Time Pressure, Performance, and Awareness of Group Members in Co-acting Groups

Karau and Kelly (1992) propose a resource allocation model of group performance under time pressure. Their model borrows from the attentional focus ideas of Easterbrook (1959), in that it includes attention as a resource, but is more general, in that it includes other resources as well. As time pressure increases, the group allocates more resources to task-relevant activities and pays less attention to lower relevance cues. This would initially improve performance by leading the group to ignore distracters and avoid time-wasting activities, but eventually it would reduce performance as the group narrows its focus of attention too far (causing them to miss task relevant cues) or fails to engage in social activities necessary for group co- ordination. The current study explores the possibility that this focusing leads group members to lose awareness of each other as time pressure increases, and discusses the implications for group coordination and performance