Individual Differences in Attentional Strategies in Multitasking Situations

This study compared attentional strategies in prioritized and unprioritized multitasking situations using individual differences in the Type A behavior pattern (TABP) as predictors. The study expanded previous studies by using a triple task situation that presented two visual tasks and one auditory task simultaneously. One hundred and eighteen undergraduate students were utilized. One group received instructions for all tasks and their relative importance to each other for achieving a full performance score. The other group received instructions for the visual tasks only, and no information about their relative importance was given, creating ambiguity about priorities among the tasks. Global TABP and its subcomponents (i.e., time urgency, achievement strivings, impatience or irritability, polychronicity) were utilized as predictors of task performance. Significant correlations were found between the TABP subcomponents and different performance indexes, but such a relation was not found between global TABP and performance. Applied implications of these findings and directions for the future research are discussed.

[1]  A. M. Pérez-García,et al.  Type A behavior pattern and attentional performance , 1990 .

[2]  J. L. Gordillo,et al.  Attentional strategies in Type-A individuals , 1998 .

[3]  Haleh Rastegary,et al.  The Interactions among Time Urgency, Uncertainty, and Time Pressure , 1993 .

[4]  B. L. Zohman,et al.  Type a Behavior and Your Heart , 1975 .

[5]  W. Nelson Francis,et al.  FREQUENCY ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH USAGE: LEXICON AND GRAMMAR , 1983 .

[6]  S J Zyzanski,et al.  Progress Toward Validation of a Computer‐Scored Test for the Type A Coronary‐Prone Behavior Pattern , 1971, Psychosomatic medicine.

[7]  Jeffrey M. Conte,et al.  Incremental Validity of Time Urgency and Other Type A Subcomponents in Predicting Behavioral and Health Criteria1 , 2001 .

[8]  D. C. Glass,et al.  Behavior Patterns, Stress, and Coronary Disease , 1977 .

[9]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  A power primer. , 1992, Psychological bulletin.

[10]  J. Schaubroeck,et al.  Type A behavior pattern and escalating commitment. , 1993, The Journal of applied psychology.

[11]  Julian Barling,et al.  Predicting Sales Performance, Job Satisfaction, and Depression by Using the Achievement Strivings and Impatience-Irritability Dimensions of Type A Behavior , 1990 .

[12]  J. Pennebaker,et al.  Time consciousness, achievement striving, and the type A coronary-prone behavior pattern. , 1975, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[13]  R L Helmreich,et al.  Impatience versus achievement strivings in the type A pattern: differential effects on students' health and academic achievement. , 1987, The Journal of applied psychology.

[14]  Allen C. Bluedorn,et al.  Polychronicity and the Inventory of Polychronic Values (IPV): The development of an instrument to measure a fundamental dimension of organizational culture , 1999 .

[15]  Tracey E. Rizzuto,et al.  A construct‐oriented analysis of individual‐level polychronicity , 1999 .

[16]  K. Matthews,et al.  Allocation of attention and the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern. , 1979, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  J. Thayer,et al.  Time urgency: the construct and its measurement. , 1991, The Journal of applied psychology.

[18]  P R Yarnold,et al.  Time Urgency of Type a Individuals: Two Replications , 1984, Perceptual and motor skills.

[19]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  The nomological and predictive validity of time urgency , 1998 .

[20]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  Time urgency : conceptual and construct development , 1995 .

[21]  A. R. Perry,et al.  Sustained attention and the Type A behavior pattern: the effect of daydreaming on performance. , 1992, The Journal of general psychology.

[22]  D. Ragland,et al.  Type A behavior and mortality from coronary heart disease. , 1988, The New England journal of medicine.

[23]  R. Fisher.  The Advanced Theory of Statistics , 1943, Nature.

[24]  A. M. Pérez-García,et al.  Type-A Behaviour Pattern's (global and main components) attentional performance, cardiovascular reactivity, and causal attributions in the presence of different levels of interference , 1996 .

[25]  C. Carver,et al.  PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES How Should Multifaceted Personality Constructs Be Tested ? Issues Illustrated by Self-Monitoring , Attributional Style , and Hardiness , 2004 .

[26]  P R Yarnold,et al.  Type A behaviour and time urgency: perception of time adjectives. , 1987, The British journal of medical psychology.

[27]  Time urgency and the Type A behavior pattern: Time investment as a function of cue salience , 1989 .

[28]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[29]  C. Cooper,et al.  Examining the relationships among self-report measures of the Type A behavior pattern: the effects of dimensionality, measurement error, and differences in underlying constructs. , 1990, The Journal of applied psychology.

[30]  A. Moch,et al.  Type A and Type B behaviour patterns, task type and sensitivity to noise , 1984, Psychological Medicine.