorative practices that align with one's values, and embracing personal presence as a foundation of scientific productivity. Within the predominant (post-) positivism paradigms, autoethnography may be criticized as unscientifically subjective or self-indulgent. However, this work demonstrates that autoethnography is a vehicle for third-person observation and first-person critical reflection that is transformative in understanding and optimizing implementation contexts, processes, and outcomes.
... Indeed, even brief breaks to work on a separate task have been shown to diminish depletion and improve performance (Ariga & Lleras, 2011). Breaks are especially helpful when one can choose the moment to disengage, as opposed to being interrupted, as this can help minimize the divided attention that results when one is, intentionally or unintentionally, maintaining thoughts about both tasks at once (Leroy, 2009;Leroy & Schmidt, 2016). At their best, breaks help the mind to relax, allow emotional energy to recharge (Trougakos et al., 2008), and reinvigorate the memory system by storing what has already been done to free up more cognitive power for the next phase (Hunter & Wu, 2016). ...
Introduction:
Since there is steady increase in cell phone addiction, the act of reaching for a phone between tasks, or even mid-task, is becoming more commonplace, without a true understanding about the potential cognitive costs of taking a break in this way as opposed to taking a break through another medium.
Methods:
This experimental study included 414 participants who completed a cognitively demanding task (solving anagrams) either on paper or on a computer screen. Participants in three of four randomly assigned conditions engaged in a break task (selecting items for a hypothetical shopping list) either on a cell phone, a larger computer screen, or on a paper in the middle of the task. The fourth condition had participants engaging in both halves of the cognitive task with no break.
Results:
The results show that using cell phone for a break did not allow brain to recharge as effectively as the other types of breaks, both in terms of being able to perform quickly and efficiently in the second half of the task (how long it took to complete), and in terms of performance (how many anagrams were successfully solved in the second half).
Discussion and conclusions:
As people are increasingly addicted to their cell phones, it is important to know the unintended costs associated with reaching for this device every spare minute. Although people may assume that it is not different from any other kind of interaction or break, this study shows that the phone might be more cognitively taxing than expected.
In dynamic tasks such as flying and driving, the accurate projection of changes in spatial information is essential for safe operation by operators. However, the working memory mechanism involved in maintaining and updating spatial situation awareness projection are not yet understood. Three experiments were conducted, using a masking paradigm to simulate situation absence and applying distraction, to investigate the working memory mechanism of the maintenance and updating of spatial situation awareness projection. The results revealed that, under different conditions of duration of situation absence and continuous distraction (Experiment 1), increases in the duration of situation absence caused the accuracy of the participants’ projection of the position of a moving object to decrease and their response time slowed. After approximately 5s of situation absence, their projection became completely inaccurate and their reaction delay was at its highest. Under conditions of fixed duration of situation absence and different durations of distraction (Experiment 2), only continuous distraction led to a deterioration in the participants’ projection performance, which partially recovered after the distraction was interrupted. Under different conditions of distraction type and object relationships (Experiment 3), visual-spatial distraction had a stronger negative impact on the participants’ projection judgments compared to auditory distraction, and increased complexity in object relationships amplified the effect of visual-spatial distraction on the participants’ projection judgments. These findings suggest that spatial situation awareness projection has a maintenance and updating mechanism associated with the central executive system’s refreshing function and the visuospatial sketchpad, which operate within limited storage capacity and time constraints.
Employees are frequently interrupted when doing their work, sometimes with tasks that seem unreasonable or unnecessary. Drawing on stress-as-offense-to-self and stress appraisal theories, we expected that perceived illegitimacy of an interrupting task is detrimental to employees’ affective (i.e., anxiety, fatigue, vitality) and cognitive (i.e., task focus, attention residue) reactions to an interruption, because such interruptions are appraised as more of a hindrance and less of a challenge. To test this, we first used a within-persons recall study,where participants (N=144) recalled two interrupting tasks, one perceived as legitimate, and one illegitimate. As expected, perceived illegitimacy of the interrupting task was associated with more anxiety and less task focus, because of more hindrance appraisal. Perceived illegitimacy also was associated with less vitality, task focus, and more attention residue, because of less challenge appraisal. Second, using a between-persons manipulation of an interrupting task in a work simulation (N=231), perceived illegitimacy was associated with more anxiety, fatigue, attention residue, and less task focus, because of more hindrance appraisal. Furthermore, participants performed worse on the interrupting task because of more hindrance appraisal and less task focus. Overall, interrupting tasks perceived as illegitimate can be more negatively impacting, because such interruptions are appraised as hindering.
Background
This study aimed to explore the role of psychological detachment from work in the relationship of boundary violations and flourishing, as well as gender differences. We developed and tested a moderate mediation model where psychological detachment was the explanatory mechanism of the relationship between boundary violations with flourishing and using gender as the moderating variable.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 921 teleworking university professors (mean age 44 years) in Brazil in June 2020. Multigroup analysis and moderate mediation were performed using Mplus 7.2.
Results
Psychological detachment mediates the effects of boundary violations (in both direction) in flourishing and that work-to-family violations are more harmful to women’s recovery instead as family-to-work violations are more harmful to men’s recovery.
Conclusion
The main contributions of this study are the importance of recovery in the subjective well-being of teleworkers and the relationship between boundary violations and gender.
