High-maintenance Dynamics At Work May Affect Subsequent Performance May 8, 2009
Take the co-worker with whom you always seem to be somewhat out of sync. So much of your psychic energy is consumed trying to get on the same page with him that by the time you get home you are too drained to do much of anything, never mind read any of those books you were compelled to buy on office politics.
Or imagine Bob, an experienced cook, who shows up at a soup kitchen for the first time enthusiastic about sharing responsibilities with another accomplished cook. The problem is that the styles of Bob and his fellow cook clash so much that later that evening, when Bob is at home, both his concentration and manuscript writing suffer greatly.
Confirming what many of us have suspected anecdotally, new research from Northwestern University shows that high-maintenance or difficult interactions indeed drain us. Most importantly, the study demonstrates how those draining social dynamics, in which an individual is trying so hard to regulate his or her behavior, can impair success on subsequent unrelated tasks.
“Luckily, humans are exceptionally social beings equipped with remarkable behavioral repertoires for engaging in effective interpersonal relationships,” said Eli Finkel, assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern and the study’s main investigator. “But there are plenty of inefficient interpersonal interactions that we engage in every day, and those draining dynamics have significant consequences.”
To be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the “High-Maintenance Interaction” paper offers a significant contribution to sparse research on how draining social interactions affect self-regulation (the ability to make sound decisions, initiate action and, in general, exert self-control) on later tasks.
The implications for the workplace are significant. “Imagine performing a task with a co-worker whose social dynamics are so inefficient that you are left mentally exhausted afterward,” Finkel said.
“Focusing on the next task becomes a huge exertion, and you might find yourself instead surfing the Web because of your depleted mental resources.”
Though there is extensive literature on the consequences of social conflict, Finkel said, little research has been conducted on the effects of ineffective social coordination. “That’s surprising given the pervasiveness of tasks requiring social coordination. As our research clearly shows, ineffective social coordination consumes a great deal of mental resources and has high costs for subsequent self-regulation. Self-regulation is essential to living life well and to the existence of a well functioning civilization.”
Across the five studies, participants experienced either a high-maintenance (inefficient and effortful) or low-maintenance (efficient and effortless) interaction with a “partner” (or research confederate working with the experimenter but posing as a na