Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.
Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, Harvard Business School, Harvard University.
J Appl Psychol. 2014 May;99(3):504-13. doi: 10.1037/a0035559. Epub 2014 Jan 13.
People believe that weather conditions influence their everyday work life, but to date, little is known about how weather affects individual productivity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we predict and find that bad weather increases individual productivity and that it does so by eliminating potential cognitive distractions resulting from good weather. When the weather is bad, individuals appear to focus more on their work than on alternate outdoor activities. We investigate the proposed relationship between worse weather and higher productivity through 4 studies: (a) field data on employees' productivity from a bank in Japan, (b) 2 studies from an online labor market in the United States, and (c) a laboratory experiment. Our findings suggest that worker productivity is higher on bad-, rather than good-, weather days and that cognitive distractions associated with good weather may explain the relationship. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research.
人们认为天气状况会影响他们的日常工作生活，但迄今为止，人们对天气如何影响个人生产力知之甚少。与传统观点相反，我们预测并发现恶劣的天气会提高个人的生产力，其原因是恶劣天气消除了好天气可能带来的潜在认知干扰。当天气不好时，个人似乎会比平时更专注于工作，而不是其他户外活动。我们通过 4 项研究来调查恶劣天气和更高生产力之间的关系：（a）来自日本一家银行的员工生产力的实地数据，（b）来自美国在线劳动力市场的 2 项研究，以及（c）一项实验室实验。我们的研究结果表明，在恶劣天气下，工人的生产力高于好天气，而与好天气相关的认知干扰可能解释了这种关系。我们讨论了我们研究的理论和实际意义。