Purpose
Work interruptions (WIs) due to social media are becoming more and more common in the daily lives of organizations. However, the relationship between WI and work performance of employees is still unclear. This study aims to investigate the effects of WIs due to social media on employees' work performance in terms of different mechanisms; it also considers the moderating role of social media usage.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the jobs demands-resource (JD-R) model, this paper proposes a research model to investigate the effects of WIs on employee work performance from the perspective of the enabling mechanism and burden mechanism. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data of 444 employees.
Findings
The results show that (1) with regard to the enabling mechanism path, WI has a positive effect on employees' sense of belonging, which further has a positive effect on employees' work performance; (2) with regard to the burden mechanism path, WI has a positive effect on employees' interruption overload; however, the effect of employee interruption overload on employees' work performance is not significant, and (3) social media used for either work or social purposes can strengthen the relationship between WI and interruption overload, while social media used for work-related purposes can reduce the relationship between WI and a sense of belonging.
Originality/value
First, this paper contributes to the WI literature by clarifying how WI affects employees' work performance through different mechanisms, namely the enabling mechanism and the burden mechanism. Second, this paper contributes to the WI literature by revealing a boundary condition, namely social media use, between WI and a sense of belonging and between WI and employees' interruption overload.
Organizational research has long emphasized the importance of physical space in structuring opportunities for social interaction among workers. Using 14 months of field research during an office redesign at a large team-based sales company, I find that the adoption of non-territorial space—a change from assigned cubicles to an unassigned mix of spaces—substantially increased worker control over social interaction. Whereas the old territorial space rendered workers constantly accessible to others, the new non-territorial space altered information about workers’ location and availability preferences, enabling new strategies for hiding in the space and signaling availability to others through workspace selection. This led to greater reliance on virtual or asynchronous communication technologies, and less unwanted interruption in the new non-territorial space. The findings identify how the non-territorial dimension of office space affects worker control over social interaction. They also reveal the social practices through which individuals actively use material and symbolic resources in the physical environment to avoid cognitive and temporal costs of unwanted interruption. The study complements dominant structural accounts with a richer theorization of individual agency—while physical spaces certainly structure opportunities for social interaction, they also structure the strategies that individuals can use to actively manage social interaction.
Problem definition: We examine the impact of four classes of workplace interruptions on short-term (working hours) and long-term (across-shifts) worker performance in an agribusiness setting. The interruptions are organized in a two-by-two framework in which they result (or do not result) in a physical task requirement and lead to a varying degree of attention shift from the primary task. Academic/practical relevance: Prior operations management literature primarily examines the long-term effects of a single class of interruption that reduces performance. Our study contributes to this literature by examining multiple classes of interruptions that lead to positive and negative outcomes over the short-term in addition to the long-term. Further, our study also contributes to understanding the impact of general task transitions (interruptions) on worker performance, and the interrupting tasks include tasks that are not part of workers’ primary job duties. Our study is relevant to work settings that envelop high manual labor and experience interruptions regularly. Finally, we offer strategies to improve operational performance. Methodology: Using a granular data set on worker productivity from 211 harvesters yielding 117,581 truckloads of fruit harvested for 9,819 worker shifts, we utilize an instrumental variable approach with two-stage residual inclusion estimation on a mix of linear and nonlinear models to examine and quantify the impact of interruptions on both short- and long-term worker productivity. Results: We identify a new interruption class, a pause—interruptions that provide the physical respite and limit the degree of attention shift from the primary task. We find that pauses improve worker productivity in the short- and long-term. Next, we find that scheduled breaks hurt (improve) the worker’s productivity in the short-term (long-term). Finally, we find that harvester breakdown and travel across field interruptions that drain physical resources and cause attention shift hurt worker productivity in the short- and long-term. We quantify the impact (in our field context) of a five-minute increase in each of these work interruptions on average worker productivity. Managerial implications: Our study demonstrates that various work interruptions can have positive or negative effects on workers’ productivity. We suggest that introducing brief pauses in a workday and simultaneously reminding (before initiating the pause) employees about the tasks yet to be completed or goals to be achieved for the rest of the shift can help maintain their focus on the work and yield high-performance benefits. We also suggest strategies that limit the restart costs and increase the predictability of interruptions that hurt performance. For example, in regards to scheduled breaks, planning the break after completing a subtask or reaching a subgoal can limit their adverse effects. Further, informing workers on the possibility of interruption circumstances at the beginning of the work shift can help them plan for these events and improve engagement and performance on the primary job.
To achieve long-term goals, individuals, teams, and organizations must engage in numerous short-term performance episodes. This creates a trade-off between proximal and distal performance. On the one hand, allocating resources toward an episode typically facilitates performance in that episode, thereby contributing to distal success. On the other hand, allocating resources to one episode leaves fewer resources for subsequent episodes, thereby inhibiting distal success. We drew upon self-regulatory theories to predict that the trade-off between proximal and distal concerns is managed by allocating resources according to the demands of the situation. Specifically, we predicted that the tendency to allocate resources according to goal-performance discrepancies would improve distal performance. We tested our hypotheses using data from 5 National Hockey League (NHL) seasons. As expected, NHL teams used goal-performance discrepancies to allocate a key resource-playing time of their most valuable players. More importantly, between-team variance in resource allocation strategy accounted for significant variance in distal performance (end of season record). These results provide evidence that strategic reductions in resource allocation to proximal performance episodes is a fundamental selfregulatory process necessary for facilitating long-term success.
