Publication Type

PhD Dissertation

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2019

Abstract

A sense of busyness, the subjective feeling of having a long and effortful work schedule, is increasingly prevalent in today’s societies. Although people commonly feel busy because of externally imposed work pressures, the motivated self-regulation perspective suggests that people might intentionally put themselves in a busy state for instrumental reasons. Grounded in the instrumental emotion regulation framework, this research theorizes that people instrumentally regulate themselves to experience busyness – a negative affect – to facilitate a performance motive. In other words, people might desire to feel busyness despite its unpleasant hedonic tone in order to attain higher performance. Results from three studies support the hypotheses that busyness is experienced as a trait-consistent experience for conscientious individuals, and that they will comparatively perform better under higher levels of busyness. Across three studies, conscientious individuals consistently exhibit a higher preference for busyness. In turn, they tend to self-regulate towards busyness in preparation for challenging tasks (Study 1). Experimental studies further showed that conscientious individuals exhibit better cognitive performance under higher (vs. lower) perceived workload (Study 2) and under higher (vs. lower) levels of busyness experienced in the real world (Study 3). Importantly, these performance benefits are unique to those with an autonomous preference for busyness, but not those who feel compelled by workaholism. The potential contributions and implications are discussed.

Keywords

Affect regulation; busyness; conscientiousness; instrumental emotion regulation; trait-consistent affect

Degree Awarded

PhD in Psychology

Discipline

Applied Behavior Analysis | Cognitive Psychology

Supervisor(s)

LEUNG, Ka Yee

Publisher

Singapore Management University

City or Country

Singapore

Copyright Owner and License

Author

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