THE CURVILINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMAND LEVEL AND PERFORMANCE IN AN ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD SETTING

Abstract

Summary.-A curvilinear relationship was posited between job demand and job performance and was tested in a two-year organizational field study involving male youth counselon placed in seven different demand levels. Over the course of the study, these on-call counselors worked in most levels. Composite aggregations of individual self-reported racings of variations in che job-demand levels were derived. Support for the hypothesized curvilinear relationship was found. Possible implications of the resulcs are discussed. The theoretical and empirical basis for the proposed curvilinear relationship between job-demand level and various outcome (e.g., performance) measures dates back over 100 years. Initially, interest involved examination of and emotional states. However, neither philosophers nor researchers have succeeded in compiling a satisfactory definition of (Cofer, 1972). At best, there is a relative consensus that emotion refers to some manner or form of arousal of the individual, so arousal now is widely accepted as a substitute for the general emotional state of the individual. Wundt (1904) carried some of the earlier formulations of philosophers into the experimental laboratory. Through the use of introspection, he formulated the optimal level of stimulation as the quantitative relationship now commonly known as the curvilinear or inverted-U relationshp. Yerkes and Dodson (1908) applied Wundt's construct to learning and formulated a law that involved not only the intensity of stimulation (arousal) but also the complexity (demand level) of the learned behavior. The curvilinear relationship has been illustrated regularly (Duffy, 1941, 1962; Stennett, 1957; Anderson, 1776) in laboratory situations. Studies (Duffy, 1962; Lindsley, 1951; Zuckerman, 1979) typically suggest that there is a level of arousal (demand level) which is optimal in terms of various outcome measures (performance). Further, this optimal level is an intermediate one lying between the poles of drowsiness and extreme excitement (Cofer, 1972). For all their success in the laboratory, researchers have provided little empirical evidence of this curvilinear relationship in organizational field settings. It is not, however, unreasonable to expect that this relationship would