Effort provides its own reward: endeavors reinforce subjective expectation and evaluation of task performance

Abstract

Although many studies have investigated the relationship between the amount of effort invested in a certain task and one's attitude towards the subsequent reward, whether exerted effort would impact one's expectation and evaluation of performance feedback itself still remains to be examined. In the present study, two types of calculation tasks that varied in the required effort were adopted, and we resorted to electroencephalography to probe the temporal dynamics of how exerted effort would affect one's anticipation and evaluation of performance feedback. In the high-effort condition, a more salient stimulus-preceding negativity was detected during the anticipation stage, which was accompanied with a more salient FRN/P300 complex (a more positive P300 and a less negative feedback-related negativity) in response to positive outcomes in the evaluation stage. These results suggested that when more effort was invested, an enhanced anticipatory attention would be paid toward one's task performance feedback and that positive outcomes would be subjectively valued to a greater extent.

The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued

“…Moreover, evidence of effort’s added value has also been demonstrated in the human brain: receiving rewarding feedback for effortful performance amplifies the hemodynamic and electrophysiological signals generated by brain areas sensitive to reward (e.g., subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, nucleus accumbens, striatum, feedback-related negativity/reward positivity), an effect that is muted or sometimes absent for non-effortful performance ([12,13,79–82]; but see [50]).…”

“…Thus, excessive effort demands can break the effort– value link. Similarly, although unrewarded effort can be especially disappointing [11,18,79], people might retrospectively devalue those efforts to avoid such disappointment and feelings of dissonance [67,107]. …”

“…Under this formulation, both positive and negative outcomes would be magnified by the amount of effort exerted, such that winning becomes sweeter (and losing more bitter) the more effort you exerted prior to reaching that outcome [12,79]. …”

Inverted U-Shaped Curvilinear Relationship between Challenge and One's Intrinsic Motivation: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

“…Pioneering studies demonstrated that SPN reflected the expectancy of a motivational stimulus during the pre-feedback period (Böcker et al, 1994; Donkers et al, 2005; Masaki et al, 2010; Meng and Ma, 2015; Meng et al, 2016; Wang et al, 2017). As the one who has a stronger intrinsic motivation to win would generally care more about the outcome and be more closely anticipating the feedback, and the enhanced subjective expectancy toward feedback would elicit a more prominent SPN, the SPN was suggested as an electrophysiological indicator sensitive to the motivation level (Brunia et al, 2012; Kotani et al, 2015; Meng et al, 2016).…”

“…It typically shows right-hemisphere preponderance and usually maximizes over right prefrontal cortex (for a recent review, see Brunia et al, 2012). Previous studies demonstrated that a larger SPN indicated an enhanced expectation toward the outcome and intensified intrinsic motivation toward the task (e.g., Kotani et al, 2015; Meng and Ma, 2015; Meng et al, 2016; Wang et al, 2017). In the current research, the near miss condition of the game provides optimal challenge compared with the complete defeat condition, which bears more motivational relevance to participants and is predicted to be more intrinsically motivating and engaging.…”