Abstract. This longitudinal study examines how three dimensions of self-reported work performance, including task proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity, changed between December 2019 and September 2020 in Germany. Based on event system and transition theories, we expected work performance to decline because of the “lockdown” between early April and early May 2020 and to subsequently increase when restrictions were eased between early May and early September 2020. Additionally, we hypothesized that high levels of core self-evaluations (i. e., employees’ fundamental evaluations about themselves) buffer the decline and strengthen the recovery in work performance. Data were collected from N = 591 full-time employees across eight measurement points. Results based on discontinuous latent growth curve modeling largely supported the expected trajectories in work performance. Moreover, core self-evaluations positively predicted the levels of work performance as well as the slopes indicating recovery in task proficiency and adaptivity, but not proactivity.

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When speakers name a picture (e.g., “duck”), a distractor word phonologically related to an alternative name (e.g., “birch” related to “bird”) slows down naming responses compared to an unrelated distractor word. This interference effect obtained with the picture-word interference (PWI) task is assumed to reflect the phonological co-activation of close semantic competitors and is critical for evaluating contemporary models of word production. In the present study, we determined the event-related brain potential (ERP) signature of this effect in an immediate and a delayed version of the PWI task. ERPs revealed a differential processing of related and unrelated distractors: an early (305 – 436 ms) and a late (537 – 713 ms) negativity for related as compared with unrelated distractors. In the behavioral data, the interference effect was only found in immediate naming, while its ERP signature was also present in delayed naming. The time window of the earlier ERP effect suggests that the behavioral interference effect indeed emerges at a phonological processing level, while the functional significance of the later ERP effect is as yet not clear. The finding of a robust ERP correlate of phonological co-activation might facilitate future research on lexical processing in word production.

The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine how three dimensions of self-reported work performance, including task proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity, changed between December 2019 and September 2020 in Germany. Based on event system and transition theories, we expected work performance to decline due to the “lockdown” between early April and early May 2020, and to subsequently increase when restrictions were eased between early May and early September 2020. Additionally, we hypothesized that high levels of core self-evaluations (i.e., employees’ fundamental evaluations about themselves) buffer the decline and strengthen the recovery in work performance. Data were collected from N = 591 full-time employees across eight measurement points. Results based on discontinuous latent growth curve modeling largely supported the expected trajectories in work performance. Moreover, core self-evaluations positively predicted the levels of work performance, as well as the slopes indicating recovery in task proficiency and adaptivity, but not proactivity.

When speakers name a picture (e.g., “duck”), a distractor word phonologically related to an alternative name (e.g., “birch” related to “bird”) slows down naming responses compared with an unrelated distractor word. This interference effect obtained with the picture–word interference task is assumed to reflect the phonological coactivation of close semantic competitors and is critical for evaluating contemporary models of word production. In this study, we determined the event-related brain potential (ERP) signature of this effect in immediate and delayed versions of the picture–word interference task. ERPs revealed a differential processing of related and unrelated distractors: an early (305–436 msec) and a late (537–713 msec) negativity for related as compared with unrelated distractors. In the behavioral data, the interference effect was only found in immediate naming, whereas its ERP signature was also present in delayed naming. The time window of the earlier ERP effect suggests that the behavioral interference effect indeed emerges at a phonological processing level, whereas the functional significance of the later ERP effect is as yet not clear. The finding of a robust ERP correlate of phonological coactivation might facilitate future research on lexical processing in word production.