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Predicting Pandemics in a Globally Connected World, Volume 1Productivity in Times of Covid-19: An Agent-Based Model Approach

Predicting Pandemics in a Globally Connected World, Volume 1: Productivity in Times of Covid-19:... [Whereas the economic consequences of the physical distancing measures to control the transmission of Covid-19 are familiar, their effects on people’s mental well-being and the subsequent influence on work productivity are largely unknown. In this chapter, we introduce an agent-based model of a workplace where the mood (motivation to work) improves when the agent is socializing and deteriorates when it is working. No work is done during socialization and the productivity of a working agent is an increasing function of its mood. Moreover, low motivated agents seek company and high motivated agents focus on work. We find that decrease of frequency or quality of the social interactions leads the agents to enter a burnout regime where their motivations diverge to negative infinity, with the consequent vanishing of productivity. This mental breakdown regime is separated from a healthy regime, where the motivation to work is finite, by a continuous phase transition. Since the fraction of working agents, which is the only observable quantity in our model, changes continuously at the transition point, it is nearly impossible to perceive the proximity to the burnout regime. This finding highlights the need of quantitative approaches to study the interplay between mood, behavior, and productivity.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Predicting Pandemics in a Globally Connected World, Volume 1Productivity in Times of Covid-19: An Agent-Based Model Approach

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
ISBN
978-3-030-96561-7
Pages
213 –231
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-96562-4_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Whereas the economic consequences of the physical distancing measures to control the transmission of Covid-19 are familiar, their effects on people’s mental well-being and the subsequent influence on work productivity are largely unknown. In this chapter, we introduce an agent-based model of a workplace where the mood (motivation to work) improves when the agent is socializing and deteriorates when it is working. No work is done during socialization and the productivity of a working agent is an increasing function of its mood. Moreover, low motivated agents seek company and high motivated agents focus on work. We find that decrease of frequency or quality of the social interactions leads the agents to enter a burnout regime where their motivations diverge to negative infinity, with the consequent vanishing of productivity. This mental breakdown regime is separated from a healthy regime, where the motivation to work is finite, by a continuous phase transition. Since the fraction of working agents, which is the only observable quantity in our model, changes continuously at the transition point, it is nearly impossible to perceive the proximity to the burnout regime. This finding highlights the need of quantitative approaches to study the interplay between mood, behavior, and productivity.]

Published: Feb 18, 2022

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