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Individual preferences in multiple goal pursuit: Reconsidering the conceptualization and dimensionality of polychronicity.

With increasing demands in work and life, successful self‐regulation of multiple goals becomes critical to the well‐being and performance of individuals and organizations. When pursuing multiple goals, individuals may use different strategies and have divergent preferences toward these strategies. P...

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Published in:Applied Psychology: An International Review Vol. 74; no. 1; pp. 1 - 37
Main Authors: Yang, Zhixu, Kung, Franki Y. H., Schneider, Darryl W.
Format: questionnaire/scale research tables/charts Journal Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Feb2025
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      jtl: Applied Psychology: An International Review
      issn: 0269994X
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      dt: Feb2025
      vid: 74
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      pub: Wiley-Blackwell
      place: Malden, Massachusetts
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        10.1111/apps.12575
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        atl: Individual preferences in multiple goal pursuit: Reconsidering the conceptualization and dimensionality of polychronicity.
      aug:
        au:
          Yang, Zhixu
          Kung, Franki Y. H.
          Schneider, Darryl W.
        affil: Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN, , USA
      sug:
        subj:
          Multitasking Behavior
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Goal-Setting
          Human
          Male
          Female
          Adult
          United States
          Surveys
          Power Analysis
          Descriptive Statistics
          Self Regulation
          Psychological Well-Being
          Paradigms
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: With increasing demands in work and life, successful self‐regulation of multiple goals becomes critical to the well‐being and performance of individuals and organizations. When pursuing multiple goals, individuals may use different strategies and have divergent preferences toward these strategies. Polychronicity, or the preference for multitasking over sequential tasking, has long been considered a unidimensional construct with two opposing ends. To empirically test this assumption, we reconstructed existing polychronicity items to explore a new scale that measures preferences separately and synthesizes different operationalizations of multitasking (i.e., concurrent tasking and task switching) (study 1). We found that multitasking and sequential preferences, while related, have distinct components and can co‐occur within individuals, challenging the traditional bipolar assumption (study 2). Finally, we used a behavioral task‐switching paradigm to simulate a multitasking environment. We found that consistent with past research, the preferences were not associated with behavioral performance but were associated with subjective experience (study 3). Our findings suggest that assuming multitasking and sequential preferences are completely antithetical can be an oversimplification. This research opens opportunities for future research on multiple goals.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        questionnaire/scale
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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