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Why is it so Hard to do My Work? The Challenge of Attention Residue when Switching Between Work Tasks
Abstract
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.
... Stress at work not only affects well-being and health, but is also related to cognitive reactions that impair decision-making and performance. Laboratory studies showed that attention narrows and working memory capacity is reduced when individuals are exposed to stressors (Hockey, 1986;Jimmieson & Terry, 1999;Leroy, 2009). Furthermore, these cognitive reactions tend to lead to simpler decision-making and the adoption of a short-term perspective (Klein, 1996). ...
... Similarly, frequent workflow interruptions require employees to switch back and forth between tasks or social interactions. Such task fragmentation makes it difficult to fully focus on the critical task and engage in reflection activities (Leroy, 2009). In sum, the stressor itself or a constellation of different stressors can suppress learning. ...
... For any learning to take place, employees need to be able to focus on the problem at hand and think about different options to handle the issue; an ability that may be hindered by cognitive and emotional strain reactions. Job stressors tend to have negative implications for cognitive capacity (Hockey, 1986;Jimmieson & Terry, 1999;Leroy, 2009). For example, stressors reduce attention and focus, memory, and executive functioning (Merlo, Wiegand, Shaughnessy, Kuykendall, & Weiss, 2020), capacities that would be required to engage in learning activities such as sense making, reflection, or exploration. ...
Research on coping at work has tended to adopt a between-person perspective, producing inconsistent findings on well-being outcomes. This focus on interindividual differences is in contrast to many theories that position coping as process, hence, as an intraindividual process that unfolds over time in response to job stressors and appraisals. The authors propose that focusing more on the within-person coping processes and integrating them with learning perspectives has the potential to advance our understanding. More specifically, coping behavior and well-being can be seen as an outcome of current and past learning processes. In this chapter, the authors discuss three mechanisms that explain how coping processes can produce positive versus negative effects on well-being, and how coping can be integrated into a learning framework to explain these pathways. First, the stress process entails encoding and evaluation of the situation and, as a consequence, deployment of suitable coping behavior. Over and above the efforts that have to be invested to understand the stressful situation, the coping behavior itself also requires time and energy resources. Second, coping behavior likely co-occurs with learning processes such as reflection, exploration, and exploitation. These learning processes require further time and cognitive resources. Third, although coping behaviors and their accompanying learning processes have the potential to drain resources at the within-person level, they can also build up interindividual coping resources such as a broader repertoire and coping flexibility. These between-level differences equip employees to deal with future stressors.
... These differences in attention and objective are, in turn, likely to direct the content of individual behaviors, thereby leading to differences in performance (Karau & Kelly, 1992;Kelly & Karau, 1999). This prediction of the narrowing of attention focus under time pressure has been supported by several studies (Karau & Kelly, 1992;Kelly et al., 1999;Leroy, 2009;Shah et al., 2012;Bowman & Wittenbaum, 2012;Balasubramanian et al., 2018). In addition, the AFM suggests that the narrowing attention focus under time pressure can alter the individuals' interactions with other persons in a group (Karau & Kelly, 1992Briker et al., 2021). ...
... Second, we expand the scope of the AFM by identifying impaired moral awareness as an important consequence in the attentional focus process of the AFM. Although the AFM acknowledges that time pressure leads to attentional focus, focusing on task-related issues while ignoring unrelated issues (Karau & Kelly, 1992;Kelly & Karau, 1999), most previous studies have emphasized the influence of the former (i.e., focusing on task-related issues) and ignored the latter (i.e., ignoring unrelated issues; Balasubramanian et al., 2018;Bowman & Wittenbaum, 2012;Kelly & Loving, 2004;Leroy, 2009;Shah et al., 2012). This condition may limit the AFM in interpreting the consequences of attentional restriction under time pressure, especially the potential dark side on moral-related consequences (Moberg, 2000). ...
We explore in this study whether, how, and when time pressure leads to abusive supervisory behavior. Based on the attentional focus model, we propose that time pressure impairs supervisors’ moral awareness, which increases their subsequent abusive supervisory behavior. We also propose that the trait mindfulness of supervisors mitigates the indirect effect of time pressure on abusive supervisory behavior through moral awareness. Based on an experiment conducted by using eye-tracking methods, Study 1 tests and provides support for the relationships between time pressure and moral awareness (N = 53). In Study 2, we test our full theoretical model through an experience sampling methodology for 10 workdays with data from 61 supervisors and their subordinates. Results revealed that time pressure had an indirect and positive effect on abusive supervisory behavior through the supervisors’ moral awareness. Such an indirect effect was stronger when the trait mindfulness of the supervisors was low rather than high. We conclude this research by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings as well as future research directions.
... In order to achieve good multitasking performance, previous studies have pointed out that the competition among multiple tasks on cognitive resources [53] and the problem of residual attention during task switching [36] should be avoided. However, despite a common notion that multitasking refers to switching between tasks in the same time [20] , it has been argued that there is no universal agreement on the defnition of multitasking. ...
... Such alerts should allow confguration of their dismissability, among other forms of customization to be established by future user research. A countdown feature, for example, might usefully be included to give passengers a sense of urgency [36] about wrapping up their tasks and packing their belongings. ...
... It is the neurocognitive capacity to prevent disruption by task-irrelevant information, prepotent mental representations, or response tendency, to stay focused on task-relevant information [4,5], which is associated with self-regulation [3]. Even a transient failure of inhibitory control resulting from non-task-related interruptions may impair daily work performance [6]. Thus, there is a need to find ways to improve inhibitory control in daily life. ...
... OMNI ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) [66] and the mental effort rating scale (MERS) [67] were assessed at 2-min intervals to provide a subjective rating of individuals' perceptions of their physical and mental demands in each condition. 6 van Dongen et al. [106] suggested that acute physical activity-induced enhancements in cognition could persist for up to 48 h following the bout of exercise. That is, the washout interval among conditions should be at least 48 h to avoid carryover effects. ...
The aim of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive demand during acute exercise on the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of inhibitory control. In a within- participants design, 30 male participants (age range = 18-27 years) performed 20-min sessions of high cognitive-demand exercise (HE), low cognitive-demand exercise (LE), and an active control (AC) on separate days in a randomized order. A moderate-to-vigorous intensity interval step exercise was used as the exercise intervention. During the exercise periods, the participants were instructed to respond to the target among competing stimuli to impose different cognitive demands with their feet. A modified flanker task was administered to assess inhibitory control before and after the interventions, and electroencephalography was used to derive stimulus-elicited N2 and P3 components. Behavioral data showed that the participants performed significantly shorter reaction time (RT), regardless of congruency and a reduced RT flanker effect following HE and LE compared with the AC condition with large (ds = -0.934 to -1.07) and medium effect sizes (ds = -0.502 to -0.507), respectively. Electrophysiological data revealed that compared with the AC condition, acute HE and LE had facilitative effects on stimuli evaluation, as indicated by significantly shorter N2 latency for congruent trials and P3 latency regardless of congruency with medium effect sizes (ds = -0.507 to -0.777). Compared with the AC condition, only acute HE elicited more efficient neural processes in conditions requiring high inhibitory control demand, as indicated by significantly shorter N2 difference latency, with a medium effect size (d = -0.528). Overall, the findings suggest that acute HE and LE facilitate inhibitory control and the electrophysiological substrates of target evaluation. Acute exercise with higher cognitive demand may be associated with more refined neural processing for tasks demanding greater amounts of inhibitory control.
... Meanwhile, portfolio characteristics-including network intensity, iteration intensity, and resource contention-often necessitate different priority rules (Browning & Yassine, 2016). Research also notes concurrently leading multiple projects causes leaders to switch tasks and activities when changing projects, which costs more time and energy (Leroy, 2009). Efficiency suffers as task-switching employees often make suboptimal timing decisions, ignoring organization priority rules under the pressure of work monitoring (Bendoly et al., 2014). ...
... When coordination across projects demands more time and attention from PIs, they lose cognitive capacity that could be used for multidisciplinary project learning. Further, because PIs in small firms do not have large teams to distribute tasks, PIs must frequently switch tasks on their own when concurrently conducting multiple projects, which costs more time and energy (Leroy, 2009). Moreover, given the complexity of projects with increased knowledge scope, PIs struggle even more in deciding the optimal priority rule, or which project deserves the most time and energy (Bendoly et al., 2014), which can delay the entire system and reduce likelihood of success (Browning & Yassine, 2016). ...
