Is all mental effort equal? The role of cognitive demand-type on effort avoidance

Embrey, Jake Ryan; Donkin, Chris; Newell, Ben R.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105440

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…For any given trial, participants in the lab were 2.5 times more likely to choose the hard task than those who completed the study online. Task accuracy, however, was near equivalent in both experiments suggesting changes in task performance, which people are normally sensitive to (Embrey et al, 2023;Matthews et al, 2023;Westbrook et al, 2013), were not a moderating factor of these preferences. This suggests the change in the participants' environment did not affect the effort they exerted during the Add-N tasks, nor merely introduce noise into their preferences, but rather systematically increased people's aversion to the boring alternative and their subsequent willingness to choose effortful tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…In scenarios which demand our cognitive faculties we tend to abide by Hull's (1943) 'law of less work', opting for the least effortful means to our desired end. In some instances, this desire to avoid effort is strong enough that we are willing to forgo rewardssuch as the aforementioned money and time (e.g., Embrey et al, 2023;Kool et al, 2010;Oprea, 2020)-to minimise the effort we exert. As Fiske and Taylor (1991) put it, we are 'cognitive misers'… but perhaps not all of the time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Too Hard, Too Easy, Or Just Right? The Effects of Context on Effort and Boredom Aversion

Embrey,

Mason,

Newell

2024

Preprint

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Despite people’s general desire to avoid cognitive effort there is a limit to our parsimony: boredom, a state defined by a lack of mental engagement, is found similarly aversive. The work presented here investigates how context—the alternative tasks present and the environmental context—impacts people’s aversion to exerting cognitive effort and avoiding boredom via a demand-selection task. In a population of undergraduate students, we assessed how people’s willingness to exert mental effort (in a working memory task) is affected by the presence of an easier alternative (less cognitively demanding) or a boring alternative (doing nothing at all). To manipulate environmental context, we conducted the experiment both online, where participants complete the task remotely, and in a controlled laboratory setting. We find people willingly seek out effortful tasks to avoid boredom, despite avoiding high demands when both tasks on offer required some effort. We also find large effects of the participants’ environmental context, with preferences for the most demanding task increasing by over 150% in the lab compared to online. These results bear relevance to theories which argue the costs of effort are determined relative to the alternatives available (e.g., opportunity cost theories). Moreover, the results demonstrate that researchers who deliberately (or inadvertently) manipulate effort and boredom must consider the effects context (both choice and environmental) has on people’s behaviour.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too Hard, Too Easy, Or Just Right? The Effects of Context on Effort and Boredom Aversion

Embrey,

Mason,

Newell

2024

Preprint

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“…There is even evidence that the cognitive effort associated with the most recent task, in uences people's avoidance and choice tendencies in subsequent tasks. In this context, research on mental effort avoidance and the cost of cognitive effort highlights that people tend to show a preference for low-effort tasks (Embrey et al, 2023;Inzlicht et al, 2018;Kool et al, 2010). Following on from this assumption, learners are all the more susceptible to anchor effects because the use of heuristics serves to minimize cognitive resources.…”

Section: Anchoring Heuristics In Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, limited cognitive resources can be quickly exhausted. Thus, under the premise that mental effort is costly, heuristics are the result of the rational use of cognitive resources (Embrey et al, 2023;Inzlicht et al, 2018;Lieder et al, 2018) and not an intentional bias on the part of the learner.…”

Section: Theoretical Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the first impression matter? Inconclusive evidence favoring anchoring effects in cognitive load assessment

Krieglstein,

Schmitz,

Wesenberg

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The anchoring effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein individuals heavily rely on a previously presented anchor when making decisions. This anchor, often a numerical cue presented at the beginning, influences the perception and evaluation of subsequent information by serving as a reference point. The extent to which this effect plays a role in the assessment of cognitive load in educational psychology is not yet known. Particularly, when students need to indicate cognitive load multiple times during problem-solving, they may use heuristics to simplify the cognitively demanding assessment process. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to determine whether the cognitive heuristic of anchoring biases the assessment of cognitive load. In three experiments (N1 = 100, N2 = 87, N3 = 80), participants were asked to assess the complexity of a task environment with task units varying in complexity (low, moderate, and high) multiple times during problem-solving. In each experiment, the sequence of complexity was varied to investigate whether the first impression of complexity affects the immediately following assessment. The results are ambivalent, as the first impression of complexity did not have the expected influence on the immediately following assessment in Experiments 1 and 2. However, the hypothesized anchoring effect was demonstrated in Experiment 3. The results suggest that the anchoring effect occurs only when students are initially confronted with a highly complex task and that this has the strongest influence on the subsequent assessment.

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“…The claim that mental effort is universally aversive is readily countered by evidence of engagement in cognitive activities that require apparently costly thinking. From solving the daily Wordle, to completing crosswords, Sudokus, and playing computer and strategy games like chess, it is clear that people like to think and challenge their mental capacity under the right circumstances (Embrey, Donkin, & Newell, 2023;Inzlicht, Shenhav, & Olivola, 2018;Thomson & Oppenheimer, 2022).…”

Section: Deficiencies In the Cognitive Miser Metaphormentioning

confidence: 99%

Nudges for People who Think

Szöllősi¹,

Wang-Ly²,

Newell³

2023

Preprint

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The naiveté of the dominant ‘cognitive-miser’ metaphor of human thinking hampers theoretical progress in understanding how and why subtle behavioral interventions – ‘nudges’ – could work. We propose a reconceptualization that places the balance in agency between, and the alignment of representations held by, people and choice architects as central to determining the prospect of observing behaviour change. We argue that two aspects of representational (mis)alignment are relevant: cognitive (how people construe the factual structure of a decision environment) and motivational (the importance of a choice to an individual). Nudging thinkers via the alignment of representations provides a framework that offers theoretical and practical advances and avoids disparaging people’s cognitive capacities.

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Is all mental effort equal? The role of cognitive demand-type on effort avoidance

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

Too Hard, Too Easy, Or Just Right? The Effects of Context on Effort and Boredom Aversion

Too Hard, Too Easy, Or Just Right? The Effects of Context on Effort and Boredom Aversion

Does the first impression matter? Inconclusive evidence favoring anchoring effects in cognitive load assessment

Nudges for People who Think

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