Refimprove date April 2012 The word polychronicity is a term that describes people who prefer to work on multiple activities at the same time. Examples of polychronic behaviors include cooking food while watching television, browsing the internet while driving a car, and talking on the phone while sitting in meetings. Polychronicity is in contrast to those who prefer monochronicity doing one thing at a time . The polychronic monochronic concept was first developed by Edward T. Hall in 1959 in his anthropological studies of time use in different cultures. Measuring polychronicity Researchers have developed the following questionnaires to measure polychronicity Inventory of Polychronic Values IPV , developed by Bluedorn et al. 1997 which is a 10 item scale designed to assess the extent to which people in a culture prefer to be engaged in two or more tasks or events simultaneously and believe their preference is the best way to do things. Polychronic Attitude Index PAI , developed by Kaufman Scarborough & Lindquist in 1991, which is a 4 item scale measuring individual preference for polychronicity, in the following statements I do not like to juggle several activities at the same time . People should not try to do many things at once . When I sit down at my desk, I work on one project at a time . I am comfortable doing several things at the same time . See also Chronemics Human multitasking Multicommunicating Further reading Bluedorn, A., Kalliath, T., Strube, M. & Martin, G. 1999 . Polychronicity and the Inventory of Polychronic Values IPV . Journal of Managerial Psychology, Volume ... . A construct oriented analysis of individual level polychronicity. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 14, 269 288. Kaufman Scarborough, Carol and Jay D. Lindquist 1999 , Time Management and Polychronicity ... issue on Polychronicity, Vol. 14, Numbers 3 4, 288 312. Timesense Polychronicity and Monochronicity ... between monochronicity, polychronicity and individual characteristics. Behaviour & Information ... more details
. ref A History of MC As a concept, MC primarily builds off Edward T. Hall Hall s work on polychronicity ... to one s communication partners. MC is closely related to Edward T. Hall Hall s 1959 work on polychronicity .... ref In his 1959 book The Silent Language Hall coined the term polychronicity and in subsequent works developed the argument that polychronicity is a measure of a culture s preference toward engaging ... s, when Bluedron ref Bluedorn, A. C., et al. 1999 . Polychronicity and the inventory of polychronic ... the term polychronicity from the cultural context and to apply it to the workplace. Goffman s theory ... has indicated that polychronicity is negatively correlated with deadlines. ref Kaufman, C.F. ... more details
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