This paper explores the attention regulation challenges brought by interruptions. In contrast to much of the research on interruptions that looks at the effects on the interrupted task, this paper examines the difficulty of focusing attention and performing well on interrupting tasks. Integrating research on attention residue, time pressure, and implementation intention, we predict that when people anticipate resuming their interrupted work under time pressure, they will find it difficult to switch their attention to the interrupting task, leading to attention residue and low performance. A ready-to-resume intervention, in which one briefly reflects on and plans one’s return to the interrupted task, mitigates this effect such that attention residue is reduced and performance on the interrupting task does not suffer. Data collected across four studies support these hypotheses.
The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1184 .
The authors propose that the nonaffective bodily feedback produced by arm flexion and extension informs individuals about the processing requirements of the situation, leading to the adoption of differential processing styles and thereby influencing creativity. Specifically, the authors predicted that arm flexion would elicit a heuristic processing strategy and bolster insight processes, whereas arm extension would elicit a systematic processing strategy and impair insight processes. To test these predictions, the authors assessed the effects of these motor actions on 3 central elements of creative insight: contextual set-breaking, restructuring, and mental search. As predicted, in 6 experiments, arm flexion, relative to arm extension, facilitated insight-related processes. In a 7th experiment, arm extension, relative to arm flexion, facilitated analytical reasoning, supporting a cognitive tuning interpretation of the findings.
Study 1 demonstrated that as individuals’ promotion-related ideal strength increases, performance on an anagram task is greater for a monetary task incentive framed in terms of gains and nongains (i.e., promotion framed) than one framed in terms of losses and nonlosses (i.e., prevention framed), whereas the reverse is true as individuals’ prevention-related ought strength increases. Study 2 further demonstrated that with promotion-framed task incentives, individuals’ ideal strength increases motivation for promotion-related goal attainment means (gaining points), whereas with prevention-framed task incentives, individuals’ ought strength increases motivation for prevention-related means (avoiding losing points). These results suggest that motivation and performance are greater when the regulatory focus of task incentives and means match (vs. mismatch) the chronic regulatory focus of the performers.
People often have trouble performing 2 relatively simple tasks concurrently. The causes of this interference and its implications for the nature of attentional limitations have been controversial for 40 years, but recent experimental findings are beginning to provide some answers. Studies of the psychological refractory period effect indicate a stubborn bottleneck encompassing the process of choosing actions and probably memory retrieval generally, together with certain other cognitive operations. Other limitations associated with task preparation, sensory–perceptual processes, and timing can generate additional and distinct forms of interference. These conclusions challenge widely accepted ideas about attentional resources and probe reaction time methodologies. They also suggest new ways of thinking about continuous dual-task performance, effects of extraneous stimulation (e.g., stop signals), and automaticity. Implications for higher mental processes are discussed.
Two studies using different paradigms activated either ideal self-guides (a person's hopes or wishes) or ought self-guides (a person's sense of duty and responsibility) and measured Ss' concern with different forms of self-regulation: approaching matches to desired end states or mismatches to undesired end states and avoiding mismatches to desired end states or matches to undesired end states. A 3rd study asked ideal versus ought discrepant Ss to select among alternative strategies for friendship. The results suggest that a concern with approach is greater for ideal than ought self-regulation, whereas a concern with avoidance is greater for ought than ideal self-regulation.
People approach pleasure and avoid pain. To discover the true nature of approach–avoidance motivation, psychologists need to move beyond this hedonic principle to the principles that underlie the different ways that it operates. One such principle is regulatory focus, which distinguishes self-regulation with a promotion focus (accomplishments and aspirations) from self-regulation with a prevention focus (safety and responsibilities). This principle is used to reconsider the fundamental nature of approach–avoidance, expectancy–value relations, and emotional and evaluative sensitivities. Both types of regulatory focus are applied to phenonomena that have been treated in terms of either promotion (e.g., well-being) or prevention (e.g., cognitive dissonance). Then, regulatory focus is distinguished from regulatory anticipation and regulatory reference, 2 other principles underlying the different ways that people approach pleasure and avoid pain.
Anderson, Lindsay, and Bushman (1999) compared effect sizes from laboratory and field studies of 38 research topics compiled in 21 meta-analyses and concluded that psychological laboratories produced externally valid results. A replication and extension of Anderson et al. (1999) using 217 lab-field comparisons from 82 meta-analyses found that the external validity of laboratory research differed considerably by psychological subfield, research topic, and effect size. Laboratory results from industrial-organizational psychology most reliably predicted field results, effects found in social psychology laboratories most frequently changed signs in the field (from positive to negative or vice versa), and large laboratory effects were more reliably replicated in the field than medium and small laboratory effects.
© The Author(s) 2012.
Organizational research has relied too heavily on methods characterized by passive observation, likely because there is a widespread belief that experimental research has limited generalizability. However, this is often because researchers (and reviewers or editors) misunderstand the nature of generalizability and what it requires. This article reiterates the importance of experimental research for understanding organizational phenomena and separates the legitimate concerns about experimental generalizability from the irrelevant ones. Whereas most criticisms of experiments focus on sample characteristics and mundane realism (i.e., superficial resemblance to the real world), more attention needs to be paid to the degree to which the treatment manipulation is valid, representative, and strong.
