How much pressure is too much? The Goldilocks Problem

In most walks of life, people find themselves in high pressure situations. This often builds over time, with increasing workload, or responsibilities, at home or at work. Pressure builds and people’s fight, flight or freeze (also known as the acute stress response) kicks in. Some crumble under the stress, some thrive and use it to motivate them. However, the aviation domain is one where pressure does not always build consistently.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law, also referred to as the arousal curve, stemmed from their 1908 study into habit formation. Today, many organisations and ergonomists use this curve to illustrate the correlation between arousal and performance. Although not empirically supported, the arousal curve is a good depiction of how and increase in arousal, or more commonly seen as stress, does improve performance up to a point, beyond which it becomes too much, and we are unable to perform.

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This curve looks different for everyone; some people may peak at a lower state of arousal, some peaks may not be as high as others and for some it might take a lot of arousal to see an increase in performance, but they may be able to handle much higher levels of stress before seeing a performance reduction. Ultimately it is a graph to illustrate a point. The point here for aviation, is that stages of flight for pilots, or controlling an airfield for air traffic controllers, don’t follow this curve in a linear fashion (as much of an oxymoron that sounds). Stages of flight, such as take-off and landing, where workload is increased may lead to a heightened state of arousal, however long periods in the cruise can reduce arousal levels. The challenge comes when in an instant, something goes wrong, and crews need to operate at their highest levels of performance after spending potentially long periods in a lull. Here they need to be able to embrace the pressure (or increase in arousal/stress) and use that to enhance performance.

Other times when we may find ourselves higher on the arousal curve is when we have an increase in workload. That may be during an in-flight emergency, or it could be as simple as our boss emailing us with something on a Thursday afternoon that needs completing before the weekend. Workload can be seen as a combination of the quantity of work (or task load), how much effort is required on our part (or task need) and the output (or task performance). While we have cognitive capacity in a low state of arousal, we have cognitive resource available to perform. However, at this state, this resource is potential. It is like stored energy in a coiled spring that needs the right spark to turn that potential into expended energy and deliver the outcome. On the contrary, increasing the task load can lead to a state of over-saturation. This may occur earlier for some people, depending on the resource available and performance expected, but ultimately this takes you over the peak of the arousal curve. Too high of a workload can lead to a reduction in performance.

This can also lead to a rise in stress. Being stressed, or in an excessively strained state, can have a chronic impact upon performance. Stress may not only come in the form of high workload, but also the stressors within our environment. Temperature plays a huge part in our performance and is quite often something that we can do little to control. Maintenance organisations may look into optimising the workplace for human performance, which can include controlling the temperature, lighting and humidity of workshops, however when tasks need completing outdoors (such as engine run-up checks on aircraft), the control on the environment is reduced. Environmental stressors are just a peak behind the curtain, but it's important to be aware of how these can impact performance. Controlling the controllable (where physically and financially viable) can help to reduce stress and optimise performance.

After considering some of the effects of the higher ends of arousal, low arousal can be equally as detrimental to performance.

As mentioned, in-flight emergencies for aircrew may cause a sudden shift in arousal demanding an optimum level of performance. Cognitive underload speaks to the low state of arousal crews may find themselves in, particularly with the developments of automation in aviation. The role of a pilot, in modern commercial aviation, includes a lot of ‘systems management’. In cruise stages of flight, the role is mostly supervising the automatics, ensuring the aircraft is doing as you intend without deviations. When pilots find themselves detached from the physical act of flying the aircraft, they may find themselves with increased cognitive capacity (task need). However, this is not necessarily a positive thing when peak performance is called upon.

Mica Endsley has conducted a lot of research around human information processing, situational awareness and workload. Her book, Designing for Situation Awareness, raises some interesting discussion around the use of automation in aviation and the workload of the pilots. Although pilots are monitoring the systems and often engaged in multi-tasking, during emergencies where they are required to manually take control, they are often out of the loop and find that it takes them some time to develop situational awareness. Quite often this lack of situational awareness can lead to pilots seeing information on their displays which is conflicting with what they believed was happening (confirmation bias) and they don’t even realise the errors they are making.

So, how can we find the Goldilocks equilibrium of just the right amount of arousal? We want to avoid over-saturation and being in high stress states, but we need to have the right amount of pressure to be working at high levels of performance regularly. I think the key aspect here is understanding the three components of workload, and regularly reflecting upon your own capacity. Bringing all of this into one concept is something many people hear all the time – prioritisation. Knowing when workload increases, you will have to prioritise all elements of your life to attribute your finite cognitive resource to the important tasks first. Trying to do everything at once, without the capacity to do so will lead to over-arousal and eventually burn out.

Aviation is already aware of this challenge, and throughout training aircrew are taught techniques to help them prioritise their workload. Frameworks such as TDODAR are taught in managing emergency situations, helping to structure processes when one’s mental model may not be complete. Certain alarms, caution and warning lights (all known as attention getters) bring focus to issues for crews. The difference between amber and red captions helps pilots to prioritise problems in times when their own cognitive processing may not be at peak performance. By following frameworks and using the tools available, over-saturation can be avoided, and crews can begin to operate at peak performance at the times when it’s needed most.