R&D projects in small biotechnology firms frequently involve knowledge from multiple technical fields and research in different problem domains. An increase in project knowledge scope, defined as the number of technical fields an R&D project covers, can be challenging for resource‐constrained small firms. These firms often rely primarily on their principal investigators (PIs), who act as heavyweight project managers in guiding project ideas to successful R&D outcomes. PIs also work concurrently on multiple projects, a strategy to promote learning across projects. To better understand how small firms PIs manage projects with high knowledge scope, our research assembles and analyzes a data set of 1,374 R&D projects conducted by 933 small firms in the context of U.S. Small Business Administration awards. Results, after accounting for endogeneity, suggest a negative association between project knowledge scope and project success, which we measured using patent forward citation counts. We also find that a PI's multi‐project status negatively moderates (i.e., amplifies) this association, while project management experience positively moderates (i.e., weakens) it. A follow‐up post‐hoc analysis suggests that a shared problem domain is a key contingency for the moderation effects of both multi‐project status and project management experience. Taken together, our research offers insights on how to effectively manage R&D projects in resource‐constrained small firms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... Meanwhile, portfolio characteristics-including network intensity, iteration intensity, and resource contention-often necessitate different priority rules (Browning & Yassine, 2016). Research also notes concurrently leading multiple projects causes leaders to switch tasks and activities when changing projects, which costs more time and energy (Leroy, 2009). Efficiency suffers as task-switching employees often make suboptimal timing decisions, ignoring organization priority rules under the pressure of work monitoring (Bendoly et al., 2014). ...
... When coordination across projects demands more time and attention from PIs, they lose cognitive capacity that could be used for multidisciplinary project learning. Further, because PIs in small firms do not have large teams to distribute tasks, PIs must frequently switch tasks on their own when concurrently conducting multiple projects, which costs more time and energy (Leroy, 2009). Moreover, given the complexity of projects with increased knowledge scope, PIs struggle even more in deciding the optimal priority rule, or which project deserves the most time and energy (Bendoly et al., 2014), which can delay the entire system and reduce likelihood of success (Browning & Yassine, 2016). ...
... Some studies have combined behavioural observation and brain activity (measured with electroencephalography-EEG, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy-fNIRS), and have shown reduced activation in prefrontal and motor brain regions after one hour of work on repetitious assembly tasks (such as in 'assembly line' work), suggesting attentional decrease [6][7][8]. Other studies have revealed the difficulty of switching attention between tasks or showing fragmentation of attention (i.e., fragmentation of attention: pattern of attention related to the ability to shift attention from one stimulus to another and to the frequency with which a subject pay attention to a particular stimulus [9]) between multiple tasks (e.g., talking to a client while writing an email to another person, managing transition among different projects, [10]). But, long-term training in managing multiple tasks has been shown to improve cognitive processing. ...
... Although, it is impossible at that stage to eliminate the hypothesis of an active choice by riders of animals presenting attention characteristics adjusted for the type of work they were used for, it seems more likely that the individual differences observed may result from external factors. One other complementary explanation therefore could be that the work demands on cognitive processes such as attention differs between disciplines, as observed in humans [7,10] and other animals [16,17]. Our results converge with those on human sports athletes. ...
Attention is a central process of cognition and influences the execution of daily tasks. In humans, different types of work require different attentional skills and sport performance is associated with the ability to attention shift. Attention towards humans varies in dogs used for different types of work. Whether this variation is due to the recruitment of individuals suitable for specific types of work, or to the characteristics of the work, remains unclear. In the present study, we hypothesized that domestic horses ( Equus caballus ) trained for different types of work would also demonstrate different attentional characteristics but we also explored other possible factors of influence such as age, sex and breed. We exposed more than sixty horses, working in 4 different disciplines, and living in two types of housing conditions, to a visual attention test (VAT) performed in the home environment. Individual attentional characteristics in the test were not significantly influenced by age, sex, breed or conditions of life but were strongly related to the type of work. Riding school horses showed longer sequences and less fragmented attention than all other horses, including sport horses living in the same conditions. Interestingly, sport performance was correlated with attention fragmentation during the test in eventing horses, which may need more attention shifting during the competitions. Working conditions may influence attention characteristics indirectly through welfare, or directly through selection and training. Our study opens new lines of thought on the determinants of animal cognition and its plasticity and constitutes a further step towards understanding the interrelationship between working conditions and cognition.
... Nowadays leaders are often expected to deal with multiple tasks or projects simultaneously, so many decisions are taken under time pressure (Ordóñez et al., 2015). In particular, time pressure has been shown to lead people to complete the most pressing task to the exclusion of others (Leroy, 2009) which may induce them to choose one-person decisions, as this do not require more time than necessary to involve additional people in the decision-making process. ...
PURPOSE: Do teams manage to reach better decisions than those made by individuals? Numerous studies have delivered inconclusive results. Meanwhile, participation in decision-making can take various forms and is not limited to consensus group decisions, and the influence of the various forms of participation on the quality of decisions has been less frequently examined. The aim of the research was to determine the effect on decision quality of changing the form of direct participation in the decision-making process in the case of complex, multi-stage problems. METHODOLOGY: The article presents the results of a long-term experiment in which 598 teams of 2,673 people took part. The participants were asked to solve a decision problem using three decision-making styles: autocratic, consultative, and group. The participants played the role of members of a newly established project team that must plan its own work. The task concerned a problem that requires the analysis of a number of dependencies between sub-problems, in contrast to eureka-type problems. The decision problem was new to the participants, making it impossible to apply known solutions; a creative approach was therefore required. The decision was then compared with the optimal solution established by experts. Decision quality was based on the deviation of the proposed solution from the optimal solution. FINDINGS: The results of the experiment confirm the significant synergistic potential of increasing direct participation in decision-making for complex, multi-stage problems. A significant proportion of teams made better decisions as a result of increasing direct participation-replacing autocratic decisions with consultative and group decisions. The quality of consultative decisions was roughly in the middle of autocratic and group decisions. By using group decision-making, teams made better decisions than the average individual decision and came closer to the decision quality achieved by the best team members. This effect was universal, observed both in the strongest and weakest teams. It should be remembered that, while group decision-making has the potential for synergy, it is not always achieved. Group decision-making markedly reduced the risk of making highly misguided decisions, and it can be reasoned that direct participation protects against serious mistakes more than it guarantees the best possible results. IMPLICATIONS: Team leaders should be familiar with different decision-making styles, their advantages and disadvantages, and the scope of their application. This research suggests that increasing team members' participation to a consultative role and even better, a full participatory role, increases the quality of the decision. With the growing complexity of organizations that have to deal with accelerating change, technology development and increased competition, creating structures that can flexibly respond to the challenges of the environment requires the participation of team members at all managerial levels. The use of consultative and group decision-making styles for complex and multi-stage problems supports this process. The group decision-making style can bring better quality, but it has its limitations and it is not always possible to use it. It requires a team of highly competent people who identify themselves with the interests of the organization. Otherwise, the consultative form will bring better results. ORIGINALITY AND VALUE: For the first time, an empirical study analyses the case of consultative decision-making, in which the team leader consults the individual opinions independently to finally come up with a final "team" decision. This approach is widely used by team leaders and managers in the field. This study shows that this approach constitutes an improvement over the individual (autocratic) one but still falls short of the group decision-making approach. Finally, this study which has been done with the largest number of participant teams (598 teams, 2,673 individuals), professionally active postgraduate students and over a 24-year period allows a sound statistical confirmation of the proposed decision quality improvement when moving from individual to consultative and group decision-making styles.
... When considering the organizational coupling between microservices, we consider that the switching behavior of the developers is a key factor. The reason is that people need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another [19]. Therefore, the more frequently developers switch between different microservices the more difficult for them to concentrate and perform well on any. ...
For traditional modular software systems, "high cohesion, low coupling" is a recommended setting while it remains so for microservice architectures. However, coupling phenomena commonly exist therein which are caused by cross-service calls and dependencies. In addition, it is noticeable that teams for microservice projects can also suffer from high coupling issues in terms of their cross-service contribution, which can inevitably result in technical debt and high managerial costs. Such organizational coupling needs to be detected and mitigated in time to prevent future losses. Therefore, this paper proposes an automatable approach to evaluate the organizational couple by investigating the microservice ownership and cross-service contribution.
... The importance of undisrupted work has been highlighted in recent psychological writing, including the popular Deep Work. 5 This body of research describes that periods of uninterrupted focus facilitate improved productivity, particularly when compared with multitasking, which may be associated with attention residue. 6 Workflow changes that generate the requirement for additional clicks may promote activities such as multitasking because of the perceived ability to navigate additional clicks while simultaneously considering other tasks, such as listening to patients or colleagues. This type of multitasking may be the consequence of staff attempting to offset the time-cost associated with additional clicks. ...
