精神作業が心理的負担感とストレス反応に及ぼす影響―ピーク・エンドの法則を応用した課題構成の効果―

抄録

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the organization of mental arithmetic tasks on the sense of psychological burden and the relationship to cognitive biases caused by the peak-end rule. Based on the peak-end rule, we created three groups to execute arithmetic tasks with varying levels of difficulty in a different order: descending - hard to easy, ascending - easy to hard and alternating - no discernable order. Twenty-three university students as the experiment participants performed one task per day for three consecutive days. Their psychological burden before and after the intervention was measured with the mental workload scale, stress reactions with the emotional scale, and salivary amylase levels. The result showed the participants preferred the tasks in the descending order the most. Furthermore, it showed they felt the least psychological burden and had the lowest physical and psychological stress reactions. These findings suggested that difference in task structure can influence cognition, according to the peak-end rule, and modulate psychological burden and stress reactions.