Unlocking team excellence: The transformative power of work engagement, career commitment, and role innovation Amidst conflict

Organizations increasingly recognize the importance of work engagement and career commitment. Yet, how these factors operate within teams remains unexplored in the current literature. This study aims to uncover how conflict and innovation influence engagement and career commitment in teams. We conducted a two-wave survey involving 196 managers and 873 subordinates from Sri Lankan manufacturing firms. As expected, higher work engagement is linked to greater career commitment and role innovation. Interestingly, role innovation was more pronounced during elevated task conflict. While task conflict enhanced the connection between work engagement and role innovation, it also positively impacted career commitment. Thus, the findings confirm role innovation's mediating role between employee engagement and career commitment and reveal task and relationship conflict as moderators in this relationship. This research expands on the Broaden and Build theory by emphasizing the greater importance of task conflict intensity in teams than previously recognized. Additionally, the study highlights that low conflict levels detrimentally affect teams, offering fresh insights for managerial considerations. By enhancing our understanding of team dynamics, this study contributes to improved organizational efficiency and positive outcomes.

Reliable affordances: A generative modeling approach for test-retest reliability of the affordances task

The affordances task serves as an important tool for the assessment of cognition and visuomotor functioning, and yet its test-retest reliability has not been established. In the affordances task, participants attend to a goal-directed task (e.g., classifying manipulable objects such as cups and pots) while suppressing their stimulus-driven, irrelevant reactions afforded by these objects (e.g., grasping their handles). This results in cognitive conflicts manifesting at the task level and the response level. In the current study, we assessed the reliability of the affordances task for the first time. While doing so, we referred to the "reliability paradox," according to which behavioral tasks that produce highly replicable group-level effects often yield low test-retest reliability due to the inadequacy of traditional correlation methods in capturing individual differences between participants. Alongside the simple test-retest correlations, we employed a Bayesian generative model that was recently demonstrated to result in a more precise estimation of test-retest reliability. Two hundred and ninety-five participants completed an online version of the affordances task twice, with a one-week gap. Performance on the online version replicated results obtained under in-lab administrations of the task. While the simple correlation method resulted in weak test-retest measures of the different effects, the generative model yielded a good reliability assessment. The current results support the utility of the affordances task as a reliable behavioral tool for the assessment of group-level and individual differences in cognitive and visuomotor functioning. The results further support the employment of generative modeling in the study of individual differences.

Resting Stroop task: Evidence of task conflict in trials with no required response

In the typical Stroop task, participants are presented with color words written in different ink colors and are asked to respond to their color. It has been suggested that the Stroop task consists of two main conflicts: information conflict (color vs. word naming) and task conflict (respond to color vs. read the word). In the current study, we developed a novel task that includes both Response trials (i.e., trials in which a response is required) and Rest trials (i.e., trials in which no response is required or available) and investigated the existence of both information and task conflicts in Rest trials. We found evidence for task conflict in Response and also in Rest trials, while evidence for information conflict was only observed in Response trials. These results are in line with a model of task conflict that occurs independently of and prior to information conflict in the Stroop task.

Proactive control affects task conflict beyond contingency learning

Various models of the Stroop task suggest that proactive task control adaptation accounts for the modulation of task conflict in different conditions of the Stroop task, for example, when task conflict is very frequent or very infrequent. Other researchers have argued that a contingency learning of colour-word associations is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. In this work, we constructed a design that controls for confounds that are suspected to rule out the role of control adaptation in the Stroop task. We focused on one type of conflict-task conflict and tested whether colour-naming of neutral-words (where task conflict is present) differed from colour-naming of neutral-symbols (where task conflict is not present) in four different conditions: mostly words-congruent, mostly words-incongruent, mostly words-neutral, or mostly non-words-shape. Importantly, the conditions used for the task conflict marker were identical in all four conditions. We found that the marker of task conflict (reaction time [RT] for neutral-words > RT for neutral-symbols) was significant in the mostly non-words-shape condition, where proactive task control is relaxed, but not in the mostly words conditions, where proactive task control is activated, with no difference between these three words conditions. These findings suggest that control adaptation is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. The relevance of the results to the current literature is discussed and the results are explained in light of the proactive control-task conflict (PC-TC) model.