Computers are an integral component of modern hospitals. Mouse clicks are currently inherent to this use of computers. However, mouse clicks are not instantaneous. These clicks may be associated with significant costs. Estimated costs associated with 10 additional clicks per day for 20 000 staff exceed AU$500 000 annually. Workflow modifications that increase clicks should weigh the potential benefits of such changes against these costs. Future investigation of strategies to reduce low-value clicks may provide an avenue for health care savings.
... Infrequent interruptions can spur intrinsic motivation to obtain additional information and improve task performance, whereas frequent interruptions may have adverse consequences (Kupor & Tormala, 2015;Xia & Sudharshan, 2002). 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). ...
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.
... This condition extends from the finding that individuals respond differently to time pressure when required to handle the situation, as this essential may change the optimal decision strategy. Another study by [92] showed that time pressure induces a student to perform an activity more efficiently. In contrast, another study claimed that time pressure changes how people explore and respond 18 VOLUME 4, 2016 This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Access. ...
Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) have been considerably used for assessing the individual’s performance in various contexts. The optimal number of options in MCQs is a debatable issue, followed by contradictions and discussions, and is needed for a firm conclusion from empirical and hypothetical findings. This study aims to link theoretical concepts, including challenge-based gamification, zone of proximal development, and prospect theory, and generate insight into educational assessment using motion-in-mind measures. Classical test theory was used to determine reliability and validity. Variations of MCQs experimented: the number of options, settings, and scoring methods. The experimental data was gathered from human and AI simulations and measured using motion-in-mind. It was found that increasing the number of options in the MCQ makes the test more challenging, explaining an increase of mass in mind
m
. The findings also revealed that time pressure provides competitiveness while scaffolding provides support. In addition, the hybrid system demonstrates the balance of education and entertainment. Finally, the results addressed the general discussion and analogical interpretation in the education context based on physics-in-mind values. These findings can be promising for analyzing the balance between competitiveness and entertainment while enabling the learning process in the practical assessment.
... Addas and Pinsonneault (2015) argue that particularly IT may trigger work interruptions as IT devices and programs interrupt office workers about 70 times per day during the completion of actual work tasks. Research also indicates that individuals are interrupted four to six times per work hour, frequently resulting in significant performance losses and productivity declines (Leroy, 2009;Galluch et al., 2015;Mirhoseini et al., 2020). This high number of IT-mediated interruptions during the workday is also a significant source of stress (Galluch et al., 2015;Stich et al., 2017). ...
Interruptions have become ubiquitous in both our personal and professional lives. Accordingly, research on interruptions has also increased steadily over time, and research published in various scientific disciplines has produced different perspectives, fundamental ideas, and conceptualizations of interruptions. However, the current state of research hampers a comprehensive overview of the concept of interruption, predominantly due to the fragmented nature of the existing literature. Reflecting on its genesis in the 1920s and the longstanding research on interruptions, along with recent technological, behavioral, and organizational developments, this paper provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary overview of the various attributes of an interruption, which facilitates the establishment of interruption science as an interdisciplinary research field in the scientific landscape. To obtain an overview of the different interruption attributes, we conducted a systematic literature review with the goal of classifying interruptions. The outcome of our research process is a taxonomy of interruptions, constituting an important foundation for the field. Based on the taxonomy, we also present possible avenues for future research.
... Even performance was increased in cellular office typologies compared to open-plan offices due to quieter surroundings, resulting in improved cognitive energy and perceived privacy (Danielsson & Bodin, 2008). In general, it was found that architectural privacy strengthened resources to pursue daily work tasks, while the lack thereof forces employees to divide their attention between tasks and dealing with distractions (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007;Leroy, 2009). ...
This study aims to contribute to our understanding of how systematic differences in
the spatial configuration of workspace environments across different typologies impact employees’ perception and appreciation of built space. A set of three key architectural parameters, including partition height, contour, and ceiling height, were systematically varied across three common workspace typologies, resulting in 36 virtual workspace models. An online survey was conducted in which participants rated and ranked the virtual workspace environments on affective appraisal and cognitive evaluation, two sub-components of attitude. Each participant was presented with six workspace models using a BIBD (Balanced Incomplete Block Design). The BIBD ensures inter-rater reliability and comparability of the outcomes while only presenting a subset of all possible treatments to each participant. From each of the 36 virtual models, two images were captured and used as stimuli. The location from which images were captured was sampled from the location with the highest visibility for either sitting or standing location. An isovist analysis was used to calculate visibility in each model and assess the longest line of sight from a uniformly distributed grid of one meter by one meter. In total, 713 participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) to participate in this study. Results show that partition height significantly affected privacy, distraction due to noise, and interaction rating and ranking across models. Curved features were rated significantly more positively regarding affective appraisal (pleasure, low arousal, beauty, interestingness, and spaciousness) than angular features. Contrary to our hypothesis, higher ceilings did not lead to significantly higher ratings in affective appraisal compared to lower ceilings. These findings may deepen our understanding of how architectural features affect the perception of workspace environments.
... But the responders could have lost control over many aspects of their own work in the team with the feelings of uncertainty during an emergency. Besides, the available strains evolving from an emergency may result in cognitive overload and depletion (Broadhurst, 1959;Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004), which may negatively affect their performance (Lepine et al., 2005;Klein and Boals, 2001;Leroy, 2009). By definition, effective teamwork leads to create knowledge, minimise errors, and enhance productivity, satisfaction, and other pertinent outcomes . ...
How does the human's limitation of limited working memory affect team-working in an emergency? This study was aimed to explore the effects through the use of a response information system (RIS). A RIS was developed and tested through standard software test matrices. A quasi-experimental study was then conducted to obtain empirical data. A total of 200 members of the fire and civil defence (FSCD) divided into two groups participated in the study. IBM AMOS based structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used to obtain the results. This research implies that, with the emerging complexity in urban living and high-impact disasters, it has become crucial for the emergency response and rescue authority to redesign the response services for better acquisition, dissemination, and utilisation of response information.
... Al Faruque, and S. Elmalaki are with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697 USA. e-mail: {taherisa,alfaruqu,selmalak}@uci.edu and complex work and learning environment make it difficult for humans to show extended focus, engagement, or attention on a specific learning task, directly affecting their performance in everyday tasks [9]. Hence, we need to rethink the future of the learning environment to incorporate the human learning state (focus, engagement, attention) as an integral part of its design. ...
Thanks to the rapid growth in wearable technologies and recent advancement in machine learning and signal processing, monitoring complex human contexts becomes feasible, paving the way to develop human-in-the-loop IoT systems that naturally evolve to adapt to the human and environment state autonomously. Nevertheless, a central challenge in designing many of these IoT systems arises from the requirement to infer the human mental state, such as intention, stress, cognition load, or learning ability. While different human contexts can be inferred from the fusion of different sensor modalities that can correlate to a particular mental state, the human brain provides a richer sensor modality that gives us more insights into the required human context. This paper proposes ERUDITE, a human-in-the-loop IoT system for the learning environment that exploits recent wearable neurotechnology to decode brain signals. Through insights from concept learning theory, ERUDITE can infer the human state of learning and understand when human learning increases or declines. By quantifying human learning as an input sensory signal, ERUDITE can provide adequate personalized feedback to humans in a learning environment to enhance their learning experience. ERUDITE is evaluated across $15$ participants and showed that by using the brain signals as a sensor modality to infer the human learning state and providing personalized adaptation to the learning environment, the participants' learning performance increased on average by $26\%$. Furthermore, we showed that ERUDITE can be deployed on an edge-based prototype to evaluate its practicality and scalability.
... Multiple studies have demonstrated that after task interruption, task goals fade from memory, resulting in a long time to resume and complete the interrupted task, negatively impacting performance [1,6,76]. 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]. ...
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.
... Multiple studies have demonstrated that after task interruption, task goals fade from memory, resulting in a long time to resume and complete the interrupted task, negatively impacting performance [1,6,76]. 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]. ...
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.
... [5], performance [25], and emotional state [29]. Furthermore, devices today frequently demand input [15,22] and rely on explicit input methods, predominately voice or touch. ...
In our everyday life, we intuitively use space to regulate our social interactions. When we want to talk to someone, we approach them; if someone joins the conversation, we adjust our bodies to make space for them. In contrast, devices are not as considerate: they interrupt us, require us to input commands, and compete for our attention. In this paper, we introduce Fields, a design framework for ubiquitous computing that informs the design of connected products with social grace. Inspired by interactionist theories on social interaction, Fields builds on the idea that the physical space we share with computers can be an interface to mediate interactions. It defines a generalized approach to spatial interactions, and a set of interaction patterns that can be adapted to different ubiquitous computing systems. We investigated its value by implementing it in a set of prototypes and evaluating it in a lab setting.
