Economies across the globe were brought to their knees due to lockdowns and social restriction measures to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2, despite the quick switch to remote working. This downfall may be partially explained by the "water cooler effect", which holds that higher levels of social interaction lead to higher productivity due to a boost in people's mood. Somewhat paradoxically, however, there are reports of increased productivity in the remote working scenario. Here we address quantitatively this issue using a variety of experimental findings of social psychology that address the interplay between mood, social interaction and productivity to set forth an agent-based model for a workplace composed of extrovert and introvert agent stereotypes that differ solely on their propensities to initiate a social interaction. We find that the effects of curtailing social interactions depend on the proportion of the stereotypes in the working group: while the social restriction measures always have a negative impact on the productivity of groups composed predominantly of introverts, they may actually improve the productivity of groups composed predominantly of extroverts. Our results offer a proof of concept that the paradox of productivity during quarantine can be explained by taking into account the distinct effects of the social distancing measures on extroverts and introverts.

翻译：尽管快速转向远程工作,但全球各经济体却由于封锁和遏制SARS-COV-2扩散的社会限制措施而陷入瘫痪,全球各经济体都因为封锁和遏制SARS-COV-2扩散的社会限制措施而陷入瘫痪。这种下滑的部分原因可能是“水冷却效应”造成社会互动水平的提高,认为由于人们情绪的提高,社会互动水平的提高导致生产力的提高。然而,有些自相矛盾的是,有报告说,在偏远的工作环境中生产率有所提高。在这里,我们利用各种社会心理学的实验结果从数量上解决这个问题,这些实验结果解决了情绪、社会互动和生产力之间的相互作用,以建立由外向和内向剂定型观念组成的工作场所的代理模式,这种模式完全取决于他们发起社会互动的倾向。我们发现,限制社会互动的影响取决于工作组中陈规定型观念的比例:虽然社会限制措施总是对主要由内向反向者组成的群体的生产力产生消极影响,但它们实际上可能提高主要由外向者组成的群体的生产力。我们的结果证明,隔离期间生产力悖论的矛盾现象可以通过考虑到社会反向措施的明显效果来解释。