Temptation at work

TY - JOUR

T1 - Temptation at work

AU - Bucciol, Alessandro

AU - Houser, Daniel

AU - Piovesan, Marco

PY - 2013/1/30

Y1 - 2013/1/30

N2 - To encourage worker productivity, companies routinely adopt policies requiring employees to delay gratification. For example, offices might prohibit use of the internet for personal purposes during regular business hours. Recent work in social psychology, however, suggests that using willpower to delay gratification can negatively impact performance. We report data from an experiment where subjects in a Willpower Treatment are asked to resist the temptation to join others in watching a humorous video for 10 minutes. In relation to a baseline treatment that does not require willpower, we show that resisting this temptation detrimentally impacts economic productivity on a subsequent task.

AB - To encourage worker productivity, companies routinely adopt policies requiring employees to delay gratification. For example, offices might prohibit use of the internet for personal purposes during regular business hours. Recent work in social psychology, however, suggests that using willpower to delay gratification can negatively impact performance. We report data from an experiment where subjects in a Willpower Treatment are asked to resist the temptation to join others in watching a humorous video for 10 minutes. In relation to a baseline treatment that does not require willpower, we show that resisting this temptation detrimentally impacts economic productivity on a subsequent task.

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0053713

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0053713

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 23382849

SN - 1932-6203

VL - 8

JO - P L o S One

JF - P L o S One

IS - 1

M1 - e53713

ER -