The authors propose that a prevention focus fosters preferences to initiate action earlier than does a promotion focus. Data from four studies either measuring or manipulating regulatory focus support this proposal. Participants in a prevention focus pre-ferred initiating academic (Studies 1 and 2) and nonacademic (Study 3) actions sooner than did participants in a promotion focus. Participants working through a set of anagrams solved those that were prevention framed before those that were promo-tion framed (Study 4). Moreover, regulatory focus and perceived task valence each accounted for unique variance in partici-
[the terms ruminative thoughts or rumination] refer to a class of conscious thoughts that revolve around a common instrumental theme and that recur in the absence of immediate environmental demands requiring the thoughts / propose a formal definition of rumination and a theoretical model / the model addresses [goals and other] factors that initiate and terminate rumination as well as those that influence its content / the model also outlines some of the consequences of rumination for a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral phenomena / believe the model not only suggests a way in which to integrate what are currently separate yet related literature on ruminative phenomena (e.g., meaning analysis, daydreaming, problem solving, reminiscence, anticipation) but also suggests directions for future research / present evidence for some of the model's assumptions and then discuss some consequences of rumination
varieties of conscious thought / the mechanisms of rumination / additional considerations [the relation between affect and rumination, individual differences, is the model falsifiable] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Proposes an integrative theoretical framework for studying psychological aspects of incentive relationships. During the time that an incentive is behaviorally salient, an organism is especially responsive to incentive-related cues. This sustained sensitivity requires postulating a continuing state (denoted by a construct, current concern) with a definite onset (commitment) and offset (consummation or disengagement). Disengagement follows frustration, accompanies the behavioral process of extinction, and involves an incentive-disengagement cycle of invigoration, aggression, depression, and recovery. Depression is thus a normal part of disengagement that may be either adaptive or maladaptive for the individual but is probably adaptive for the species. Implications for motivation; etiology, symptomatology, and treatment of depression; drug use; and other social problem areas are discussed. (41/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two situations involving choice between stability and change were examined: task substitution, which deals with choosing between resuming an interrupted activity and doing a substitute activity, and endowment, which deals with choosing between a possessed object and an alternative object. Regulatory focus theory (E. T. Higgins, 1997, 1998) predicts that a promotion focus will be associated with openness to change, whereas a prevention focus will be associated with a preference for stability. Five studies confirmed this prediction with both situational induction of and chronic personality differences in regulatory focus. In Studies 1 and 2, individuals in a prevention focus were more inclined than individuals in a promotion focus to resume an interrupted task rather than do a substitute task. In Studies 3–5 individuals in a prevention focus, but not individuals in a promotion focus, exhibited a reluctance to exchange currently possessed objects (i.e, endowment) or previously possessed objects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two central constructs of applied psychology, motivation and cognitive ability, were integrated within an information-processing (IPR) framework. This framework simultaneously considers individual differences in cognitive abilities, self-regulatory processes of motivation, and IPR demands. Evidence for the framework is provided in the context of skill acquisition, in which IPR and ability demands change as a function of practice, training paradigm, and timing of goal setting (GS). Three field-based lab experiments were conducted with 1,010 US Air Force trainees. Exp 1 evaluated the basic ability–performance parameters of the air traffic controller task and GS effects early in practice. Exp 2 evaluated GS later in practice. Exp 3 investigated the simultaneous effects of training content, GS and ability–performance interactions. Results support the theoretical framework and have implications for notions of ability–motivation interactions and design of training and motivation programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Maintains that many psychological investigations are accused of failure to generalize to the real world because of sample bias or artificiality of setting. It is argued in this article that such generalizations often are not intended. Rather than making predictions about the real world from the laboratory, it is possible to test predictions that specify what ought to happen in the lab. Even "artificial" findings may be regarded as interesting because they show what can occur, even if it rarely does; or, where generalizations are made, they may have added force because of artificiality of sample or setting. A misplaced preoccupation with external validity can lead to dismissing good research for which generalization to real life is not intended or meaningful. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
[.rt error 1] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The authors analyzed for content all the empirical articles from the 1966, 1970, and 1974 volumes of the
Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, and
Personnel Psychology to determine the types of organizations, Ss, and dependent measures studied. Contrary to the common belief that field settings provide for more generalization of research findings than laboratory settings do, field research appeared as narrow as laboratory research in the actors, settings, and behaviors sampled. Indeed, industrial-organizational psychology seems to be developing in the laboratory a psychology of the college student, and in the field, a psychology of the self-report of male, professional, technical, and managerial employees in productive-economic organizations. It is suggested that coordinated strategies of research in both laboratory and field settings are needed to construct an externally valid industrial and organizational psychology. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Four studies demonstrate that the affiliative responding that is typically encouraged by mimicry can be manifested in conformity to shared gender and racial stereotypes. In Studies 1 and 2, mimicry by a confederate led participants to perform in accordance with stereotypes about their race and gender on a math task. Studies 3 and 4 tested the boundary conditions of mimicry's influence: in Study 3, mimicry elicited stereotype-consistent math performance only among participants who believed in stereotypes about their group that could drive others' expectancies. Study 4 established that the mimicry must occur in the context of affiliation for it to elicit stereotype-consistent behavior, highlighting the important moderating role of affiliation motivation in this phenomenon. In sum, these findings suggest that mimicked individuals are more conforming to the stereotyped expectancies that they believe others hold for them, which suggests not only a potential negative consequence of mimicry but also a subtle manner through which stereotypes may be perpetuated.
Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) has received growing attention in organizational psychology, necessitating a quantitative review that synthesizes its effects on important criteria. In addition, there is need for theoretical integration of regulatory focus theory with personality research. Theoretical integration is particularly relevant, since personality traits and dispositions are distal factors that are unlikely to have direct effects on work behaviors, yet they may have indirect effects via regulatory focus. The current meta-analysis introduces an integrative framework in which the effects of personality on work behaviors are best understood when considered in conjunction with more proximal motivational processes such as regulatory focus. Using a distal-proximal approach, we identify personality antecedents and work-related consequences of regulatory foci in a framework that considers both general and work-specific regulatory foci as proximal motivational processes. We present meta-analytic results for relations of regulatory focus with its antecedents (approach and avoid temperaments, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, self-esteem, and self-efficacy) and its consequences (work behaviors and attitudes). In addition to estimates of bivariate relationships, we support a meta-analytic path model in which distal personality traits relate to work behaviors via the mediating effects of general and work-specific regulatory focus. Results from tests of incremental and relative validity indicated that regulatory foci predict unique variance in work behaviors after controlling for established personality, motivation, and attitudinal predictors. Consistent with regulatory focus theory and our integrative theoretical framework, regulatory focus has meaningful relations with work outcomes and is not redundant with other individual difference variables.
Dynamically adjusting the right amount of goal shielding to varying situational demands is associated with the flexibility of cognitive control, typically linked with pFC functioning. Although stress hormones are found to also bind to prefrontal receptors, the link between stress and cognitive control remains elusive. Based on that, we aimed at investigating effects of acute psychosocial stress on dynamic control adjustments. Forty-eight healthy volunteers were exposed to either a well-established stress induction protocol (the Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) or a standardized control situation before a selective attention (Simon) task involving response conflicts. The individual physiological stress response was monitored by analyzing levels of free cortisol and α-amylase activity in saliva samples showing that the TSST reliably induced an increase of endogenous stress hormone levels. Acute stress did not inevitably impair cognitive functioning, however, as stressed participants showed tonically increased goal shielding (to reduce interference) at the expense of decreased cognitive flexibility. Importantly, as a novel finding in humans, stress effects on cognitive functions were not present immediately after the stress experience but developed gradually over time and, therefore, paralleled the time course of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) stress response. In addition, the total increase of individual cortisol levels reflecting HPA activity, but not the total changes in α-amylase activity associated with sympathetic activity, was reversely related to the amount of cognitive flexibility in the final block of testing. Our study provides evidence for a stress-induced time-dependent decrease of cognitive flexibility that might be related to changes in cortisol levels.
A large and growing number of studies support the notion that arousing positive emotional states expand, and that arousing negative states constrict, the scope of attention on both the perceptual and conceptual levels. However, these studies have predominantly involved the manipulation or measurement of conscious emotional experiences (e.g., subjective feelings of happiness or anxiety). This raises the question: Do cues that are merely associated with benign versus threatening situations but do not elicit conscious feelings of positive or negative emotional arousal independently expand or contract attentional scope? Integrating theoretical advances in affective neuroscience, positive psychology, and social cognition, the authors propose that rudimentary intero- and exteroceptive stimuli may indeed become associated with the onset of arousing positive or negative emotional states and/or with appraisals that the environment is benign or threatening and thereby come to moderate the scope of attention in the absence of conscious emotional experience. Specifically, implicit "benign situation" cues are posited to broaden, and implicit "threatening situation" cues to narrow, the range of both perceptual and conceptual attentional selection. An extensive array of research findings involving a diverse set of such implicit affective cues (e.g., enactment of approach and avoidance behaviors, incidental exposure to colors signaling safety vs. danger) is marshaled in support of this proposition. Potential alternative explanations for and moderators of these attentional tuning effects, as well as their higher level neuropsychological underpinnings, are also discussed along with prospective extensions to a range of other situational cues and domains of social cognitive processing.
This meta-analysis synthesized 102 effect sizes reflecting the relation between specific moods and creativity. Effect sizes overall revealed that positive moods produce more creativity than mood-neutral controls (r= .15), but no significant differences between negative moods and mood-neutral controls (r= -.03) or between positive and negative moods (r= .04) were observed. Creativity is enhanced most by positive mood states that are activating and associated with an approach motivation and promotion focus (e.g., happiness), rather than those that are deactivating and associated with an avoidance motivation and prevention focus (e.g., relaxed). Negative, deactivating moods with an approach motivation and a promotion focus (e.g., sadness) were not associated with creativity, but negative, activating moods with an avoidance motivation and a prevention focus (fear, anxiety) were associated with lower creativity, especially when assessed as cognitive flexibility. With a few exceptions, these results generalized across experimental and correlational designs, populations (students vs. general adult population), and facet of creativity (e.g., fluency, flexibility, originality, eureka/insight). The authors discuss theoretical implications and highlight avenues for future research on specific moods, creativity, and their relationships.
Presented 2 strings of letters simultaneously, with 1 string displayed visually above the other, to high school students (n = 24). In exp. I, ss responded "yes" if both strings were words, otherwise responding "no." in exp. Ii, ss responded "same" if the 2 strings were either both words or both nonwords, otherwise responding "different." "yes" responses and "same" responses were faster for pairs of commonly associated words than for pairs of unassociated words. "same" responses were slowest for pairs of nonwords. "no" responses were faster when the top string in the display was a nonword, whereas "different" responses were faster when the top string was a word. Results support a retrieval model involving a dependence between separate successive decisions about whether each of the 2 strings is a word. Possible mechanisms that underlie this dependence are discussed. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The authors propose that a promotion focus involves construal of achievement goals as aspirations whose attainment brings accomplishment. Commitment to these accomplishment goals is characterized by attempts to attain the highest expected utility. In contrast, a prevention focus involves construal of achievement goals as responsibilities whose attainment brings security. Commitment to these security goals is characterized by doing what is necessary. The different nature of commitment to accomplishment goals versus security goals is predicted to influence the interactive effect of goal expectancy and goal value on goal commitment, as evident in both task performance and decision making. Four studies found that the classic positive interactive effect of expectancy and value on goal commitment increases with a promotion focus and decreases with a prevention focus.