... Despite the effort to preserve "flow", events such as interruptions and task switching will inevitably occur in a multitasking context where the operator supervises a robot while also performing another task in proximity. Research has demonstrated that switching work tasks only when the previous task has been completed is advantageous to limit the division of attention between tasks, while a large time window for the decision to switch causes more cognitive effort to be carried over to the next task (Leroy 2009). Moreover, a perhaps counterintuitive outcome is that external interruptions from a work task could be less disruptive than self-initiated interruptions (at least when the former are appropriately timed) probably because of the reduced need for decision-making (Katidioti et al. 2016). ...
Human–robot collaboration in dynamic industrial environments warrants robot flexibility and shifting between tasks. Adaptive robot behavior unavoidably carries decision-making needs regarding task allocation and scheduling. Such decisions can be made either by the human team members or autonomously, by the robot’s controlling algorithm. Human authority may help preserve situational awareness but increases mental demands due to increased responsibilities. Conversely, granting authority to the robot can offload the operator, at the cost of reduced intervention readiness. This paper aims to investigate the question of decision authority assignment in a human–robot team, in terms of performance, perceived workload and subjective preference. We hypothesized that the answer is influenced by the cognitive workload imposed on the human operator by the work process. An experiment with 21 participants was conducted, in which decision authority and induced workload through a secondary task were varied between trials. Results confirmed that operators can support the robot better when decision authority is allocated according to their workload. However, operator decision authority (a) may cause inferior performance at any secondary tasks performed in parallel with robot supervision and (b) increases perceived workload. Subjective preference was found to be evenly divided between the two levels of decision authority, and unaffected by task difficulty. In brief, if human–robot team performance is a priority, humans should be granted decision authority when their overall workload allows it. In high-workload conditions, system decision-making algorithms should be developed. Nonetheless, process designers should be mindful of the interpersonal differences between operators who are destined to collaborate with robots.
... We argue that either of these attack scenarios, which are in line with previous literature exploiting thermal camera emanations ( [25,9,10,11,12,26]), is very plausible. For a typical workday, employees spend a significant portion of their time in meetings, phone calls, and other non-core tasks, often switching between them [27]. Each of these activities may require them to leave their assigned workspace, and most of the time, users (voluntarily) leave their logged-in sessions (and workstations) unattended, opening the risk to a plethora of attacks [4,28]. ...
To date, there has been no systematic investigation of thermal profiles of keyboards, and thus no efforts have been made to secure them. This serves as our main motivation for constructing a means for password harvesting from keyboard thermal emanations. Specifically, we introduce Thermanator: a new post-factum insider attack based on heat transfer caused by a user typing a password on a typical external (plastic) keyboard. We conduct and describe a user study that collected thermal residues from 30 users entering 10 unique passwords (both weak and strong) on 4 popular commodity keyboards. Results show that entire sets of key-presses can be recovered by non-expert users as late as 30 seconds after initial password entry, while partial sets can be recovered as late as 1 minute after entry. However, the thermal residue side-channel lacks information about password length, duplicate key-presses, and key-press ordering. To overcome these limitations, we leverage keyboard acoustic emanations and combine the two to yield AcuTherm, the first hybrid side-channel attack on keyboards. AcuTherm significantly reduces password search without the need for any training on the victim's typing. We report results gathered for many representative passwords based on a user study involving 19 subjects. The takeaway of this work is three-fold: (1) using plastic keyboards to enter secrets (such as passwords and PINs) is even less secure than previously recognized, (2) post-factum thermal imaging attacks are realistic, and (3) hybrid (multiple side-channel) attacks are both realistic and effective.
... The demands on the human cognitive processing system are currently increasing due to rising requirements in the workplace and the fast evolution of computerized technology. Specifically, the need to engage concurrently in two (or more) tasks has increased (Leroy, 2009). Further, human life span has prolonged (Dong et al., 2016) and a trend toward later retirement ages has emerged (Friedberg, 2007). ...
The present study investigated the cognitive processing architecture of dual(-memory) retrieval from a single cue across two distinct age groups: younger and older adults. Previous research has shown that younger adults can exhibit learned parallel retrieval, but only if they synchronize response execution. This phenomenon has not been demonstrated with older adults. Experiment 1 functioned as an extension of previous studies to assess whether the finding of learned retrieval parallelism in younger adults could be observed in older adults as well. The experiment used a dual retrieval task that involved the retrieval of two responses, one vocal and one keypress, from a single cue. Experiment 2 further assessed whether the cognitive processing architecture underlying the occurrence of learned retrieval parallelism in dual memory retrieval could be influenced by the number of cues in single-retrieval practice. The results of both experiments showed that learned retrieval parallelism occurs in older as well as younger adults, and that the processing mechanisms involved in dual memory retrieval are relatively stable across age groups.
... However, when they occur, the attention of the personnel taking part in the episode of care is diminished from their primary task fl*'roehle and White, 2014). Furthermore, once one's attention is diverted, they are no longer focusing one-hundred percent on the task at hand for some time after the disruption has ended (Leroy, 2009). When someone is not entirely focused on their task, accidents are more likely to occur, which will affect performance. ...
Purpose
Drawing on normal accident and high-reliability organizational theories, this study examines the impact of magnitude and likelihood of disruptions on surgical procedure performance. More importantly, the authors investigate the moderating role played by information exchange and risk management infrastructure in mitigating the negative effect of disruption on performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A nationwide multi-respondent survey was administered to operating room personnel to collect information on their experiences with disruptions experienced in surgeries. The survey data are analyzed to examine the relationship between operational disruptions and procedure performance. Additionally, the moderating roles of risk management infrastructure and information exchange on the relationship between disruptions and performance are investigated. The results obtained from the empirical analysis are validated using data from an ethnographic investigation of surgeries at a major hospital.
Findings
The results show that both the magnitude and the likelihood of a disruption adversely impact procedure performance. Interestingly, the authors find that risk management infrastructure and information exchange play different roles in mitigating the effect of disruptions on performance. The authors find that while risk management infrastructure helps mitigate the effect of magnitude of service disruptions, information exchange helps reduce the effects of likelihood of disruptions. The findings lend strong support to the theoretical assertions. By means of the participant–observer data collected from over 100 surgeries as part of the ethnographic investigation, the authors validate the key findings. The findings suggest that disruptions are common occurrences in surgical settings, but their performance impact may be lessened or altogether avoided with the proper information and risk management mechanisms in place.
Originality/value
This survey research extends the understanding of risk management by considering a context that is highly prone to disruptions. The authors adopt existing constructs pertaining to supply chain disruptions within this context and find new insights. The findings of the study show differential roles played by information exchange and risk management infrastructure in mitigating disruptions. This nuanced understanding provides directions for aligning efforts towards risk mitigation in surgical settings in a more focused way. This study supplements findings from survey data analysis with an examination of data collected by means of ethnographic investigation.
... Despite the effort to preserve "flow", events such as interruptions and task switching will inevitably occur in a multitasking context where the operator supervises a robot while also performing another task in proximity. Research has demonstrated that switching work tasks only when the previous task has been completed is advantageous to limit the division of attention between tasks, while a large time window for the decision to switch causes more cognitive effort to be carried over to the next task (Leroy 2009). Moreover, a perhaps counterintuitive outcome is that external interruptions from a work task could be less disruptive than self-initiated interruptions (at least when the former are appropriately timed) probably because of the reduced need for decision-making (Katidioti et al. 2016). ...
Human-robot collaboration in dynamic industrial environments warrants robot flexibility and shifting between tasks. Adaptive robot behavior unavoidably carries decision-making needs regarding task allocation and scheduling. Such decisions can be made either by the human team members or autonomously, by the robot’s controlling algorithm. Human authority may help preserve situational awareness but increases mental demands due to increased responsibilities. Conversely, granting authority to the robot can offload the operator, at the cost of reduced intervention readiness.
This paper aims to investigate the question of decision authority assignment in a human-robot team, in terms of performance, perceived workload and subjective preference. We hypothesized that the answer is influenced by the cognitive workload imposed on the human operator by the work process.
An experiment with 21 participants was conducted, in which decision authority and induced workload through a secondary task were varied between trials. Results confirmed that operators can support the robot better when decision authority is allocated according to their workload. However, operator decision authority (a) may cause inferior performance at any secondary tasks performed in parallel with robot supervision and (b) increases perceived workload. Subjective preference was found to be evenly divided between the two levels of decision authority, and unaffected by task difficulty.
In brief, if human-robot team performance is a priority, humans should be granted decision authority when their overall workload allows it. In high workload conditions, system decision-making algorithms should be developed. Nonetheless, process designers should be mindful of the interpersonal differences between operators who are destined to collaborate with robots.