Interprofessional nursing education and the role of swift trust and task conflict in team creativity: the mediating role of team interactive behaviors

PURPOSE

This paper aims to explore the impact of interprofessional healthcare collaboration among nurses on patient healthcare services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Data were gathered through a randomly distributed questionnaire (N = 248), constructed using established scales or the variables under study. The sample consisted of nurses and patients from various hospitals and clinics across the UAE. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 28) and Amos (Version 29) software, employing factor analysis, reliability testing and mediation analysis.

FINDINGS

The study reveals a positive relationship between swift trust (ST) and its dimensions with both team interactive behavior (TIB) and nurse team creativity (TC). TIB was found to significantly mediate the effect of ST on TC. Additionally, based on closed-ended questions, a positive correlation was observed between team task conflict (TTC) and TC. However, no significant impact of TTC on nurse TC was identified through open-ended questions.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This research presents a unique analysis of the influence of interprofessional collaboration on patient healthcare services in the UAE, offering valuable insights for policy improvement by enhancing nursing conditions. Furthermore, the study contributes to the existing literature by examining the relationship between ST, TIB, TTC and TC.

Local and global control adjustments to stimulus-based task conflict in task switching

A prominent feature of cognitive control is that its deployment is regulated depending on the environmental circumstances. Control upregulation has been widely documented in response-conflict paradigms where congruency effects are reduced both following incongruent trials, and in blocks where incongruent trials are the majority. In two pre-registered task-switching experiments, we investigated whether similar flexible mechanisms are also available when dealing with stimulus-based task conflict. Building up on previous Stroop studies, task conflict was measured as the difference in performance between bivalent congruent and univalent trials, which we name the "valency effect." If cognitive control is upregulated analogously to what observed with response conflict, valency effects should be reduced following bivalent trials and in majority-bivalent blocks. Furthermore, as cognitive control upregulation has been proposed to be task specific, we assessed whether switching to a new task eliminates the expected modulations of task. The results broadly matched our predictions. First, we observed a reduction of the valency effect following bivalent trials similar to the well-known congruency sequence effect, demonstrating similar patterns of flexible control adjustment to task and response conflict. This valency sequence effect was limited to task repetitions, indicating that local control adjustments are task specific. Furthermore, task conflict was reduced in majority-bivalent blocks, similar to the proportion-congruency effect. This finding extends previous Stroop studies suggesting that control is recruited proactively when dealing with stimulus-based task. The proportion valency effect was limited to task-switch trials, leaving open the question on the precise mechanisms behind sustained control adjustments.

Given the option, people avoid incongruent responses in a dual-tasking situation

While past work on how people can optimize dual-tasking has focused on strategic timing (i.e., when to select responses), little is known about the extent to which people can optimize dual-tasking by taking care of which responses they select. Here we test whether spatial (in)congruency influences response selection in free-choice trials. In two experiments, we combined two visual-manual tasks with spatial stimulus- and response characteristics: Participants responded to the stimulus words "left" and "right" in a forced choice task and responded "up", "down", "left" or "right" with an arrow-key to either a free choice prompt or an X located at the respective position. In Experiment 1, participants reduced the proportion of incongruent pairs of responses (i.e., left in one and right in the other task). In Experiment 2, we found that such flexibility in response selection also holds in more constrained environments: Within runs of four trials the free-choice options were continuously reduced based on the responses already given. The combined results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that response selection in free choice trials is driven by performance optimization beyond response conflict.