People approach pleasure and avoid pain. To discover the true nature of approach-avoidance motivation, psychologists need to move beyond this hedonic principle to the principles that underlie the different ways that it operates. One such principle is regulatory focus, which distinguishes self-regulation with a promotion focus (accomplishments and aspirations) from self-regulation with a prevention focus (safety and responsibilities). This principle is used to reconsider the fundamental nature of approach-avoidance, expectancy-value relations, and emotional and evaluative sensitivities. Both types of regulatory focus are applied to phenomena that have been treated in terms of either promotion (e.g., well-being) or prevention (e.g., cognitive dissonance). Then, regulatory focus is distinguished from regulatory anticipation and regulatory reference, 2 other principles underlying the different ways that people approach pleasure and avoid pain.
Study 1 demonstrated that as individuals' promotion-related ideal strength increases, performance on an anagram task is greater for a monetary task incentive framed in terms of gains and nongains (i.e., promotion framed) than one framed in terms of losses and nonlosses (i.e., prevention framed), whereas the reverse is true as individuals' prevention-related ought strength increases. Study 2 further demonstrated that with promotion-framed task incentives, individuals' ideal' strength increases motivation for promotion-related goal attainment means (gaining points), whereas with prevention-framed task incentives, individuals' ought strength increases motivation for prevention-related means (avoiding losing points). These results suggest that motivation and performance are greater when the regulatory focus of task incentives and means match (vs. mismatch) the chronic regulatory focus of the performers.
Data from 6 studies (N = 945) were combined to examine the factor structure and construct validity of J. Kuhl's (1994a) measure of action-state orientation, the Action Control Scale (ACS). Initial confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of 4 models showed poor fit with the data. Items that did not perform well were dropped, and the 4 CFA models were retested, resulting in support for a 3-factor solution corresponding to the Preoccupation, Hesitation, and Volatility subscales. Regression analyses demonstrated that the revised ACS subscales measure a construct distinct from cognitive ability and personality. The revised subscales showed differential statistically significant relationships with (a) self-regulatory and self-focus variables and (b) job attitudes and ratings of job performance. The authors conclude that action-state orientation is a construct relevant to applied settings and that future research should further examine this construct.
Communication scientists routinely ask questions about causal relationships. Whether it is examining the persuasive impact of public service announcements on attitudes and behavior, determining the impact of viewing political debates on political knowledge or voter turnout, or assessing whether success in achieving one's Internet browsing goals prompts greater interest in e-commerce, communication scholars frequently conduct research to answer questions about cause. Data analysis usually focuses on examining if the putative causal variable, whether manipulated or measured, is related to the outcome using a linear model such as analysis of variance or linear regression. In many arenas of research, such analyses, when accompanied by good research design, are sufficient to answer the question as to whether variation in X causes variation in Y. But deeper understanding accrues when researchers investigate the process by which a given effect is produced. Although it might be interesting and even important to discover, for mechanisms ...
Six studies explore the role of goal shielding in self-regulation:by examining how the activation of focal goals to which the individual is committed inhibits the accessibility, of alternative goals. Consistent evidence was found for such goal shielding, and a number of its moderators were identified: Individuals' level of commitment to the focal goal, their degree of anxiety and depression, their need for cognitive closure, and differences in their goal-related tenacity. Moreover, inhibition of alternative goals was found to be, more pronounced when they serve the same overarching purpose as the focal goal, but lessened when the alternative goals facilitate focal goal attainment. Finally; goal shielding was shown to have beneficial consequences for goal pursuit and attainment.
The goal of the scientific study of organizational behavior is to solve problems related to joint production marked by division of labor and interdependence. In this chapter, we focus on one key challenge of interdependent work in organizations—unethical behavior—to illustrate how experiments have and can be used to advance the understanding of organizational behavior. The specific example of the study of unethical behavior serves the purpose of highlighting general principles about experimentation in organizational behavior research and pointing out how experiments can generate practical insights for organizations. We also examine why experimental methodology is not only the sole internally valid method but also often the most practical means of conducting research in organizational behavior. In so doing, we argue that the relative underuse of experiments by organizational behavior scholars is unfortunate and unnecessary. We advocate a greater use of experiments in organizational behavior research and propose that a combination of experimental and passive observational methodologies represents the most appropriate approach in most cases.
In today’s organizations, where people must manage multiple projects at the same time, having uninterrupted time to focus on one’s work has become a rare luxury. Instead, employees must frequently interrupt their work flow to attend a meeting, answer a colleague or client’s request, or make some progress on another project that needs attention. While existing research has shown an increased interest in studying interruptions, it only provides a partial understanding of their performance implications. Current studies have focused on how interruptions affect the work activities that get interrupted. By contrast, performance effects on the interrupting tasks have not been considered. Yet, it is unclear whether people are able to cognitively disengage from on-going work once it is interrupted to fully focus and perform well on an interrupting task. This paper addresses this gap. As revealed by a series of five experiments, the attention devoted to an interrupting task and the performance on that task depend on the conditions under which people expect to later resume the work that got interrupted and that they had to temporarily put aside. More specifically, people who anticipate resuming interrupted work under high as opposed to low time pressure find it more difficult to cognitively disengage from that work and turn their attention to the interrupting task, such that their performance on the interrupting task suffers. This paper explores the mechanisms explaining these effects as well as how to alleviate them.