Existing studies on boundary management are mainly discussing the work and family conflicts. However, online social networks (OSNs), such as Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat, are widespread in both personal and business settings, which has profoundly shifted employees’ professional/personal boundary management practices. OSNs offer the advantages of efficient communication, social capital, and newcomer socialization, but can also blur the boundaries between professional and personal issues, which may cause concerns such as privacy anxiety, professional evaluation distortion, and even career path obstacle. This chapter first introduces the conceptualizations of boundary management and blurring boundary, discussing current topics and issues with great concerns by practitioners and researchers such as roles transition between work and personal lives, and the self-presentation motivation. Then, I review the key antecedents and outcomes of boundary management, which followed by the distinctions between two forms of blurring boundaries. On the topic of “Concerns and Challenges about Blurring Boundary in the Workplace”, I discuss the difficulties in dealing with blurring boundaries, and provide tactics suggestions in the following section. This chapter ends by providing an overview of the boundary management measurement, significance, and future research directions.KeywordsBoundary managementRole theorySelf-presentation theoryOnline social networks
Acute aerobic exercise has been shown to benefit inhibitory control; however, less attention has been devoted to the effects of varying intensity and duration with a predetermined exercise volume. The current study assessed the influence of three distinct exercise conditions, each equated with a predesignated exercise volume but varied in terms of exercise durations and intensities, on inhibitory control utilizing both behavioral and neuroelectric measures obtained among late-middle-aged and older adults. Thirty-four adults (61.76 ± 0.80 years) completed three exercise conditions [i.e., a 30-min low-intensity exercise (LIE), a 20-min moderate-intensity exercise (MIE), and a 16-min high-intensity exercise (HIE)] and a non-exercise reading control condition (CON) on separate days. The exercise volumes of LIE and HIE were designed to match the exercise volume of MIE. Following cessation of each condition, the Stroop task was performed while event-related potentials were recorded. Improved behavioral performance (i.e., shorter response time, higher accuracy, and smaller interference scores) was observed after LIE, MIE, and HIE than CON (ps < .005). Additionally, whereas a larger P3b amplitude was only observed following MIE compared to CON (p < .01), larger N2 and smaller N450 amplitudes were observed following all three exercise conditions compared to CON (ps < .005). These findings suggested that while MIE may provide additional benefits for attentional resource allocation, exercise conditions volume matched to MIE resulted in superior inhibitory control, paralleled by modulations of the neural underpinnings of conflict monitoring/detection.
We live in a culture which largely defined by our relationship with digital technology. This technology for most people begins (and ends) with their mobile phone. We use digital products to mediate just about every aspect of our lives, and we are intimately involved with it.
The vast majority of our everyday thought and behaviour does not require our attention and when it comes to the digital products (mobile phones and tablets), our daily exposure to them has enabled us to cope with then. Coping is the smooth, skilful, and (more or less) thought-free use of digital products.
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.
Organizing work around specialized professionals leverages their deep expertise and mastery of particular skills. However, as work becomes more flexible, organizations often require specialists to perform some work outside their specialization. These tasks, which distance specialists from the area of their greatest contribution, could diminish their performance by being distracting or tiring or by creating negative comparisons with others who are more proficient in that work. Contrary to these perspectives, we find robust evidence that specialists’ performance can be enhanced, rather than diminished, after work outside their specialization. Using archival data from 22 years of Major League Baseball (MLB) games and interviews with former MLB players and coaches, we find that specialized players perform better in their specialty after obligatory tasks outside of their specialization. We argue that this occurs through a process we call forced task inferiority, in which underperformance in tasks outside their specialty frustrates specialists, generating heightened arousal and drive that they can channel into better performance in their specialty work. The results are robust to alternative mechanisms, such as tasks outside a specialist’s area of specialization leading to learning, breaking monotony, or threatening the specialist’s professional identity. This research advances knowledge about managing specialists and flexible work arrangements by showing that when tasks are particularly sequenced, specialists’ performance can be enhanced, rather than diminished, by doing work outside their specialty.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1680 .
Purpose
When young employees enter the workforce, young employees typically require extensive task support to perform well and adjust to the workplace setting. However, this support often incorporates controlling supervisor behaviors that can be stressful for them, such as negative feedback, close monitoring and time pressure. This can negatively impact young employees' turnover and work satisfaction. This article presents an empirical investigation of how individual differences related to self-regulation at work determine whether controlling supervisor behaviors are appraised as stressful by young adults preparing to enter the workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 315 university students completed the Survey of Activity Styles (SAS) along with items relating to dispositional traits related to self-regulation in the workplace and appraising controlling supervisor behaviors. A hierarchical regression approach was used to test the study's hypotheses.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that perceiving controlling supervisor behaviors as stressful by young adults preparing to enter the workforce depends on a combination of dispositional traits: emotional reactivity, extraversion and the need for achievement as well as preferences in structuring and completing tasks: multitasking and a methodical approach to tasks.
Practical implications
The study's results suggest that depending on individual characteristics, providing effective task support to young adults entering the workforce may require adjusting how the task support is provided or guiding and training on how to approach and organize work tasks.
Originality/value
Previous studies focused on the organizational and personal benefits of task support provided to young adults entering the workforce; the study demonstrates how individual differences linked to perceiving controlling supervisor behaviors can undermine these benefits.
Interruptions are common in organizational life and last from seconds and minutes to hours and days. We rely on a quantitative abductive strategy to determine how extended work interruptions shape employees’ creativity. We start by studying how surprising interruptions that cause idle time affect employees’ creative performance. We do so by exploiting a natural experiment—a supply chain shortage that caused unexpected stops in production plants—to show that individuals exposed to such an interruption produce 58% more ideas than uninterrupted employees in the three weeks after the interruption. We corroborate this effect in a replication and extend it to idea quality. Investigating the effect’s causes, we then show that we do not find the same effects for two other interruption types: for unexpected interruptions without idle time (i.e., intrusions), we find a negative effect on creative performance because employees forcefully disengage from their work and switch their attention to the interrupting task. For expected interruptions with idle time (i.e., planned breaks), we also find no positive effect on creative performance because employees discretionally disengage from work and focus on nonwork and leisure goals. We consider and evaluate three different theoretical explanations for our findings: attention residue, cognitive stimulation, and recovery. We end our abductive process by putting attention residue forward as the most likely explanation. Finally, we suggest three propositions based on our findings and discuss our contributions to the literature on interruptions and creativity in organizations.
Funding: T. G. Schweisfurth acknowledges funding from the Tempowerk Technology Center Hamburg.
Task management tools allow people to record, track, and manage task-related information across their work and personal contexts. As work contexts have shifted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become important to understand how these tools are continuing or failing to support peoples’ work-related and personal needs. In this paper, we examine and probe practices for managing task-related information across the work-life boundary. We report findings from an online survey deployed to 150 information workers during Summer 2019 (i.e., pre-pandemic) and 70 information workers at the same organization during Summer 2020 (i.e., mid-pandemic). Across both survey cohorts, we characterize these cross-boundary task management practices, exploring the central role that physical and digital tools play in managing task-related information that arises at inopportune times. We conclude with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges for future productivity tools that aid people in managing task-related information across their personal and work contexts.
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.
Relying on self-presentation theory and boundary management theory, this study investigated the association between employees’ personal/professional boundary blurring on social media and work engagement. We examined whether social media anxiety mediates the link between blurring boundary online and work engagement. From a relational perspective, we also investigated how perceived leader support might moderate this mediated relationship. Results from an online survey of 212 full-time employees were consistent with the proposed conceptual scheme, in that social media anxiety mediated the relationship between boundary blurring online and work engagement when employees’ perceived leader support was low. The findings highlight that the connection between boundary blurring online and work engagement demonstrates a pattern of moderated mediation that is more complex than previously thought. This study implies that blurring boundary online can result in negative psychological experiences for employees and the implications of this study present some managerial insights for the design of social media use in the workplace.
The seasonal workload, combined with increased dairy herd sizes and a declining workforce have created social sustainability challenges for pasture-based dairy farms. Effective work organisation can build productive capacity that may have a positive impact on this scenario. Our objective was to develop a framework to characterise and examine the effect of work organisation on the working situations of the people involved on a sample of 55 pasture-based dairy farms in Ireland. We conceptualized that effective work organisation on a dairy farm could be considered as a system that is efficient from a labour input perspective, resulting in a profitable farming system with outcomes of good operator well-being, health and safety, and quality of life. A literature review established efficiency & productivity, flexibility and standardisation as our three characteristics of work organisation. Using data from an existing labour time-use study completed from the 1st February to 30th June 2019, we aimed to test the veracity of these work organisation characteristics in the Irish pasture-based dairy system. Two proxy indicators were selected to represent each of the three work organisation characteristics, and each of the 55 farms were categorized into quartiles based on their ranking for these six indicators (1=most effective quartile to 4=least effective quartile). The most and least effective quartiles of farms for work organisation showed similar levels of farm labour input and labour efficiency. Farmers in the most effective work organisation quartile were working 51.2 h/week from February to June compared with 70.0 h/week for farmers in the least effective quartile, which was attributed to later start times, earlier finish times, and more time at non-farm activity. Farms achieving effective work organisation had a labour efficient system with relatively low farmer working hours. Extension of the work organisation concept to other farms could improve their labour situation and aid in alleviating some of the key quality of life challenges faced by dairy farmers.
