Noise annoys—But personal choice can attenuate noise effects on cardiac response reflecting effort

Abstract

Since personal choice fosters commitment and shields action execution against potentially conflicting influences, two laboratory experiments with university students (N = 228) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice versus external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of irrelevant acoustic noise on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. Participants who could personally choose the stimulus color of moderately difficult cognitive tasks were expected to be shielded against the irrelevant noise. By contrast, when the stimulus color was externally assigned, we predicted receptivity for the irrelevant noise to be high. As expected, in both experiments, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre‐ejection period reactivity during task performance when exposed to noise than when working in silence. On the contrary, participants who could choose the stimulus color were shielded against the noise effect on effort. These findings conceptually replicate and extend research on the action shielding effect by personal choice and hold practical implications for occupational health.

The power of personal control: Task choice attenuates the effect of implicit sadness on sympathetically mediated cardiac response

“…The present results align with previous findings on the impact of personal choice on explicit affective influences (Falk et al, 2022a(Falk et al, , 2022bGendolla et al, 2021), obstrusive noise effects (Falk et al, 2023), and other priming effects on sympathetically mediated cardiovascular reactivity. Additionally, an action choicebased shielding effect has been observed in priming cognitive conflict (Bouzidi & Gendolla, 2022, Study 2) and was recently replicated for the shielding effect of individual differences in action orientation (Bouzidi & Gendolla, 2023).…”

“…However, individuals to whom the task or its characteristics were externally assigned-which is the typical procedure in psychological experiments-did show music-induced affective influences on effort (Falk et al, 2022a(Falk et al, , 2022bGendolla et al, 2021). The same applied to the effects of obstrusive accustic noise (Falk et al, 2023). The logic behind this action shielding effect is that choosing tasks or task characteristics oneself provides immunity against incidental affective influences on action execution.…”

Personal task choice attenuates implicit happiness effects on effort: A study on cardiovascular response

“…The present experiment provides additional empirical support for the action shielding model (Gendolla et al, 2021)-especially for the moderating role of personal task choice of implicit happiness primes' effect on sympathetically mediated cardiovascular responses during task performance which reflect effort. This is an important extension of the already existing evidence for action-choice based shielding against explicit incidental affective influences like pleasant and unpleasant music (Falk et al, 2002a(Falk et al, , 2022b, aversive noise (Falk et al, 2023), and, most important, implicitly processed conflict (Bouzidi & Gendolla, 2023a as well as fear and anger primes (Framorando et al, 2023a(Framorando et al, , 2023b.…”

“…However, individuals to whom the task or its characteristics were externally assigned-which is the typical procedure in psychology experiments-showed music-induced mood effects on effort (Falk et al, 2022a(Falk et al, , 2022bGendolla et al, 2021). Correspondingly, Falk et al (2023) found that the personal choice of task characteristics led to shielding against the effect of displeasant acoustic noise on sympathetically mediated cardiovascual responses reflecting effort.…”