Human and machine-induced social stress and cognitive performance

Human and machine-induced social stress in complex work environments: Effects on performance and subjective state

Social stress at work can lead to severe consequences. As a result of technological developments, social stress will increasingly be induced by machines. It is therefore crucial to understand how machine-induced social stress affects operators. The present study aimed to compare human and machine-induced social stress with regard to its effect on primary and secondary task performance, and on subjective state (e.g., self-esteem, mood and justice). 90 participants worked on a high-fidelity simulation of a complex work environment, on which they had received extensive training (2h15). Social stress was induced by a human or a machine using a combination of negative performance feedback and ostracism. Results indicate that social stress did not affect performance, affect or state self-esteem. Machine-induced and human-induced social stress overall had similar effects, except for the latter impairing perceived justice. We discuss implications of these results for automation at the workplace and outline future research directions.

Social stress, performance after-effects and extra-role behaviour

The article is concerned with the after-effects of social stress on work performance. In a lab-based experiment, seventy participants were assigned to either a stress condition or a no-stress condition. In the stress condition, participants received fake negative performance feedback and they were ostracised by two confederates of the experimenter. Participants carried out the following tasks: attention and divergent creativity. The effects of social stress were examined at three levels: performance after-effects on unscheduled probe tasks, extra-role behaviour and subjective operator state. The manipulation check confirmed that participants experienced social stress. The results showed after-effects of social stress for some forms of extra-role behaviour (i.e. spontaneous reactions) and for the accuracy component of attention. Furthermore, social stress was found to increase negative affect and to reduce self-esteem. The findings point to the importance of assessing different types of after-effects rather than limiting the methodological approach to instant effects on performance.Practitioner summary: The study aimed to examine the multiple effects of social stress. Social stress resulted in increased negative affect and lower self-esteem. Furthermore, social stress was found to reduce the propensity of humans to show extra-role behaviour (i.e. providing spontaneous help to others).