Yerkes-Dodson law: the relationship between stress and performance

Many people have the feeling that their performance improves when they feel pressured. For example, it is likely that more than once you have been surprised by the ease with which you have managed to memorize the syllabus of an exam despite studying it only the day before, compared to other times when you have spent much more weather.

In this article we will talk about the Yerkes-Dodson law, as the inverted U model is commonly called on the relationship between activation level and performance. This hypothesis was proposed by Robert Yerkes and John Dodson more than a century ago; however, it remains in force today because of the remarkable strength it has demonstrated.

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The Yerkes-Dodson law or inverted U model

In 1908 the psychologists Robert Mearns Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson published their model of the inverted U, the result of the studies they carried out on the influence of pressure (which can be understood as the level of physiological and cognitive stress, activation or alertness) on performance in tasks involving mental operations complex.

The Yerkes and Dodson model suggests that the relationship between stress and performance can be represented in an inverted U shape. This means that performance will be optimal if the trigger level is moderately high; On the other hand, if it is too high or too low it will negatively affect the result of the task.

Thus, the Yerkes-Dodson law states that the best way to enhance performance is to increase motivation to carry out the target tasks, although it is also It is important to ensure that the workload does not become difficult to handle, since this interferes with the natural development of the activity and generates feelings unpleasant.

When we carry out tasks with a low level of stress or alertness, we often get bored or the lack of pressure reduces our productivity; if the demands are excessive we tend to experience feelings of anxiety and general psychological discomfort. In contrast, when the task is stimulating and challenging we concentrate more.

In this sense we can relate the Yerkes-Dodson law with another very popular psychological concept: the state of flux (or “flow”) described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. According to this author, stimulating tasks, appropriate to the level of skill, with objectives clearly Delimited and with immediate feedback generate a complete and rewarding mental involvement.

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Influencing factors in the relationship between stress and performance

There are at least four factors that have a very relevant role in the relationship between the level of activation and productivity: the complexity of the task, the skill level of the person completing it, their personality in general and the anxiety-trait factor in particular. Each of them modulates the effects of the Yerkes-Dodson law in a key way.

1. Task complexity

If the task we have to carry out is difficult, we will need to invest more cognitive resources (related for example to attention or working memory) than if it were not. In consecuense, complex tasks require a lower level of pressure for optimal performance to be achieved than the simple ones, since they are stimulating by themselves.

This gives rise to the idea that it is important to adapt the levels of environmental pressure to the difficulty of the task in order to enhance productivity, so that the quiet environments are more advisable when it comes to challenging activities, while an enriched environment can help improve quality when tackling tasks easy.

2. Skill level

As with the difficulty of the tasks, taking into account the skill level of the subject is crucial when determining the ideal environmental pressure. We can say that practice in a domain reduces the difficulty of the tasks that are included in it, so relating these two variables can be useful when applying the Yerkes-Dodson law.

3. Personality

It would be reductionist to think that simply modifying the level of stimulation or environmental pressure can allow us to influence the performance of other people reliably: if we did, we would be missing something as important as the personality of each individual.

Thus, for example, if we follow the neurobiological theory of personality proposed by Hans eysenck we can deduce that extraverted people tend to need a higher level of brain activation to achieve their optimal performance, while biologically introverts typically prefer minimal environmental pressure.

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4. Anxiety-trait

The personality factor that we know as "trait-anxiety" refers to the tendency to experiencing negative emotions related to anxiety, such as restlessness, fear, and worry. Trait anxiety constitutes the core of the Neuroticism construct; in this sense it is opposed to the emotional stability factor.

As can be assumed, people who have a very marked tendency to feel anxiety practically always react negatively to increased stress levels. As in the case of introverts, it can be a serious mistake to ignore that people with this characteristic work better with low levels of stimulation.

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