James E. Driskell

Does mental practice enhance performance

Mental practice is the cognitive rehearsal of a task prior to performance. Although most researchers contend that mental practice is an effective means of enhancing performance, a clear consensus is precluded because (a) mental practice is often denned so loosely as to include almost any type of mental preparation and (b) empirical results are inconclusive. A meta-analysis of the literature on mental practice was conducted to determine the effect of mental practice on performance and to identify conditions under which mental practice is most effective. Results indicated that mental practice has a positive and significant effect on performance, and the effectiveness of mental practice was moderated by the type of task, the retention interval between practice and performance, and the length or duration of the mental practice intervention. Mental practice refers to the cognitive rehearsal of a task in the absence of overt physical movement. When a musician practices a passage by thinking it through or when an athlete prepares for an event by visualizing the steps required to perform the task, he or she is engaging in mental practice. A number of studies have examined the effects of mental practice on performance. Whereas the research of Kelsey (1961) and Ryan and Simons (1982) supports the efficacy of mental practice for enhancing performance, Beasley (1978) reported negative results. An astute reviewer may be able to estimate the direction and magnitude of effect of the relationship between mental practice and performance from the preponderance of evidence across the majority of studies. For example, Richardson (1967a) concluded that most studies support the efficacy of mental practice on performance. However, Richardson, and later Corbin (1972), noted that this evidence was inconclusive. Because different studies use different types of tasks, with different types of subjects, and report different study statistics, it is difficult if not impossible to integrate these disparate research studies on an intuitive level to draw firm conclusions on the effectiveness of mental practice. The purpose of this study was to integrate the literature on mental practice, summarize the overall effects of mental practice on performance, and specify the conditions under which mental practice is most effective.

Stress and human performance

Contents: E.A. Fleishman, Foreword. Preface. E. Salas, J.E. Driskell, S. Hughes, Introduction: The Study of Stress and Human Performance. Part I:Stress Effects. G. Klein, The Effect of Acute Stressors on Decision Making. J.M. Orasanu, P. Backer, Stress and Military Performance. B.G. Kanki, Stress and Aircrew Performance: A Team-level Perspective. C.A. Bowers, J.L. Weaver, B.B. Morgan, Jr., Moderating the Performance Effects of Stressors. Part II:Interventions: Selection, Training, and System Design. J. Hogan, M. Lesser, Selection of Personnel for Hazardous Performance. J.H. Johnston, J.A. Cannon-Bowers, Training for Stress Exposure. G. Keinan, N. Friedland, Training Effective Performance Under Stress: Queries, Dilemmas, and Possible Solutions. C.D. Wickens, Designing for Stress.

Virtual Teams: Effects of Technological Mediation on Team Performance

Recent advances in networking environments and telecommunications have led to the proliferation of teams that do not work face-to-face but interact over a computermediated communications network. Although some have asserted that virtual teams transcend boundaries of time or distance, others have claimed that working remotely in a mediated team environment differs in significant ways from working face-to-face. In this article, the authors examine the effects of technological mediation on team processes such as cohesiveness, status and authority relations, counternormative behavior, and communication. They discuss conditions under which distance matters in virtual team interaction.

The effect of team building on performance: An integration

In this article, meta-analytic integration of research examining the effects of team building on performance is reported. Overall, there was no significant effect of team building on performance. However, the effects of team building varied as a function of the type of operationalization of performance: On objective measures of performance, there was a nonsignificant tendency for team building to decrease performance, whereas on subjective measures of performance, there was a significant, albeit small, tendency for team building to increase performance. Examination of the specific components of team building revealed that interventions emphasizing role clarification were more likely to increase performance, whereas interventions that emphasized goal setting, problem solving, or interpersonal relations were no more likely to render an increase or decrease in performance. Finally, the effects of team building decreased as a function of the size of the team. The discussion considers implications of these effects of team building on performance.

