This broadcast is available only until March 12th 2013

It is a common held belief that men can’t multi-task and women can.

In fact Professor Nick Chater shows in the first of a weekly six-part series called The Human Zoo on BBC Radio Four that neither sex are very good at doing more than one thing at a time.

The Warwick Business School professor reveals that when doing something routine and well-practised humans can do two things at once, like driving and talking.

But when anything non-routine is introduced then multi-tasking is just not possible for the human mind.

Professor Chater said: “Most of the things that we find that are reasonably challenging we can only do one at a time. We think we are multi-tasking but in fact we are interleaving from one task to the next quite rapidly, something we don’t have to do if we practice. If we practice we get very fluent at something and it requires almost no mental effort, like driving and listening to the radio.”

When something difficult is added then any semblance of doing two things at once is ended as Professor Chater showed with a simple experiment, like asking what is the capital of Tanzania? That question forced presenter Michael Blastland to stop walking to consider the answer.

“When you are trying to strain your memory or when we have to do something remotely difficult we have to stop doing something else,” said Professor Chater, who is a Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. “Mental and physical energy is more connected than you imagine.

“We can’t keep mental processes entirely separate from each other. If we are doing routine things that is fine, but if we do something non-routine suddenly other parts of the brain start to engage and interfere with routine things like walking.”

Professor Chater, who is head of the Behavioural Science group at Warwick Business School, reveals how this link between mental and physical energy has real implications. A study of a parole board in Israel showed how their decisions were affected by taking a break and having some food.

Even recognising several people or objects at once seems to be beyond the capability of the human mind.

Professor Chater said: “There are some very interesting demonstrations that suggest that we can’t do that. Some of my colleagues at Warwick Business School have set up some demos on ‘change blindness’ – a phenomenon that suggests we are very limited in our ability to recognise people or objects more than one at a time.”

Listeners can take part in the online ‘change blindness’ experiment by going to http://www.weblab.wbs.ac.uk/experiment/1.

Source: Warwick Business School

 
Canadians are under pressure on the job – especially those with higher status, challenging work or in positions of authority.
 
And having more control in the workplace can have negative consequences for individuals but it depends on the form of job control, say researchers from the University of Toronto.

Sociologist Scott Schieman measured a range of work conditions using data from a national survey of 6,004 Canadian workers. To measure levels of job pressure, he asked study participants questions such as: “How often do you feel overwhelmed by how much you had to do at work?” “How often do you have to work on too many tasks at the same time?” and “How often do the demands of your job exceed the time you have to do the work?”

He found that roughly one-third of Canadian workers report that they “often” or “very often” feel overwhelmed by work or that the demands of their job exceed the time to do the work. Four out of 10 workers report having to work on too many tasks at the same time “often” or “very often.”

“Excessive job demands have detrimental effects,” says Schieman. “We know that workers who report higher scores on these indicators of job pressure also tend to experience more problems navigating work and family roles, more symptoms of physical and mental health problems and they tend to be less satisfied with their work.”

The study found that having control over one’s work schedule and job autonomy are associated with lower levels of job pressure. However, challenging work in which one is required to keep learning new things, engage in creative activities, use skills and abilities and handle a variety of tasks, is associated with higher levels of job pressure as is being in a position of authority where one is supervising or managing others.

Three key indicators of higher socioeconomic status (SES) – education, higher status occupations (executives or professionals) and income – were each independently associated with greater job pressure. “However, those with high SES face greater pressure mostly because of their more challenging work and greater levels of authority,” says Schieman.

“These findings speak directly to the idea of the stress of higher status,” said Schieman. “People talk these days about being ‘crazy busy’ and not having enough time to do all the things at work that need to get done. But being ‘crazy busy’ isn’t randomly distributed in the population. This study demonstrates an unexpected price for higher SES and more control at work –and that price is excessive pressure in the workplace.”

Job-Related Resources and the Pressures of Working Life, is published in the journal Social Science Research.

ᔥ University of Toronto

Does advertising influence society, or is it merely a reflection of society’s pre-existing norms? Where male attitudes are concerned, a new study implicates magazine advertisements specifically aimed at men as helping to reinforce a certain set of views on masculinity termed “hyper-masculinity.” The article by Megan Vokey, a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Manitoba, and colleagues is published in Springer’s journal Sex Roles.
 
Hyper-masculinity is an extreme form of masculine gender ideology comprised of four main components: toughness, violence, dangerousness and calloused attitudes toward women and sex. The authors found that hyper-masculine depictions of men, centered on this cluster of beliefs, appear to be common place in U.S. magazine advertisements.

Using a range of eight, high-circulation magazines marketed to men of different ages, levels of education and income (e.g. Golf Digest to Game Informer), Vokey and her colleagues analyzed the ads in each magazine where a photograph, picture or symbol of a man was shown. The researchers then categorized these advertisements using the four components that constitute hyper-masculinity. They found that at least one of these hyper-masculine attitudes was depicted in 56 percent of the total sample of 527 advertisements. In some magazines, this percentage was as high as 90 percent.

Vokey’s results are consistent with considerable prior research showing a positive association between hyper-masculine beliefs and a host of social and health problems, such as dangerous driving, drug use and violence towards women. Further analysis of the data showed that magazines with the highest proportion of hyper-masculine advertisements were those aimed at younger, less-affluent and less-educated men. The authors argue that this is an area of real concern as young men are still learning appropriate gender behaviors, and their beliefs and attitudes can be subtly shaped by images that the mass media repeatedly represent. In addition, men with lower social and economic power are already more likely to use a facade of toughness and physical violence as methods of gaining power and respect. These advertisements are thought to help reinforce the belief that this is desirable behaviour.

The authors conclude, “The widespread depiction of hyper-masculinity in men’s magazine advertising may be detrimental to both men and society at large. Although theoretically, men as a group can resist the harmful aspects of hyper-masculine images, the effects of such images cannot be escaped completely.” They add that educating advertisers about the potential negative consequences of their advertising may help reduce the use of these stereotypes.

Source: Springer Science+Business Media Vokey M, Tefft B and Tysiaczny C (2013). An analysis of hyper-masculinity in magazine advertisements. Sex Roles; DOI 10.1007/s11199-013-0268-1.