Effects of Fatigue and Social Environment on Performance: The Role of Feedback(Effecten van vermoeidheid en sociale omgeving op prestatie: de rol van feedback)

摘要

This is the fourth 24 hours experiment on the effects of fatigue and socialenvironment on performance. Subject of study is to what extent negative effects of fatigue can be compensated by the presence of another person during task performance. In this experiment is studied whether giving public individual feedback is a remedy for 'social loafing'. People tend to put less effort in a job, if they work in a group. Identifiability of the individual contribution to the group result seems to play a role in this. Therefore, half of the subjects were given aggregated group feedback, the other half also got feedback on an individual level. 32 Subjects worked during 24 hours on 3 tasks, differing in cognitive complexity: reaction time task (RT-task), memory search task (GZT), and contaminant monitoring task (CMT). All subjects performed the tasks alone as well as in presence of another subject. Expected was, based on the 'social facilitation' literature, that especially the RT-task and the GZT would be performed better in presence of another subject, whilst the CMT would be performed better alone. However, with all tasks, subjects seemed to profit from working in couples, especially at the end of the night, when one was most tired. The effect was most obvious in the CMT and to a lesser extent in the RT-task. Subjects who got feedback on an individual level outperformed those with group feedback. So the results of the former experiment (Van Orden Gaillard, 1996) possibly can be explained in terms of social loafing. Comparison of the two experiments (this and the former) shows that performance decrements due to fatigue partly can be prevented by adding at least one individual aspect to the task situation: individual bonus, or individual feedback.