Andrew Neal

How included employees feel at work fluctuates meaningfully from day to day. Emerging research demonstrates that these fluctuations have important implications for employee well‐being. Yet little is known about the cognitive processes through which these effects extend beyond the workday. Drawing on Ilies and colleagues' (2024) model of work‐derived well‐being, we propose that evening work reflection constitutes a key mechanism linking daily perceptions of workgroup inclusion to next‐morning well‐being. We further argue that daily fluctuations in perceived workgroup inclusion carry greater psychological significance for employees who perceive themselves as underrepresented or non‐prototypical within their immediate work environment (i.e., contextual minorities), thereby exerting a stronger influence on subsequent work reflection and well‐being. Using a daily diary design with morning, afternoon, and evening surveys ( n = 3480 days; N = 389 employees), multilevel path analyses supported the proposed model, demonstrating that positive and negative evening work reflection explain how daily workgroup inclusion carries over to next‐morning well‐being. By identifying positive and negative work reflection as distinct pathways linking daily workgroup inclusion to employee well‐being, and establishing contextual minority status as a boundary condition of these processes, we advance understanding of how , and for whom , the effects of daily workgroup inclusion extend beyond the workday. Together, these findings underscore the importance of fostering day to day workgroup inclusion to support employee well‐being in increasingly diverse workplaces.

Objective: The objective of this study is to empirically test a computational model of interruptions processes and effects, and to compare an alternative model to determine which best explains interruption and response decision making. Background: Interruptions in safety-critical environments (e.g., hospitals) can lead to an increased risk of error for the person being interrupted (the interruptee) but may be necessary for the person doing the interrupting (the interrupter) to maintain safety. Little research has considered the perspective of both the interrupter and interruptee. Method: We tested a computational model of interruption and response decision processes through an experiment where participants ( n = 312) worked as a nurse in a simulated clinical team. We examined how task progress, time remaining, and time pressure influenced decisions and compared the model with an alternative that allowed the effects of time pressure to be non-monotonic. Results: Using Bayesian hierarchical modeling, we found that a non-monotonic model best explained interruption decisions. Participants were biased toward interrupting, with time pressure only influencing decisions when it was very high. Contrastingly, the monotonic model best explained response decisions. Participants were more likely to accept interruptions as the interrupter’s time pressure increased in comparison to their own. Conclusion: Time pressure has a non-monotonic influence on interruption decisions, but a monotonic influence on response decisions. Application: Findings can inform interventions to consider the interruptions process from the perspective of both the interrupter and interruptee. Interventions could focus on training workers to more accurately assess time pressure when making interruption decisions.

This study examines how the complexity of multi-vehicle operations scales due to the cost of coordinating multiple remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) between multiple operators. We conducted a desktop simulation study to investigate how task load (2 RPA vs. 4 RPA per person), crew size (2-person vs. 3-person), and work design (functional vs. structural), affect crew performance in multi-vehicle operations. Participants conducted search and rescue missions in crews using multiple RPA. We measured self-reported workload, number of images classified, and frequency of conflicts between RPA. Data was analyzed using Bayesian hierarchical models. Results suggest that coordination cost increases when increasing task load and crew size, and that these costs stem from interdependencies that are created between crew members in each work design.

The aim of this article is to examine how affect changes when people are pursuing performance goals. We do this using the circumplex model of affect, in which a person's current affective state is represented as a point on a plane defined by the latent dimensions of pleasure and activation. We test competing hypotheses regarding the direction of changes within this 2-dimensional space. The first set of hypotheses are derived from Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation, which predicts that changes in the prospects of goal attainment should produce changes along axes offset 45 degrees from the pleasure and activation dimensions. The second set of hypotheses are derived from the concept of core affect (Russell, 2003), which predicts that changes in the prospects of goal attainment should produce changes in pleasure, while changes in task demands should produce changes in activation. Two studies are reported in which participants provided ratings of momentary affect during goal pursuit. We developed a latent change model to estimate the direction and magnitude of changes in affect attributable to changes in the prospects of goal attainment and task demand. The results are more consistent with the hypotheses derived from the core affect account than with the hypotheses derived from the Carver and Scheier account. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, with a focus on prospects for the development of an integrative theory, which accounts for both the motivational and affective components of goal pursuit.

We investigated the effects of two types of competition, races and tournaments (as well as an individual challenge and a do-your-best condition), on two different aspects of performance: effort and strategy. In our experiment, 100 undergraduate participants completed a simple cognitive task under four experimental conditions (in a repeated-measures design) based on different types of competitions and challenges. We used the Linear Ballistic Accumulator to quantify the effects of competition on strategy and effort. The results reveal that competition produced changes in strategy rather than effort, and that trait competitiveness had minimal impact on how people responded to competition. This suggests individuals are more likely to adjust their strategy in competitions, and the uncertainty created by different competition types influences the direction of these strategy adjustments.

We present a unified model of the dynamics of goal-directed motivation and decision-making. The model-referred to as the GOAL architecture-provides a quantitative framework for integrating theories of goal pursuit and for relating their predictions to different types of data. The GOAL architecture proposes that motivation changes over time according to three gradients that capture the effects of the distance to the goal (i.e., the progress remaining), the time to the deadline, and the rate of progress required to achieve the goal. This enables the integration and comparison of six theoretical perspectives that make different predictions about how these dynamics unfold when pursuing approach and avoidance goals. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling was used to analyze data from three experiments which manipulate distance to goal, time to deadline, and goal type (approach vs. avoidance), and data from the naturalistic context of professional basketball. The results show that people rely on the distance and rate gradients, and to a lesser degree the time gradient, when making resource allocation decisions during goal pursuit, although the relative influence of the gradients depends on the goal type. We also demonstrate how the GOAL architecture can be used to answer questions about the influence of goal importance. Our findings suggest that goal pursuit unfolds in a complex manner that cannot be accounted for by any one previous theoretical perspective, but that is well-characterized by our unified framework. This research highlights the importance of theoretical integration for understanding motivation and decision-making during goal pursuit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Workers in safety critical and 24-hour operating environments face sustained exposure to many stressful situations, ranging from long periods of monotony and boredom, to sudden periods of intense time pressure. This study examines how the combination of overload and underload contributes to fatigue and wellbeing in 943 seafarers. Using latent moderated structural equation modelling, we found that underload showed a stronger association with chronic fatigue and impaired wellbeing, compared to overload. An interaction between overload and underload was also significantly related to psychological wellbeing, with increasing levels of overload weakening the negative relationship between underload and psychological wellbeing. Our research highlights that underload, despite previously not receiving much attention, is an important area of concern. Our findings also underscore the importance of unpacking the joint effects of concurrent job demands, and to consider how certain job demands may help to reduce the negative effects caused by other demands. Where current and future jobs may be subject to a reduction in demands (e.g. automation), it is important to consider how underload may impact worker fatigue and wellbeing.