Relating Affect Variability to Complex Skill Acquisition and Adaptive Performance: The Role of Off-Task Attention

Abstract

Individuals with high affect variability—fluctuations in emotions—tend to react with greater intensity to emotional events and have a more difficult time adjusting to change (Beal & Ghandour, 2011). Although high affect variability has been linked to heightened reactivity to emotionally charged events and poor adjustment, limited research has examined its relationship with skilled performance. Therefore, the purpose of this lab study was to replicate Richels et al. (2020), which was the first empirical study to show how affect variability, specifically affect spin and pulse, undermines complex task performance, and extend Richels et al. (2020) by (1) examining off-task attention as a key explanatory mechanism and (2) including dimensions of affect flux in a relative importance analysis of affect variability scores. Specifically, using a lab sample of 253 undergraduate students (65% male) learning how to play a complex video game, I examined and compared how spin, pulse, and flux in positive activating, positive deactivating, negative activating, and negative deactivating emotions explained variance in skill acquisition and adaptive performance via self-report scores of off-task attention. Spin refers to within-person variability in pleasantness and arousal. Pulse refers to within-person fluctuations in intensity. Flux refers to within-person fluctuations in a particular emotion dimension. Per Nathans et al. (2012), I first examined the relative importance of the different affect variability scores. Then, discontinuous growth modeling was used to disentangle adaptation from acquisition when examining the effects of affect variability on performance. Results indicated the importance of flux indices and suggest that affect variability research has overlooked these indices. In addition, harmful, incremental effects beyond Big Five personality scores for affect variability were found through two mechanisms: primarily (1) via off-task attention (with respect to negative deactivating flux in particular), as well as (2) through moderating the off-task attention-adaptive performance relationship in the case of spin. More simply put, affect variability was found to be detrimental towards complex task learning. Results are further discussed in comparison to Richels et al. (2020), and in terms of the need for adaptability in today’s increasingly uncertain, dynamic world.