Explain the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

It explains the relationship between arousal level and task performance in the following way: “we function best when we are moderately aroused or energized and both low and high arousal/ energy levels lead to poor performance” (Feist & Rosenberg, 2015, p. 399).

As you see in the above Figure, when the arousal is low or high, the performance is also low; however, performance is high when there is an optimal level of arousal. Thus it can be said that individuals are motivated when certain situation is not very high or low in stimulation.

There are two things that we need to take note of in the context of the YerkesDodson law.

a) individual differences in the arousal level

b) difficulty level of the task

First, when we talk of an optimal arousal level leading to better functioning/ performance, it needs to be noted that this optimal level may vary from person to person. Thus there is no fixed optimal arousal, but it is individual-specific.

The second thing is that the task difficulty level moderates the relationship between arousal and task performance. As the Yerkes-Dodson law states, in case of simpler tasks, a relatively higher arousal level is required for better performance; and with difficult tasks, a relatively lower arousal is needed for better performance.

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