Performance And The Yerkes-Dodson Law

The Yerkes-Dodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908) is a well-known finding in the psychology literature. In summary, the law suggests that performance increases with mental arousal (stress) but only up to a point. When an individuals’ level of stress is too low or too high, their performance deteriorates. This relationship between stress and performance is usually depicted as an inverted U-shaped curve. 

Egan and colleagues (2014) recommend sharing the Yerkes-Dodson Law with perfectionistic individuals because of their dislike for inefficiency and wasted effort. The law also has important implications for overcoming perfectionistic striving:

• The law suggests that putting too much effort into tasks may be unnecessary (at best) and counterproductive (at worst).
• Perfectionistic striving and the stress associated with it increases the risk of inaccurate and inefficient performance (Ishida, 2005; Stoeber, 2011).
• People with perfectionism might achieve the same (or better) results if they approach activities in a less

Psychologists have conducted a lot of research to find out what makes people perform at their best.

• Can you think of any times where you put too much effort into doing something?
• Can you think of any times where you didn’t put enough effort into doing something?
• What are the pros and cons of putting in so much effort into the activities you care about?
• When does striving become unnecessary and unhelpful? How do you know when you’ve reached that point?
• How could you find out where your zone of optimal performance is? Would you be willing to experiment with how you approach things?

• Egan, S. J., Wade, T. D., Shafran, R., & Antony, M. M. (2014). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of perfectionism. Guilford.
• Ishida, H. (2005). College students’ perfectionism and task-strategy inefficiency: Why their efforts go unrewarded? The Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 208-215.
• Shafran, R., Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. G. (2002). Clinical perfectionism: A cognitive-behavioral analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40, 773-791.
• Shafran, R., Egan, S., & Wade, T. (2010). Overcoming perfectionism: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioral techniques. Constable and Robinson.
• Stoeber, J. (2011). Perfectionism, efficiency, and response bias in proof-reading performance: Extension and replication. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 426-429.
• Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459-482.