Even as history reflects medicine’s acquisition of a scientific core, learning how to implement formal knowledge has developed through relationships with more senior colleagues. While learning through these relationships, new professionals find career paths and are modeled for their own turn as future supervisors and mentors. Mentorship in psychiatry has range and depth. This chapter focuses on how psychiatrists develop skills through different levels of involvement with mentors, forming professional identity with the help of colleagues committed to their growth and success. Moreover, because of the clinical and systems nature of most community psychiatric practice, this chapter emphasizes how community psychiatrists experience being mentees and mentors, and how this process can unfold. After discussing basic tenets of mentorship, the chapter embarks on detailed discussion of clinical supervision in residency. It then turns to examining the process of mentorship, including a successful mentorship’s active ingredients and challenges, its complementary benefits for mentors, and its role in community psychiatric research.KeywordsMentorProtégéMenteeSupervisionProfessional developmentCareerCompetencyTrainingEducationResidencySupervisionSupervisorTraineesMentorship
Professors today struggle with unreasonable workloads and a work management format antithetical to high quality research and teaching. Recent studies show that many professors suffer from high levels of stress, anxiety, and exhaustion, and several studies report high levels of burnout. The reasons for this situation are not yet fully understood. In this article, I discuss the current academic work management format as a key motive that hinders the well-being of professors and the quality of their work. To understand this issue, the article explores the concept of deep work in relation to academia. It examines the contrasting circumstances of deep work and the continual and disruptive mode of communication required by the hyperactive hive mind. Work based on instant digital communication tools takes a hidden toll on the ability of professors to manage their attention. Instant communications among academic staff members disrupts the deep work required for engagement in research and teaching. To obtain the best possible results from faculty, we should manage attention as a scarce and valuable resource. To do this requires redesigning the management of academic work, a project outside the remit of most academic professionals—or the professors subject to the demands of the hyperactive hive mentality.
Direct link to the article here: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2405872622000181
Human error is an essential factor that affects the quality and safety of industrial production. To deeply understand the human factors that cause failures in an organization from the perspective of maintenance personnel, we propose an analytical approach combined with Fault Tree Analysis and qualitative analysis and apply this approach to maintenance task failure incidents. These proposed methods are based on human factor classification and the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System. We conduct a case study to prove the effectiveness of applying our approach to the Chinese manufacturing industry. Results enabled the disclosure of the “latent factors” of maintenance incidents, helped improve human error analysis in maintenance incidents and helped to understand the fundamental reasons that affect work reliability and cause maintenance failures. This case study focuses on the impact of critical human factors on organizational effectiveness and operational reliability during maintenance activities.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The concept and measurement of commitment to goals, a key aspect of goal-setting theory, are discussed. The strength of the relationship between commitment and performance is asserted to depend on the amount of variance in commitment. Three major categories of determinants of commitment are discussed: external factors (authority, peer influence, external rewards), interactive factors (participation and competition), and internal factors (expectancy, internal rewards). Applications of these ideas are made and new research directions are suggested.
This study of the complete life-spans of eight naturally-occurring teams began with the unexpected finding that several project groups, studied for another purpose, did not accomplish their work by progressing gradually through a universal series of stages, as traditional group development models would predict. Instead, teams progressed in a pattern of "punctuated equilibrium" through alternating inertia and revolution in the behaviors and themes through which they approached their work. The findings also suggested that groups' progress was triggered more by members' awareness of time and deadlines than by completion of an absolute amount of work in a specific developmental stage. The paper proposes a new model of group development that encompasses the timing and mechanisms of change as well as groups' dynamic relations with their contexts. Implications for theory, research, and practice are drawn.
Assessed the effects of individuals' proneness to cognitive interference on performance following failure. Ss responded to a questionnaire tapping proneness to cognitive interference and were exposed to either no feedback or failure. On completing these problems, Ss performed a cognitive task in which the memory load was varied systematically. The cognitive interference theory successfully predicted most of the group differences: (a) Only the performance of Ss with a habitual tendency to engage in off-task cognitions was debilitated by failure; (b) this performance impairment was only observed in performance accuracy in the high memory load version of the task; and (c) performance accuracy was associated with the frequency of off-task cognitions in the experiment. Results were discussed in terms of the cognitive interference interpretation of learned helplessness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
[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)
Person perception includes three sequential processes: categorization (what is the actor doing?), characterization (what trait does the action imply?), and correction (what situational constraints may have caused the action?). We argue that correction is less automatic (i.e., more easily disrupted) than either categorization or characterization. In Experiment 1, subjects observed a target behave anxiously in an anxiety-provoking situation. In Experiment 2, subjects listened to a target read a political speech that he had been constrained to write. In both experiments, control subjects used information about situational constraints when drawing inferences about the target, but cognitively busy subjects (who performed an additional cognitive task during encoding) did not. The results (a) suggest that person perception is a combination of lower and higher order processes that differ in their susceptibility to disruption and (b) highlight the fundamental differences between active and passive perceivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The question of how affect arises and what affect indicates is examined from a feedback-based viewpoint on self-regulation. Using the analogy of action control as the attempt to diminish distance to a goal, a second feedback system is postulated that senses and regulates the rate at which the action-guiding system is functioning. This second system is seen as responsible for affect. Implications of these assertions and issues that arise from them are addressed in the remainder of the article. Several issues relate to the emotion model itself; others concern the relation between negative emotion and disengagement from goals. Relations to 3 other emotion theories are also addressed. The authors conclude that this view on affect is a useful supplement to other theories and that the concept of emotion is easily assimilated to feedback models of self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments investigated whether visual search tasks can be combined without cost. A total of 8 university students searched for 1 target character in a series of 12 rapidly presented frames. The type of processing, controlled or automatic (CP or AP, respectively), was manipulated by requiring search for variably mapped (VM) or consistently mapped (CM) target and distractor sets. Conditions included VM-only search (CP), CM-only search (AP), and simultaneous CM/VM search. Joint automatic and controlled search with emphasis on the controlled search task produced no loss of detection sensitivity in either task but did produce a large criterion shift in the automatic search task. Without instructional emphasis on the controlled search task, controlled search deteriorated. Ss also showed a tendency to waste CP resources when performing AP. AP became less resource demanding with practice. However, CP was always sensitive to resource reductions. Results show that Ss can sometimes perform dual search tasks without noticeable deficit when one of the tasks is automatic. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The tendency to "bask in reflected glory" (BIRG) by publicly announcing one's associations with successful others was investigated in 3 field experiments with more than 300 university students. All 3 studies showed this effect to occur even though the person striving to bask in the glory of a successful source was not involved in the cause of the source's success. Exp I demonstrated the BIRG phenomenon by showing a greater tendency for university students to wear school-identifying apparel after their school's football team had been victorious than nonvictorious. Exps II and III replicated this effect by showing that students used the pronoun we more when describing victory than a nonvictory of their school's football team. A model was developed asserting that the BIRG response represents an attempt to enhance one's public image. Exps II and III indicated, in support of this assertion, that the tendency to proclaim a connection with a positive source was strongest when one's public image was threatened. (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)
Tested the hypotheses that goal acceptance moderates the relationship of goal difficulty to task performance as follows: (a) The relationship is positive and linear for accepted goals; (b) it is negative and linear if the goal is rejected; and thus, (c) slope reversal from positively to negatively linear relationships is associated with transition from positive to negative values of goal acceptance. The experiment was a within-S design, allowing for high variance in acceptance, with technicians and engineers (21–50 yrs of age) divided at random into a 2-phase experimental condition (
n = 104) with specific goal difficulty gradually increasing from Trial 1 to 7 and a control group (
n = 36) with the general instructions to "do your best." Instructions for Phase 2 differed from Phase 1 in that Ss were instructed to reassess their acceptance of difficult goals. The task consisted of determining, within 2-min trials, how many digits or letters in a row were the same as the circled one to the left of each row. Results support the hypotheses. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The accessibility of suppressed thoughts was compared with the accessibility of thoughts on which Ss were consciously trying to concentrate. In Exp 1, Ss made associations to word prompts as they tried to suppress thinking about a target word (e.g.,
house) or tried to concentrate on that word. Under the cognitive load imposed by time pressure, they gave the target word in response to target-related prompts (e.g.,
home) more often during suppression than during concentration. In Exp 2, reaction times (RTs) for naming colors of words were found to be greater under conditions of cognitive load when Ss were asked to suppress thinking of the word than under conditions of no cognitive load or when Ss were asked to concentrate on the word. The results support the idea that an automatic search for the suppression target increases the accessibility of the target during suppression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Developed and validated the Need for Cognition Scale (NCS). In Study 1, a pool of items was administered to 96 faculty members (high-need-for-cognition group) and assembly line workers (low-need-for-cognition group). Ambiguity, irrelevance, and internal consistency were used to select items for subsequent studies. Factor analysis yielded one major factor. In Study 2, the NCS and the Group Embedded Figures Test were administered to 419 undergraduates to validate the factor structure and to determine whether the NCS tapped a construct distinct from test anxiety and cognitive style. The factor structure was replicated, and responses to the NCS were weakly related to cognitive style and unrelated to test anxiety. In Study 3, 104 undergraduates completed the NCS, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and a dogmatism scale. Results indicate that need for cognition was related weakly and negatively to being closeminded, unrelated to social desirability, and positively correlated with general intelligence. Study 4 (97 undergraduates) furnished evidence of the predictive validity of the NCS. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter examines the role of time pressure in negotiation and mediation. Negotiation can be defined as discussion between two or more parties and joint decision making with the goal of reaching agreement. Mediation is a variation on negotiation in which one or more outsiders (“third parties”) assist the parties in their efforts to reach agreement.