This article examines the truism that studies from psychological laboratories are low in external validity. Past rational and empirical explorations of this truism found little support for it. A broader empirical approach was taken for the study reported here; correspondence between lab and field was compared across a broad range of domains, including aggression, helping, leadership style, social loafing, self-efficacy, depression, and memory, among others. Correspondence between lab- and field-based effect sizes of conceptually similar independent and dependent variables was considerable. In brief, the psychological laboratory has generally produced psychological truths, rather than trivialities. These same data suggest that a companion truism about field studies in psychology—that they are generally low on internal validity—is also false.
This article develops the concept of psychological presence to describe the experiential state enabling organization members to draw deeply on their personal selves in role performances, i.e., express thoughts and feelings, question assumptions, innovate. The dimensions of psychological presence are described along with relevant organizational and individual factors. The concept's implications for theory and research about the person-role relationship are described.
Triads, working under time pressure or not, participated in a management simulation that asked groups to decide which of two cholesterol-reducing drugs to market. The total distribution of information available to the group always favored the same drug. However, members’ initial preferences were manipulated by varying the distribution of shared information (provided to all members) and unshared information (provided to only a single member) supporting each alternative. Thus, each member’s fact sheet either (a) favored the correct decision (correct preference condition), (b) mildly favored the incorrect decision (weak incorrect preference condition), or (c) strongly favored the incorrect decision (strong incorrect preference condition). Initial preferences were major determinants of group decisions. Time pressure either enhanced or reduced decision quality depending on the strength of initial preferences and the content of the group interactions. These findings are discussed in light of Karau and Kelly’s Attentional Focus Model of group performance.
Understanding communication processes is the goal of most communication researchers. Rarely are we satisfied merely ascertaining whether messages have an effect on some outcome of focus in a specific context. Instead, we seek to understand how such effects come to be. What kinds of causal sequences does exposure to a message initiate? What are the causal pathways through which a message exerts its effect? And what role does communication play in the transmission of the effects of other variables over time and space? Numerous communication models attempt to describe the mechanism through which messages or other communication-related variables transmit their effects or intervene between two other variables in a causal model. The communication literature is replete with tests of such models. Over the years, methods used to test such process models have grown in sophistication. An example includes the rise of structural equation modeling (SEM), which allows investigators to examine how well a process model that links some focal variable X to some outcome Y through one or more intervening pathways fits the observed data. Yet frequently, the analytical choices communication researchers make when testing intervening variables models are out of step with advances made in the statistical methods literature. My goal here is to update the field on some of these new advances. While at it, I challenge some conventional wisdom and nudge the field toward a more modern way of thinking about the analysis of intervening variable effects.
Laboratory research is discussed in terms of the contribution of laboratory research to knowledge at any given time. Research is viewed as a process of trade-offs. When viewed from this perspective, it is argued that frequently laboratory research may have high utility for addressing problems relevant in the field. Dimensions or classes of trade-offs are addressed. These are: experimental setting fidelity, replication, constraints, threats to health and safety, research not possible in the field, and feasibility. Keywords: Laboratory research; external validity; boundary conditions; field research; validity.
The purpose of this multilevel study was to test whether regulatory focus mechanisms (promotion focus and prevention focus; Higgins, 1997, American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300; Higgins, 2000, American Psychologist, 55, 1217–1230) can help explain how group safety climate and individual differences in Conscientiousness relate to individual productivity and safety performance. Results, based on a sample of 254 employees from 50 work groups, showed that safety climate and conscientiousness predicted promotion and prevention regulatory focus, which in turn mediated the relationships of safety climate and Conscientiousness with supervisor ratings of productivity and safety performance. Implications for theory and research on climate, motivation, and performance and avenues for future research are discussed.
Interruptions are a common aspect of the work environment of most organizations. Yet little is known about how intemptions and their characteristics, such as frequency of occurrence, influence decision-making performance of individuals. Consequently, this paper reports the results of two experiments investigating the influence of interruptions on individual decision making. Interruptions were found to improve decision-making performance on simple tasks and to lower performance on complex tasks. For complex tasks, the frequency of interruptions and the dissimilarity of content between the pri-mary and interruption tasks was found to exacerbate this effect. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.
Cet article rapproche des réflexions récentes tirées des sciences de la cognition, du contrôle de l'action et de la théorie du contrôle pour montrer que des mécanismes connectionnistes reliés à l'activation et à l'inhibition participent à la sélection de l'information indispensable à l'orientation des comportements et à la continuité de la pensée. Nous rapprochons la notion de contrôle de processus dans l'architecture cognitive humaine de la volition et des différences individuelles dans les capacités d'attention sélective. Nous montrons également qu'un tel système est reliéà la motivation, aux théories de l'action, à l'apprentissage, à l'affectivité et à diverses données relevant des applications. Cette conceptualisation de la théorie du contrôle permet de réduire le hiatus entre la cognition et l'action grâce à des boucles de contrôle hiérarchisées. Nous notons cependant que le contrôle hiérarchique de sommet à la base doit être associéà un contrôle réversible et divergent pour que les systèmes puissent survivre ou s'adapter à des environnements changeants.