Collective behavior and team performance

Modern complex systems require effective team performance, yet the question of which factors determine effective teams remains to be answered. Group researchers suggest that collective or interdependent behavior is a critical component of team interaction. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence suggests that some team members are less collectively oriented than others and that the tendency to ignore task inputs from others is one factor that contributes to poor team performance. In this study we develop a procedure for differentiating collectively oriented versus egocentric team members. Experimental results confirm that collectively oriented team members were more likely to attend to the task inputs of other team members and to improve their performance during team interaction than were egocentric team members.

Group Decision Making Under Stress

Understanding the processes by which task groups function is a major concern of social psychologists who study small groups. Equally important to the applied group researcher is the understanding of how group processes are altered by the external environment. Research suggests that organizations respond to stress with a centralization of authority so that decision making becomes concentrated in the higher levels of an organizational hierarchy. In this study, this hypothesis was extended to the small-group level of analysis, and the effects of stress on group status and decision making were examined. Experimental results clarify and delimit the centralization-of-authority hypothesis: Rather than centralizing authority and decision making under stress, group leaders and group members become more receptive to information provided by others. Implications for group decision making are discussed.

The Effect of Stress Inoculation Training on Anxiety and Performance.

Stress inoculation training is an intervention that has shown considerable promise; however, many questions arise regarding the application of this clinically based approach to more applied workplace settings. A meta-analysis was conducted to determine the overall effectiveness of stress inoculation training and to identify conditions that may moderate the effectiveness of this approach. The analysis was based on a total of 37 studies with 70 separate hypothesis tests, representing the behavior of 1,837 participants. Results indicated that stress inoculation training was an effective means for reducing performance anxiety, reducing state anxiety, and enhancing performance under stress. Furthermore, the examination of moderators such as the experience of the trainer, the type of setting in which training was implemented, and the type of trainee population revealed no significant limitations on the application of stress inoculation training to applied training environments.

Salience, motivation and artifact as contributions to the relation between participation rate and leadership

Abstract This paper reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of research examining the relation between participation rate and leadership emergence in small groups. The following patterns were observed: Generally, the tendency for the individual with the highest level of verbal participation to be chosen as the leader was significant and of strong magnitude. This effect varied as a function of the salience of the high participator (defined in terms of proportional rarity in the group), the operationalization of leadership (judgments made by group members vs outside observers), and the reality of the group. These results are consistent with salience, motivation, and artifact accounts for the relation between participation and leadership and inconsistent with reward, leadership sign, and self-presentation accounts for this effect. Discussion considers how salience, motivation, and artifact serve as contributors to the participation-leadership effect and considers the implications of these patterns for the more general issues of the phenomenology of being in a group.

What Makes a Good Team Player? Personality and Team Effectiveness

Good team players are often defined in trait terms; that is, they are described as dependable, flexible, or cooperative. Our goal is to examine the relationship between team member personality traits and team effectiveness. However, to understand the effects of personality on team performance requires greater specificity in how personality is described and in how team effectiveness is described. A hierarchical model of team member personality is presented that defines higherlevel personality traits and specific facets relevant to team performance. Next, a classification of the core teamwork dimensions underlying effective team performance is presented. Finally, predictions are derived linking team member personality facets to specific teamwork requirements.

Group Cohesiveness and Quality of Decision Making An Integration of Tests of the Groupthink Hypothesis

This article reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of the effects of group cohesiveness on quality of decision making in groups. Overall, there was no significant effect of cohesiveness on the quality of group decisions. However, more cohesive groups rendered poorer quality decisions when additional antecedent conditions of groupthink were present (directive leadership). In addition, the component of cohesiveness that appears to be critical for the emergence of groupthink is interpersonal attraction: Cohesiveness impaired decision quality more as the operationalization of cohesiveness entailed more interpersonal attraction, and less as the operationalization entailed more commitment to task or group pride. Finally, more cohesive groups did render poorer quality decisions as group size increased. Discussion considers the implications of these resultsforfuture research on the relaion between cohesiveness and quality of decision making in particular, and on groupthink in general.