When fatigue promotes striving: confirmation that success importance moderates resource depletion influence on effort-related cardiovascular response

Biol Psychol. 2013 May;93(2):316-24. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.02.016. Epub 2013 Mar 16.

Abstract

Undergraduate volunteers performed an easy (fatigue low) or difficult (fatigue high) counting task and then were presented a difficult scanning task with instructions that the task was or was not diagnostic of an important ability (low versus high ego-involvement, respectively). As expected, systolic blood pressure responses in the second work period were positively proportional to fatigue where ego-involvement (and, thus, success importance) was high, but not where ego-involvement (and, thus, importance) was low. The pressure findings provide fresh support for the suggestion of a recent fatigue analysis that importance should moderate fatigue influence on effort-related CV responses to a performance challenge so long as fatigued performers view success as possible, conceptually replicating and extending effects from a previous fatigue experiment.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Attention
  • Blood Pressure / physiology*
  • Ego
  • Emotions / physiology
  • Fatigue / physiopathology*
  • Fatigue / psychology*
  • Female
  • Heart Rate / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Students
  • Universities
  • Workload / psychology*