Whereas previous research has focused on the link between workload and task performance, less is known about the intervening mechanisms influencing this relationship. In the present study, we test the moderating roles of daily recovery and total sleep time in the relationship between work pressure and daily task performance. Using performance and recovery theories, we hypothesized that work pressure relates positively to daily task performance, and that both daily recovery in the form of psychological detachment and relaxation, and total sleep (...) time independently enhance this relationship. Our hypotheses were tested in a 30-day diary study with 110 officer cadets on a cross-Atlantic voyage on a Naval sail ship. The results of multilevel modeling lend support to all three hypotheses. Taken together, our findings suggest that recovery and sleep duration between shifts play a key role in the relationship between daily work pressure and task performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the stressor-detachment model. (shrink)

Reactive attitudes are distinctively moral emotions that occur when a moral harm has occurred. Recent studies in moral psychology suggest that our reactive attitudes may be influenced by factors extraneous to moral evaluation, such as hunger, sleep deprivation, and negative moods. I argue that these influences lead us to sanction unfairly. Even though reactive attitudes may be a natural response to perceived moral wrongdoing, we cannot justifiably inflict undeserved harm. However, if we can learn to recognize and eliminate the effects (...) of these irrelevant influences, then we can use our reactive attitudes productively in holding others morally accountable. (shrink)