The unpleasantness of thinking: A meta-analytic review of the association between mental effort and negative affect

Abstract

Influential theories in psychology, neuroscience, and economics assume that the exertion of mental effort should feel aversive. Yet, this assumption is usually untested, and it is challenged by casual observations and previous studies. Here we test (a) whether mental effort is generally experienced as aversive and (b) whether the association between mental effort and aversive feelings depends on population and task characteristics. We meta-analyzed a set of studies (358 tasks, 4670 people) that assessed perceived mental effort and negative affect. As expected, we found a strong positive association between mental effort and negative affect. Surprisingly, just one of our 15 moderators had a significant effect (effort felt somewhat less aversive in studies from Asia vs. Europe and North America). Overall, mental effort felt aversive in different tasks, in different populations, and on different continents. Supporting theories that conceptualize effort as a cost, we suggest that mental effort is inherently aversive.

Psychological interventions increase motivation to exert effort to mitigate climate change

“…The finding that people were more willing to work for larger rewards, but less willing to work when the effort required was greater, builds on previous work on value-based decision-making and effort discounting [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] . In the context of climate change, it fits with evidence of lower support for proenvironmental policies that involve personal costs 21 and behaviours perceived as more difficult 22 .…”

“…One major challenge is that humans and other animals generally find effort aversive and will avoid it, even when exerting effort gives them rewards [3][4][5][6][7][8] . This aversion to effort may be magnified in social contexts.…”

A dynamic, computational model of job insecurity and job performance.

“…The former process captures conceptualizations of job insecurity as a psychological stressor that produces physiological arousal and psychological distress (e.g., De Witte, 1999Witte, , 2016. The latter, although less intuitive, reflects the inherent physiological/emotional effects of exertion (e.g., David et al, 2022;Deci et al, 2016) and the difficulty maintaining sustained high levels of motivation in threatening situations (Hagger, 2015).…”

How Effortful is Boredom? Studying Self-Control Demands Through Pupillometry (Registered Report Stage 1)

“…Cognitive effort which can be defined as "intensity of mental […] work that organisms apply towards some outcome" (Inzlicht et al, 2018), can be measured objectively (e.g., with pupillometry) or experienced subjectively (Bijleveld, 2018;Robinson & Morsella, 2014) which we will refer to as perceived effort 1 . A large body of research shows that the objective and the perceived investment of effort tends to feel unpleasant and aversive (David et al, 2022;Kool & Botvinick, 2018;Wolff et al, 2021). Thus, while effort is instrumental for effective self-control, it appears to carry a momentary cost by being unpleasant, and the prolonged exertion of effort creates cumulative costs, such as fatigue or tiredness (Ainslie, 2021;Hopstaken et al, 2015;Kurzban, 2016;Kurzban et al, 2013;Westbrook et al, 2013).…”