This paper integrates recent thinking from cognitive science, action control, and control theory to show that connectionist level mechanisms related to activation and inhibition help select the information needed to guide actions and provide continuity in thoughts. We integrate the notion of process control in the human cognitive architecture with issues of volition and individual differences in selective attention capacities. We also show how such a system relates to motivation, action theories, learning, affect, and several applied issues. This conceptualisation of control theory helps bridge the gap between cognition and action through hierarchically organised control loops. However, we note that top-down hierarchical control must be coupled with discrepancy-based bottom-up control for systems to survive or adjust to changing environments.
In the current study, we hypothesize that post-error performance is influenced by individual differences in action orientation and situationally induced regulatory focus. Two experiments employing a time-pressured flanker-like task, measured participants’ dispositional action orientation and manipulated regulatory focus. As expected, accuracy of the responses following errors was reduced for all participants except for action-oriented participants in a promotion focus. The latter participants are assumed to down-regulate error-related negative affect, thereby saving resources for subsequent performance. A promotion focus is assumed to facilitate the optimal use of these resources.
Four studies examined how diverse aspects of goal pursuit are influenced by the accessibility of alternative goals. It was consistently found that such an accessibility often affects the resources allocated to a focal goal, influencing commitment, progress, and the development of effective means, as well as one's emotional reponses to positive and negative feedback about one's striving efforts. Moreover, the direction of these influences was found to depend on how the alternative goals relate to the focal pursuit. Alternatives unrelated to the focal goal pull resources away from it, whereas alternatives facilitatively related to a focal goal draw resources toward it.
This study tested whether internal nonaffective processing cues independently influence two major varieties of creative cognition: insight problem solving and creative generation. In Experiments 1 and 2, bodily cues associated with positive or negative hedonic states were manipulated by means of arm flexor or extensor contraction, respectively, and the effects of these internal cues on creative insight and generation were observed. In line with our cognitive tuning approach, it was predicted that the “riskier,” more explorative processing style elicited by arm flexion, relative to the more risk-averse, perseverant processing style elicited by arm extension, would facilitate performance on both tasks. These predictions were strongly supported. In addition, Experiments 3 and 4 provided the first direct evidence that the effects of these internal processing cues on creativity are mediated by a memory search-based mechanism. Reported effects were independent of mood, task enjoyment, and the effortfulness of the motor actions.
This paper analyzes the effect on performance when several active processes compete for limited processing resources. The principles discussed show that conclusions about the interactions among psychological processes must be made with caution, and some existing assumptions may be unwarranted. When two (or more) processes use the same resources at the same time, they may both interfere with one another, neither may interfere with the other, or one may interfere with a second without any interference from the second process to the first. The important principles are that a process can be limited in its performance either by limits in the amount of available processing resources (such as memory or processing effort) or by limits in the quality of the data available to it. Competition among processes can affect a resource-limited process, but not a data-limited one. If a process continually makes preliminary results available even before it has completed all its operations, then it is possible to compute performance-resource operating characteristics that show how processes interact. A number of experiments from the psychological literature are examined according to these processing principles, resulting in some new interpretations of interactions among competing psychological processes.
In many jobs, employees must manage multiple projects or tasks at the same time. A typical workday often entails switching between several work activities, including projects, tasks, and meetings. This paper explores how such work design affects individual performance by focusing on the challenge of switching attention from one task to another. As revealed by two experiments, people need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers. Being able to finish one task before switching to another is, however, not enough to enable effective task transitions. Time pressure while finishing a prior task is needed to disengage from the first task and thus move to the next task and it contributes to higher performance on the next task.
Interruptions are a frequent occurrence in the work life of most decision makers. This paper investigated the influence of interruptions on different types of decision-making tasks and the ability of information presentation formats, an aspect of information systems design, to alleviate them. Results from the experimental study indicate that interruptions facilitate performance on simple tasks, while inhibiting performance on more complex tasks. Interruptions also influenced the relationship between information presentation format and the type of task performed: spatial presentation formats were able to mitigate the effects of interruptions while symbolic formats were not. The paper presents a broad conceptualization of interruptions and interprets the ramifications of the experimental findings within this conceptualization to develop a program for future research.
The psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of probabilities and outcomes
produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways. Reversals of preference are demonstrated
in choices regarding monetary outcomes, both hypothetical and real, and in questions pertaining to the loss of human lives.
The effects of frames on preferences are compared to the effects of perspectives on perceptual appearance. The dependence
of preferences on the formulation of decision problems is a significant concern for the theory of rational choice.
People often have trouble performing 2 relatively simple tasks concurrently. The causes of this interference and its implications for the nature of attentional limitations have been controversial for 40 years, but recent experimental findings are beginning to provide some answers. Studies of the psychological refractory period effect indicate a stubborn bottleneck encompassing the process of choosing actions and probably memory retrieval generally, together with certain other cognitive operations. Other limitations associated with task preparation, sensory-perceptual processes, and timing can generate additional and distinct forms of interference. These conclusions challenge widely accepted ideas about attentional resources and probe reaction time methodologies. They also suggest new ways of thinking about continuous dual-task performance, effects of extraneous stimulation (e.g., stop signals), and automaticity. Implications for higher mental processes are discussed.