Stephen J. Guastello, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Abstract: The necessity for resilient responses in occupational contexts often takes the form of unusual levels of workload that could have a dramatic impact on the performance of individuals or teams. Empirical research with the cusp catastrophe model for cognitive workload and performance, which are reviewed here, has isolated a class of variables known as elasticity versus rigidity that act as bifurcation variables in the process. Elasticity-rigidity variables derive from five sources – affect, cognitive coping strategies, conscientiousness and impulsivity, fluid intelligence, and the degrees of flexibility that are afforded by the task itself. The resilience process for work teams presents additional workload demands requiring team coordination and communication efforts and back-up, redundancy, behaviors. Finer-grained nonlinear time series analyses of performance and its surrounding events revealed that team self-efficacy varies chaotically as the team responds to a series of challenging events. The two types of dynamics combine to produce chaotic hysteresis in team performance.

Keywords: workload, resilience, cusp catastrophe, teams, human factors