Attentional Focus and Mind Wandering at Work
Thoughts, at work or anywhere, are always thoughts “of” something. At work, we like to think that the something that is the object of our mental states is the work we do, but a moment’s reflection tells us this isn’t true. It has been estimated (very, very roughly) that we have about 5,000 discrete thoughts a day but that only about half are connected to the tasks we are engaged in. In the Work Experience Lab we have a number of ongoing projects looking at mind wandering and our ability to focus on our work at any given time. Our underlying position is that the prevalence of mind wandering while working has something to do with our general capabilities for self-regulation and inhibiting the intrusion of task irrelevant thoughts. Specific projects include:
- Burnout and Attention – It has been consistently shown that regulatory resource depletion hinders performance on tasks requiring any form of self-regulation, including the control of attention. As attentional regulation is adversely affected by depletion, it follows that mind wandering, which is the result of difficulties in regulating attention, will be adversely affected by burnout, a chronic state of depletion. In this project we are examining burnout, inhibitory dysfunction and inability to maintain attentional focus at work. Using Experience Sampling Methods, our initial analyses find that burnout level does contribute to how much mind wandering occurs on a moment-by-moment basis, with high-burnout participants exhibiting larger amounts of mind wandering while working.
- Mind Wandering and Incivility at Work – If mind wandering is the result of problems of inhibition then perhaps it would be related to other manifestations of inhibition problems at work. We are examining the co-occurrence of mind wandering and incivility at work, seeing them as related problems of inhibition failure. Our initial findings confirm our expectations, as people who engage in more mind wandering and daydreaming at work are also reported to display more incivility towards co-workers.
- The Experience of Mind Wandering – Although much of our research program is examining the ability to stay focused at work, we are not neglecting the content of the wandering mind. Important questions about how off task thinking is instigated and ended, whether particular types of daydreams facilitate future work or help people recover lost attentional resources, etc. need to be addressed. To begin to examine these types of issues we have just completed a qualitative study on the subjective experience of mind wandering at work. Data are now being analyzed.
Emotion, Attentional Control and Performance
This program of research, funded by a three year contract with the United States Army Research Institute, examines the effects of emotional states on episodic performance. More specifically, it examines three related topics: 1) the influence of emotional states on immediate performance through attentional misallocation; 2) the effects of acute and chronic regulatory resource depletion, created by emotional regulation, on attentional control and performance; 3) the moderating effects of task characteristics on emotion-task performance relationships.
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Contact: Howard M. Weiss, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 654 Cherry St. Atlanta, GA 30332
Email: [email protected] - Phone: (404) 894-8036
Email: [email protected] - Phone: (404) 894-8036