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Decisional style, mood and work communication: email diaries
1School of Psychology & Psychiatry, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia.
Ergonomics
|October 7, 2011
Summary
Vigilant individuals manage workplace emails efficiently. Others, like procrastinators or those with high negative affect, tend to delay email responses, indicating less efficient handling of electronic communication.
Area of Science:
- Workplace communication technology
- Human-computer interaction
- Organizational psychology
Background:
- Previous research on employee email behavior relied on self-reports, limiting management's ability to monitor actual actions.
- Understanding technology's role in interpersonal interaction requires analyzing actual user behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To apply decisional style theory to workplace email use.
- To investigate the relationship between decisional styles, negative affect, and actual email handling behaviors.
- To offer insights for developing and implementing effective collaborative technologies.
Main Methods:
- A communication diary was used over five days to record actual email handling behaviors of 39 employed individuals.
- Participants also completed the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales.
- This study utilized a communication diary for a more accurate assessment of email behavior compared to self-reports.
Main Results:
- Vigilant individuals demonstrated efficient email management, characterized by deleting personal emails and promptly addressing others.
- Procrastinators, buckpassers, and individuals with high negative affect exhibited delayed email processing, suggesting less efficient handling.
- Decisional style was found to predict the monitoring and response patterns to electronic communication.
Conclusions:
- Decisional style is a significant predictor of how individuals manage and respond to electronic communications in the workplace.
- Actual communication diary data provides a more accurate understanding of email behavior than self-reported measures.
- Findings are relevant for designing and implementing collaborative technologies that support efficient interpersonal interaction.
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