The fundamental phenomenon of human closed-mindedness is treated in this volume. Prior psychological treatments of closed-mindedness have typically approached it from a psychodynamic perspective and have viewed it in terms of individual pathology. By contrast, the present approach stresses the epistemic functionality of closed-mindedness and its essential role in judgement and decision-making. Far from being restricted to a select group of individuals suffering from an improper socialization, closed-mindedness is something we all experience on a daily basis. Such mundane situational conditions as time pressure, noise, fatigue, or alcoholic intoxication, for example, are all known to increase the difficulty of information processing, and may contribute to one's experienced need for nonspecific closure. Whether constituting a dimension of stable individual differences, or being engendered situationally - the need for closure, once aroused, is shown to produce the very same consequences. These fundamentally include the tendency to 'seize' on early, closure-affording 'evidence', and to 'freeze' upon it thus becoming impervious to subsequent, potentially important, information. Though such consequences form a part of the individual's personal experience, they have significant implications for interpersonal, group and inter-group phenomena as well. The present volume describes these in detail and grounds them in numerous research findings of theoretical and 'real world' relevance to a wide range of topics including stereotyping, empathy, communication, in-group favouritism and political conservatism. Throughout, a distinction is maintained between the need for a nonspecific closure (i.e., any closure as long as it is firm and definite) and needs for specific closures (i.e., for judgments whose particular contents are desired by an individual). Theory and research discussed in this book should be of interest to upper level undergraduates, graduate students and faculty in social, cognitive, and personality psychology as well as in sociology, political science and business administration.
The question of how affect arises and what affect indicates is examined from a feedback-based viewpoint on self-regulation. Using the analogy of action control as the attempt to diminish distance to a goal, a second feedback system is postulated that senses and regulates the rate at which the action-guiding system is functioning. This second system is seen as responsible for affect. Implications of these assertions and issues that arise from them are addressed in the remainder of the article. Several issues relate to the emotion model itself; others concern the relation between negative emotion and disengagement from goals. Relations to 3 other emotion theories are also addressed. The authors conclude that this view on affect is a useful supplement to other theories and that the concept of emotion is easily assimilated to feedback models of self-regulation.
The intention-superiority effect is the finding that response latencies are faster for items related to an uncompleted intention as compared with materials that have no associated intentionality. T. Goschke and J. Kuhl(1993) used recognition latency for simple action scripts to document this effect. We used a lexical-decision task to replicate that shorter latencies were associated with uncompleted intentions as compared with neutral materials (Experiments 1 and 3). Experiments 2-4, however, demonstrated that latencies were longer for completed scripts as compared with neutral materials. In Experiment 3, shorter latencies were also obtained for partially completed scripts. The results are discussed in terms of the activation and inhibition that may guide behavior, as well as how these results may inform theories of prospective memory.
The present research was designed to examine the impact of temporal constraints on group interaction and performance. Thirty-six triads worked on one of two planning tasks under conditions of time scarcity, optimal time, or time abundance. Group interactions were videotaped and coded using the TEMPO system. Each group's written solution was rated on length, originality, creativity, adequacy, issue involvement, quality of presentation, optimism, and action orientation. Each proposal suggested during the interaction was rated on creativity and adequacy. Interaction process data showed that time limits were inversely related to the amount of task focus shown by groups. Performance data showed that the effects of time limits on group performance varied depending on what aspects of quality were considered. Process-performance relationships were also examined within each time condition. The findings are discussed in terms of an attentional focus model of time limits and group performance.
This study began with the premise that people can use varying degrees of their selves. physically. cognitively. and emotionally. in work role performances. which has implications for both their work and experi ences. Two qualitative. theory-generating studies of summer camp counselors and members of an architecture firm were conducted to explore the conditions at work in which people personally engage. or express and employ their personal selves. and disengage. or withdraw and defend their personal selves. This article describes and illustrates three psychological conditions-meaningfulness. safety. and availabil ity-and their individual and contextual sources. These psychological conditions are linked to existing theoretical concepts. and directions for future research are described. People occupy roles at work; they are the occupants of the houses that roles provide. These events are relatively well understood; researchers have focused on "role sending" and "receiving" (Katz & Kahn. 1978). role sets (Merton. 1957). role taking and socialization (Van Maanen. 1976), and on how people and their roles shape each other (Graen. 1976). Researchers have given less attention to how people occupy roles to varying degrees-to how fully they are psychologically present during particular moments of role performances. People can use varying degrees of their selves. physically, cognitively, and emotionally. in the roles they perform. even as they main tain the integrity of the boundaries between who they are and the roles they occupy. Presumably, the more people draw on their selves to perform their roles within those boundaries. the more stirring are their performances and the more content they are with the fit of the costumes they don. The research reported here was designed to generate a theoretical frame work within which to understand these "self-in-role" processes and to sug gest directions for future research. My specific concern was the moments in which people bring themselves into or remove themselves from particular task behaviors, My guiding assumption was that people are constantly bring ing in and leaving out various depths of their selves during the course of The guidance and support of David Berg, Richard Hackman, and Seymour Sarason in the research described here are gratefully acknowledged. I also greatly appreciated the personal engagements of this journal's two anonymous reviewers in their roles, as well as the comments on an earlier draft of Tim Hall, Kathy Kram, and Vicky Parker.
Thirty six subjects chose individually between pairs of gambles under three time pressure conditions: High (8 seconds), Medium (16 seconds) and Low (32 seconds). The gambles in each pair were equated for expected value but differed in variance, amounts to win and lose and their respective probabilities. Information about each dimension could be obtained by the subject sequentially according to his preference.The results show that subjects are less risky under High as compared to Medium and Low time pressure, risk taking being measured by choices of gambles with lower variance or lower amounts to lose and win. Subjects tended to spend more time observing the negative dimensions (amount to lose and probability of losing), whereas under low time pressure they preffered observing their positive counterparts. Information preference was found to be related to choices.Filtration of information and acceleration of its processing appear to be the strategies of coping with time pressure.
Abstract Interruptions are typically considered disruptive for organizational members, hindering their performance,and effectiveness. Although interruptions can have negative effects on work performance, they also can serve in multiple ways as facilitators of performance. In this paper, we discuss four key types of interruptions that have different causes and consequences: intrusions, breaks, distractions, and discrepancies. Each type of interruption can occur during the workday, and each type has different implications for individual effectiveness. We delineate the principle features of each of the four types of interruptions and specify when each kind of interruption is likely to have positive or negative consequences,for the person being interrupted. By discussing in detail the multiple kinds of interruptions and their potential for positive or negative consequences, we provide a means for organizational scholars to treat interruptions and their consequences,in more discriminating ways. 2 Interruptions are generally defined as incidents or occurrences that obstruct or delay organizational members as they attempt to make progress on work tasks and, thus, are typically
Managerial work has been defined as an activity characterized by brevity, fragmentation and occurring at an unrelenting pace. In today's workplaces, fragmented work environments are commonplace for people involved in managerial work, and even for knowledge workers. It seems that support technology is partly to blame in this context: we have created more powerful tools which partly hinder productivity. The purpose of our research is (i) to understand the cause and sources of fragmentation of working time, (ii) provide solutions to reduce interruptions and their effects, (iii) propose guidelines to develop information systems suited for the purposes of the work of knowledge workers.
