Sustained performance under overload: personality and individual differences in stress and coping

Abstract

Individuals differ considerably in their vulnerability to task-induced stress, in part because of individual differences in cognitions of task demands. This study investigated the personality and cognitive factors that may control stress vulnerability, using a ‘rapid information processing’ task that was configured to overload attention. Stress response was assessed using the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire (Matthews, G. et al., 2002. Fundamental dimensions of subjective state in performance settings: task engagement, distress and worry. Emotion, 2, 315–340), as well as instruments assessing workload, appraisal and coping. Time pressure was manipulated as a between-subjects stress factor. Higher time pressure tended to elicit decreased effort and task engagement and avoidance coping. However, much of the variance in state response was attributable to individual differences in appraisal and coping. The personality trait of neuroticism related to some of these cognitive processes. Subjective state, appraisal and coping were also predictive of objective performance indices. Consistent with the transactional theory of stress, subjective states appear to correspond to configurations of cognitive processes that signal the participant's mode of adaptation to task demands. The findings underscore the importance of accommodating individual differences in selecting operators for handling overload, for designing interfaces and for training operators to manage overload successfully.

Keywords:

• stress
• sustained attention
• task engagement
• coping
• overload

Acknowledgements

The first author gratefully acknowledges support from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command under Contract No. DAMD17–04-C-0002, and from the Army Research Institute under SBIR Contract No. W74V8H-06-C-0049 to JXT Applications, and Subcontract No. JXT-06-S-1003 to the University of Cincinnati. The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation. In the conduct of research where humans are the subjects, the investigator(s) adhered to the policies regarding the protection of human subjects as prescribed by 45 CFR 46 and 32 CFR 219 (Protection of Human Subjects).