Neutral affordances: Task conflict in the affordances task

Task conflict emerges when a stimulus triggers two or more competing tasks. To date, task conflict has been studied mainly using the color-word Stroop task. We hypothesized that task conflict also emerges in the affordances task between the goal-directed relevant task (e.g., classifying manipulable objects such as cups and pots), and the automatic, stimulus-driven, irrelevant task afforded by these objects (e.g., grasping their handles). Thus, we expected task conflict to manifest in both congruent and incongruent trials, separately from the well-known affordances response conflict that manifests in incongruent trials between responding with the right vs. the left hand. To this end, we aimed to identify a neutral condition for the affordances task. In Experiment 1, participants performed an affordances task that included images of manipulable objects and houses. While manipulable objects evoke automatic grasping tendencies, house images were hypothesized to serve as neutral, conflict-free stimuli. House images yielded shorter reaction time (RT) than incongruent trials, indicating that they may serve as neutral stimuli for the task. House images also yielded shorter RT than congruent trials, suggesting that task conflict manifests in congruent (as well as in incongruent) affordances trials. In Experiment 2 we manipulated cognitive control in the affordance task by creating low-control and high-control blocks. While both congruent and incongruent trials were impacted by this manipulation of cognitive control, neutral trials remained unaffected. These findings indicate that the affordances task involves conflicts at both the task level and the level of response, and can be used as a supplementary, non-linguistic measure of task conflict and the activation of task control.

The contribution of meaning to the detection of task conflict

The colour-word Stroop task produces both information conflict (detection of the ink colour vs word meaning) and task conflict (respond to the ink colour vs read the word). In this study, we measured both reaction time and pupil dilation, and the neutral stimuli in our study were non-readable letter strings as well as meaningless non-readable stimuli (i.e., coloured patches and abstract character strings). Our results showed slowest responses in the incongruent trials and fastest responses in the congruent trials. However, no differences were found between the investigated neutrals. In contrast, pupil dilation was largest in the incongruent trials and smallest in the neutral trials. Moreover, the more the neutral stimuli were meaningless, the less the pupil dilation that was observed. Our results suggest that non-word meaningless stimuli reduced task conflict (compared with all the investigated conditions). Neutral equivalence should be taken into consideration in Stroop and Stroop-like tasks.

Pupillometric contributions to deciphering Stroop conflicts

The Stroop task gives rise to two major conflicts: the task conflict (respond to the color vs. read the word) and the information conflict that can result from the stimulus-response compatibility (SRC; difference between two responses) or from the stimulus-stimulus compatibility (SSC; difference between the two contradictive pieces of information). We conducted a two-to-one Stroop experiment (i.e., two colors are mapped to one response key) and measured reaction time and pupil dilation. The results showed clear evidence for informational conflict composed of both the SRC and SSC. In addition, pupil indications for task conflict appeared earlier than indications for both the SSC and the SRC, in line with the theory regarding task conflict.

Modulation of conflicts in the Stroop effect

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the unique contribution of task conflict, semantic conflict and response conflict to the Stroop effect and to test how these conflicts are modulated by manipulating the proportion of neutral trials, known to affect the magnitude of the Stroop effect. In the first experiment, we employed the two-to-one paradigm (De Houwer, 2003) while adding neutral illegible stimuli, and in the second experiment, we employed two colors and four word colors. In both experiments, we created four congruency conditions (neutral, congruent and two kind of incongruent conditions-those that include response conflict and those that do not), which allowed decomposing the Stroop effect into three orthogonal conflicts. In both experiments, we also manipulated the proportion of neutral trials. Task conflict was defined by the contrast between illegible neutrals and color words, semantic conflict by the contrast between congruent and incongruent stimuli, and response conflict by contrasting the two kinds of incongruent stimuli. Our results showed that all conflicts contributed to the Stroop effect. Task conflict and semantic conflict were modulated by the proportion of neutrals but response conflict was not. These findings imply that task conflict and semantic conflict are part of the control loop of the Stroop effect, as conceptualized by Botvinick et al.'s (2001) conflict monitoring model. There is no clear evidence of the response conflict being part of the loop. To complete the picture, we also analyzed the conflicts in the Stroop task using the traditional dependent contrasts approach and found the basic pattern of results was similar. Thus, the main advantage of the orthogonal comparisons approach is the possibility to estimate the unique contribution of the conflicts contributing to the Stroop effect and their modulation of the Stroop phenomenon.