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.
Epistemic, freezing, operationalized as impressional primacy, was examined as a function of situationally induced need for cognitive closure (manipulated by varying time pressure) and dispositional introversion-extroversion. Fifty-eight subjects under high or low time pressure predicted the success of a job candidate. Overalll the tendency to use early information in predicting job success increased when time pressure was high. Consistent with predictions, introverts used early information in forming judgments to a greater extent then extraverts when time pressure was high. No significant differences were found between introverts and extraverts when time pressure was low. The results suggest that introverts may be particularly sensitive to situations requiring cognitive closure.
This paper reports an experiment in which the influence of time pressure, the social category of the target person, and emotional responses on impression formation and recognition memory was studied. It was hypothesized that under time pressure, subjects using their stereotype would process information about an outgroup target more easily than information about an ingroup target, would judge these targets more differentially, and would base their judgments of the outgroup target more on their attitudes than in a condition without time pressure. These hypotheses were to a large extent sustained. Results are discussed in terms of current models of impression formation and attitude functioning.
A laboratory experiment examined the effects of time pressure on the process and outcome of integrative bargaining. Time pressure was operationalized in terms of the amount of time available to negotiate. As hypothesized, high time pressure produced nonagreements and poor negotiation outcomes only when negotiators adopted an individualistic orientation; when negotiators adopted a cooperative orientation, they achieved high outcomes regardless of time pressure. In combination with an individualistic orientation, time pressure produced greater competitiveness, firm negotiator aspirations, and reduced information exchange. In combination with a cooperative orientation, time pressure produced greater cooperativeness and lower negotiator aspirations. The main findings were seen as consistent with Pruitt's strategic-choice model of negotiation.
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)
The intention-superiority effect is the finding that response latencies are faster for items related to an uncompleted intention as compared with materials that have no associated intentionality. T. Goschke and J. Kuhl (1993) used recognition latency for simple action scripts to document this effect. We used a lexical-decision task to replicate that shorter latencies were associated with uncompleted intentions as compared with neutral materials (Experiments 1 and 3). Experiments 2–4, however, demonstrated that latencies were longer for completed scripts as compared with neutral materials. In Experiment 4, shorter latencies were also obtained for partially completed scripts. The results are discussed in terms of the activation and inhibition that may guide behavior, as well as how these results may inform theories of prospective memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies with 182 White female college students investigated the effects of cognitive busyness on the activation and application of stereotypes. In Exp 1, not-busy Ss who were exposed to an Asian target showed evidence of stereotype activation, but busy Ss (who rehearsed an 8-digit number during their exposure) did not. In Exp 2, cognitive busyness once again inhibited the activation of stereotypes about Asians. However, when stereotype activation was allowed to occur, busy Ss (who performed a visual search task during their exposure) were more likely to apply these activated stereotypes than were not-busy Ss. Together, these findings suggest that cognitive busyness may decrease the likelihood that a particular stereotype will be activated but increase the likelihood that an activated stereotype will be applied. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In "Losing Control," the authors provide a single reference source with comprehensive information on general patterns of self-regulation failure across contexts, research findings on specific self-control disorders, and commentary on the clinical and social aspects of self-regulation failure. Self-control is discussed in relation to what the "self" is, and the cognitive, motivational, and emotional factors that impinge on one's ability to control one's "self." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
the purpose of this paper is to review this research [experiments in social perception and interpersonal relations] and to summarize its conclusions and implications / aim is to summarize what we have learned about the "attribution process" as it occurs in social interaction and the facts that affect its course
propositions about information patterns that form the basis for various attributions
consider . . . several types of attribution phenomena in which the attributor makes use of the information at his disposal in a highly reasonable manner
important exceptions, in which the available information is used in systematically biased and even erroneous ways
locus of effect of the covariant cause / temporal relations between cause and effect
multiple plausible causes: the discounting effect / constancy of effect / facilitative versus inhibitory causes / ambiguity as to the significance of external causes / reciprocation of harm and benefit / sincerity, veridicality, and attribution of causality / attributions as mediating variables
less rational attribution tendencies
attribution and control (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents an animal model of how learned helplessness may manifest itself as depression and anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the effects of time limits and task types on the quality and quantity of group performance and patterns of group interaction. 344 undergraduates participated in 4-S group sessions in which they were required to generate a written story, a plan of action, or a summary of a discussion. Results were interpreted in terms of social entrainment, a concept that refers to the altering of social rhythms or patterns by external conditions (such as time limits) and to the persistence of new rhythms over time. Groups performed 2 tasks of a single-task type for 2 trials of different durations (10 min followed by 20 min or 20 min followed by 10 min). Tasks of 3 types (production, discussion, planning) were used, each requiring an essay-type solution. Task products were assessed for both quantity and quality. Measures of group interaction patterns were taken by categorizing a systematic time sample of the comments of group members. Results indicate that groups with a 20-min 1st trial produced products that were higher in both quality and quantity (but not rate) and engaged in proportionally more interpersonal activity during interaction than did groups that had a 10-min 1st trial. Further, those same groups persisted in the same patterns of interaction (and, to a much lesser extent, patterns of task performance) on the 2nd trial, despite changes in the time limit on that latter trial. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 100 male undergraduates in a laboratory bargaining simulation to investigate 3 hypotheses about the effect of 1 bargainer's concessions on the concessions of the opposing bargainer. Results indicate that Ss conceded more when the programed opponent made small concessions than when the opponent made large concessions (Exp I). The effect of the opponent's concessions on S's concessions appeared to be mediated by S's aspiration level. S's aspiration level, concessions, and perception of the opponent's strength were affected by the degree of time pressure (Ss were limited to 5-8 offers) and the S's knowledge of the opponent's payoffs as well as by the opponent's offers (Exp II). Discrepancies with previous studies are discussed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This research hypothesizes that greater congruence between preferred polychronicity (the extent to which an individual prefers to be involved with several tasks simultaneously) and experienced work-unit polychronicity (the polychronic behaviors and preferences of the supervisor and co-workers) will be associated with higher levels of (1) three components of organizational commitment (willingness to exert effort, desire to remain a member of the organization, and belief in and acceptance of organizational goals), (2) the individual's perceived performance evaluation by the supervisor and co-workers, and (3) the individual's perceived fairness of the performance evaluation. Based on a sample of employed business school graduates, the results indicate that polychronic congruence is significantly related to these variables in the predicted direction. The use of polynomial regression analysis reveals additional characteristics of the relationships that would not have been available from the analysis of squared-difference scores. The findings support the position that polychronicity and other temporal variables are important factors in organizational research. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss theories of the origin of ruminative thought. We begin by providing a working definition of rumination, separating rumination from other forms of cognitive activity and distinguishing ruminations from ordinary memories. Then, we review what we believe are the major categories of theory that attempt to account for the existence and nature of rumination. These include theories of traumatization, incompleteness, nondisclosure, and thought suppression. Ruminations may originate for a number of reasons, but it seems they may continue because of our attempts to control them. Evidence from studies on thought suppression suggests that the suppression of unwanted thoughts may in fact fuel the very emotions and thoughts we are trying to avoid. Thought suppression may set up a state in which we not only increase the amount we think about an unwanted thought, but potentially also sharpen our emotional reaction to those thoughts.
Corporate lawyers, investment bankers, computer programmers, and many other types of workers routinely work seventy-or eighty-hour weeks, putting in extra effort during particularly hectic times (Kidder, 1981; Schor, 1991). These men and women, married and single, are stressed, exhausted, and even dying as a result of frantic schedules (Harris, 1987). They have insufficient time to meet all of the demands on them from work and their lives outside of work. The purpose of this paper is to explore what I refer to as their time famine -their feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it -and to question whether this famine must exist. I chose to study a group of software engineers in a high-tech corporation. Over the past three decades, a number of studies have described the nature of engineers' work (e.g., Perrucci and Gerstl, 1969; Ritti, 1971; Brooks, 1982; Zussman, 1985; Whalley, 1986); however, I chose this group not because of the type of work they do but, rather, because of the immense pressure they are under to get their product to market and the time famine they experience as a result. Several recent books have described with awe the fast-paced, high-pressure, crisis-filled environment in which software engineers work (Kidder, 1981; Moody, 1990; Zachary, 1994). These authors portray the engineers as heroes for their willingness to work extremely long hours and celebrate the engineers' intensity and total devotion to work. I, in contrast, explore the engineers' actual use of time at work and the impact their use of time has on other individuals and the groups to which the individuals belong, which reveals the problematic nature of the current way of using time. Ultimately, I therefore challenge the assumption that the current way of using time, which is so destructive to individuals' lives outside of work, is in the corporation's best interest (Perlow, 1995, 1997).