The influence of time pressure on translation trainees' performance: Testing the relationship between self-esteem, salivary cortisol and subjective stress response.

Ana Mª Rojo López,Paula Cifuentes Férez,Laura Espín López,Joydeep Bhattacharya

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0257727

Abstract

Translators face hectic daily schedules with deadlines they must duly meet. As trainees they receive tuition on how to work swiftly to meet them efficiently. But despite the prominent role of time pressure, its effects on the translation process are still scarcely researched. Studies point to the higher occurrence of errors under stringent time constraints. Most of these studies use key-logging or eye-tracking techniques to identify the problems encountered. But no attempt has yet been made to measure the physiological effects of time pressure in English-to-Spanish translation and their interplay with trainees' psychological state. The present study researches the influence of time pressure on translation by exploring trainees' physiological response (i.e., salivary cortisol) and psychological traits (i.e., self-esteem and anxiety). 33 Spanish translation trainees translated 3 English literary texts under different time pressure conditions: Text 1 (no time limit), Text 2 (10 minutes), Text 3 (5 minutes). Regression analysis results showed that higher cortisol levels during preparation predicted higher number of meaning errors in Text 1 and lower number of translated words in Text 2 and 3. Besides, higher trait anxiety emerged as predictor of lower number of translated words, but higher accuracy under extreme time constraints and in the absence of time pressure. Higher self-esteem correlated with lower levels of anxiety and lower levels of cortisol during preparation and recovery, suggesting that it may act as a protective factor against stress. And yet, the regression analysis showed that higher self-esteem predicted lower meaning and total accuracy under extreme time pressure. Besides, in our correlation analysis self-esteem was positively related to the number of translated words in Text 2 and 3. Results suggest that even if self-esteem could be a protective factor against stress, it may also have a negative effect on task performance mediated by overconfidence.

Highlights

Time equals money for most professionals, but even more so for translators, who frequently work under stringent time constraints
This study investigated the influence of time pressure on translation performance by exploring the relationship between translation trainees’ self-reported levels of self-esteem and anxiety and their hormonal and subjective responses to the stressful situation of translating under stringent time constraints as compared to translating without time restrictions
Data from self-report measures in the present study shed some light on the role of self-esteem and anxiety in translation performance under time pressure conditions

Summary

Introduction

Time equals money for most professionals, but even more so for translators, who frequently work under stringent time constraints. Tight deadlines and telework may not be necessarily negative for productivity or psychologically harmful, but when the pressure perceived is too high or the exposure too long, they are likely to result in stress, affecting workers’ performance as well as their psychological and physical wellbeing. The notion of perceived time pressure refers to the feeling that there is not enough time available to perform or complete a task [3]. In modern society, this perception has become a world standard to the point that acute time pressure has been identified as a physical and psychological stressor with a number of negative effects, such as tension, fatigue and general lower health and life satisfaction [4]. Results from neurophysiology point to the positive effect of brief acute stress for keeping the mammalian brain alert [8]

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