Further investigation of distinct components of Stroop interference and of their reduction by short response-stimulus intervals

The aim of this paper is to extend the so-called semantic Stroop paradigm (Neely & Kahan, 2001) - which already successfully distinguishes between the contribution of the semantic vs. response conflict to Stroop interference - so that it can take account of and capture the separate contribution of task conflict. In line with this idea, the Stroop interference observed using the aforementioned paradigm with both short and long RSIs (500 vs. 2000ms) did indeed reflect the specific contribution of the task, semantic and response conflicts. However, the contribution of task conflict (as opposed to the semantic and response conflicts) failed to reach significance when the semantic Stroop paradigm was administered with manual (Experiment 1) as opposed to vocal responses (Experiment 2). These experiments further tested the extent to which the specific contribution of the different conflicts can be influenced by the increased cognitive control induced by a short (vs. long) RSI. The corresponding empirical evidence runs contrary to the assumption that the reduction of overall Stroop interference by a short (vs. long) RSI is due to the reduced contribution of the task (Parris, 2014) and/or semantic (De Jong, Berendsen, & Cools, 1999) conflicts. Indeed, in neither experiment was the contribution of these conflicts reduced by a short RSI. In both experiments, this manipulation only reduced the contribution of the response conflict to the overall Stroop interference (e.g., Augustinova & Ferrand, 2014b). Thus these different results clearly indicate that Stroop interference is a composite phenomenon involving both automatic and controlled processes. The somewhat obvious conclusion of this paper is that these processes are more successfully integrated within multi-stage accounts than within the historically favored single-stage response competition accounts that still dominate current psychological research and practice.

Priming can affect naming colours using the study-test procedure. Revealing the role of task conflict

The Stroop paradigm has been widely used to study attention whilst its use to explore implicit memory have been mixed. Using the non-colour word Stroop task we tested contrasting predictions from the proactive-control/task-conflict model (Kalanthroff, Avnit, Henik, Davelaar & Usher, 2015) that implicate response conflict and task conflict for the priming effects. Using the study-test procedure 60 native English speakers were tested to determine whether priming effects from words that had previously been studied would cause interference when presented in a colour naming task. The results replicate a finding by MacLeod (1996) who showed no differences between the response latencies to studied and unstudied words. However, this pattern was predominately in the first half of the study where it was also found that both studied and unstudied words in a mixed block were slower to respond to than a block of pure unstudied words. The second half of the study showed stronger priming interference effects as well as a sequential modulation effect in which studied words slowed down the responses of studied words on the next trial. We discuss the role of proactive and reactive control processes and conclude that task conflict best explains the pattern of priming effects reported.

Adjustment of control in the numerical Stroop task

In the numerical Stroop task, participants are asked to compare the physical sizes (physical task) or numerical values (numerical task) of two digits and ignore the irrelevant dimension. Participants are unable to ignore the irrelevant dimension as indicated by facilitation and interference effects. The literature suggests that there is asymmetry in the ability to adjust control in the physical and numerical tasks. The present study examined this suggestion in two experiments in which we manipulated the proportion of neutral/congruent trials in an experimental block. In addition, we examined the effects of control adjustment on the resolution of the task and informational conflicts. Our results suggest that adjustment of control can be bidirectional and is dependent on task requirements. Moreover, it might be easier to inhibit irrelevant information than to inhibit irrelevant task activation.

Contingency learning is not affected by conflict experience: Evidence from a task conflict-free, item-specific Stroop paradigm

A contingency learning account of the item-specific proportion congruent effect has been described as an associative stimulus-response learning process that has nothing to do with controlling the Stroop conflict. As supportive evidence, contingency learning has been demonstrated with response conflict-free stimuli, such as neutral words. However, what gives rise to response conflict and to Stroop interference in general is task conflict. The present study investigated whether task conflict can constitute a trigger or, alternatively, a booster to the contingency learning process. This was done by employing a "task conflict-free" condition (i.e., geometric shapes) and comparing it with a "task conflict" condition (i.e., neutral words). The results showed a significant contingency learning effect in both conditions, refuting the possibility that contingency learning is triggered by the presence of a task conflict. Contingency learning was also not enhanced by the task conflict experience, indicating its complete insensitivity to Stroop conflict(s). Thus, the results showed no evidence that performance optimization as a result of contingency learning is greater under conflict, implying that contingency learning is not recruited to assist the control system to overcome conflict.