Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewThe Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued
Section snippets
The Paradox of Effort
Effort (see Glossary), be it mental or physical, is a common feature of daily life and is encountered every time we need to push ourselves. We regularly face activities requiring exertion of some kind or another, be that running to catch a bus, learning how to play and master the latest video game, or sticking to an unpleasant diet. Effort has a distinct phenomenology, feeling difficult and aversive 1, 2, 3. As such, humans and other animals tend to avoid effort, including the effort that comes
Effort Defined
Effort refers to the subjective intensification of mental and/or physical activity in the service of meeting some goal [10]. As such, it is the process that mediates between how well an organism can potentially perform on some task and how well they actually perform on that task [19]. For example, a person might have the ability to perform algebra, but fail to solve simple algebra problems due to insufficient mental effort [5]. Although related, effort is not the same as motivation, which is a
Effort Is Costly
The notion that effort is costly (that organisms find it aversive and tend to avoid it) is supported by many lines of evidence. Tasks that require effort typically increase sympathetic nervous system activity, including increasing blood pressure, ventilation, sweating, pupil dilation, and plasma norepinephrine release 39, 40, 41, 42. Critically, this sympathetic nervous system activity reflects an aversive response: Effortful tasks prime an aversive affective response [43], evoke contraction in
Effort Adds Value
Despite growing and prominent work in cognitive neuroscience detailing effort’s substantial costs 19, 20, 21, it is clear that effort also adds substantial value, both to the products of effort and to effort itself (Table 1).
Synthesis: When and Why Effort Adds Value
It is clear that effort acts not only as a costly deterrent, but that it can also add substantial value. This latter, counterintuitive effect manifests in many forms, which raises many interesting and important questions concerning the nature of the effort–value relationship (Table 1).
Implications of Effort Being Valued
Although today’s dominant models in economics and cognitive neuroscience generally assume effort acts only as a cost 19, 20, 23, 70, 71, we hope that our analysis of the effort paradox makes clear that this view is incomplete. Effort’s added value cannot be ignored; therefore one theoretical implication of our review is that models of effort, including formal computational models (e.g., [23]), need to consider both effort’s costs and its potential to create subjective value beyond the
Concluding Remarks
Over the past few years, work on the cognitive neuroscience, economics, and psychology of effort has intensified. Were a person to solely consult this recent and influential literature 1, 19, 20, 24, 55, they would be exposed to all manner of evidence illustrating effort’s costs. However, as we build toward a rational and mechanistic account of effort [19], it is important to consider the abundant findings indicating that effort is intrinsically valued and that it boosts valuation.
It has long
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by grant RGPIN-2014-03744 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by grant 435-2014-0556 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to M.I., and by a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant P20GM103645 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to A.S. We thank Cendri Hutcherson, Blair Saunders, Daniel Randles, Hause Lin, Sebastian Musslick, Zoe Francis, Nathaniel Elkins-Brown, and Naomi
Glossary
- Anterior cingulate cortex
- the rostral portion of a thick belt of cortex that lies dorsal to the corpus callosum. Research suggests roles for anterior cingulate cortex in effort avoidance, reward-based decision-making, cognitive control, and motivation. Such roles are consistent with the view that the ACC monitors for signals relevant to the expected value of control.
- Cognitive dissonance
- mental distress experienced when a person simultaneously holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, which
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