Szumowska Ewa, Kossowska Małgorzata, Roets Arne
1Philosophy Department, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Ingardena Str. 6, 30-060 Kraków, Poland.
2Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Motiv Emot. 2018;42(3):360-376. doi: 10.1007/s11031-018-9678-2. Epub 2018 Feb 28.
In three studies, we examined the role task rules play in multitasking performance. We postulated that rules should be especially important for individuals highly motivated to have structure and clear answers, i.e., those high on need for cognitive closure (NFC). High NFC should thus be related to greater compliance with task rules. Specifically, given high goal importance, NFC should be more strongly related to a multitasking strategy when multitasking is imposed by the rules, and to a mono-tasking strategy when monotasking is imposed by the rules. This should translate into better multitasking or mono-tasking performance, depending on condition. Overall, the results were supportive as NFC was related to a more mono-tasking strategy in the mono-tasking condition (Studies 1 and 2 only) and more dual-tasking strategy in the dual-tasking condition (Studies 1-3). This translated into respective differences in performance. The effects were significant only when goal importance was high (Study 1) and held when cognitive ability was controlled for (Study 2).
在三项研究中，我们考察了任务规则在多任务处理表现中所起的作用。我们推测，对于那些极有动力追求条理和明确答案的个体，即认知闭合需求（NFC）较高的个体而言，规则应该尤为重要。因此，高NFC应该与更高程度地遵守任务规则相关。具体而言，在目标重要性较高的情况下，当规则要求进行多任务处理时，NFC应该与一种多任务处理策略更紧密相关；而当规则要求进行单任务处理时，NFC应该与一种单任务处理策略更紧密相关。这应该会转化为更好的多任务或单任务处理表现，具体取决于具体情况。总体而言，结果是支持上述观点的，因为在单任务处理条件下（仅研究1和2），NFC与更多的单任务处理策略相关；而在双任务处理条件下（研究1 - 3），NFC与更多的双任务处理策略相关。这转化为了表现上的相应差异。这些效应仅在目标重要性较高时显著（研究1），并且在控制了认知能力后依然成立（研究2）。
