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In 1908 psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Gillingham Dodson examined the effect of stress and arousal on attention and motivation
They presented rats with a maze which had one right way through
Increasing the intensity of the electric shock improved the rate of learning among the rats up to a point
Beyond a certain voltage the rats’ performance started to decrease – they slowed down, froze, retreated and forgot where was safe and where was dangerous
Conclusion
Increasing stress and arousal helps focus attention and improves motivation for the task at hand but only up to a certain point
Further studies demonstrated this effect in humans but showed that the ‘breaking point’ varies depending on the type of task
We see this effect in athletic performance
When a tennis player is about to make an important serve, a degree of tension will sharpen their focus and improve their performance – they may serve an ace
However if the player gets too stressed out, they’ll lose concentration and perform worse – they may double fault
Performance
Stress
Too much stress – performance deteriorates
Increasing stress – performance improves
A swimmer about to race 50m is harder to ‘stress out’
Their task is direct and uncomplicated – swim as fast as they can
Conclusions
1. People performing simpler tasks can withstand a higher degree of stress before performance deteriorates
2. All tasks (and individuals) have an optimum point of stress at which performance will peak, beyond this point increasing stress hinders performance
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