Although some research highlights the benefits of behavioral routines for individual functioning, other research indicates that routines can reflect an individual's inflexibility and lower well-being. Given conflicting accounts on the benefits of routine, research is needed to examine how routineness versus flexibility in health-related behaviors correspond to personality traits, health, and occupational outcomes. We adopt a nonlinear dynamical systems approach to understanding routine using automatically sensed health-related behaviors collected from 483 information workers over a roughly two-month period. We utilized multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis to derive a measure of health regularity (routineness) from measures of daily step count, sleep duration, and heart rate variability (which relates to stress). Participants also completed measures of personality, health, and job performance at the start of the study and for two months via Ecological Momentary Assessments. Greater regularity was associated with higher neuroticism, lower agreeableness, and greater interpersonal and organizational deviance. Importantly, these results were independent of overall levels of each health indicator in addition to demographics. It is often believed that routine is desirable, but the results suggest that associations with routineness are more nuanced, and wearable sensors can provide insights into beneficial health behaviors.
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Judged Terror Risk and Proximity to the World Trade Center
In November 2001, a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 973, ages 13–88), queried via WebTVs at home, judged the probability of five terror-related events (e.g., being injured in an attack) and three “routine” risks (e.g., being a victim of other violent crime), in the following 12 months. Judgments of terror risks, but not routine risks, were related to whether respondents were within 100 mi of the World Trade Center. This relationship was found only in the following demographic groups, and not their complements: men, adults, whites, and Republicans. These differential responses to risk have both theoretical and policy implications.
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- Award ID(s):
- 0201525
- PAR ID:
- 10088876
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of risk and uncertainty
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 2/3
- ISSN:
- 1573-0476
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 137-151
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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