Thinking hard ‘hurts’

Mental effort is always unpleasant. This is the conclusion of an extensive study by Radboud researchers among participants from different countries and professional groups. Even when people volunteer to do brainwork, they experience the mental burden as unpleasant. “We mainly do Sudoku puzzles because of the reward, not because we really enjoy the mental effort.”

“We already know that in principle, people do not enjoy physical labour”, explains psychologist Erik Bijleveld. “Due to our evolutionary history, we tend to avoid unnecessary physical effort as much as possible.” But we didn’t know much about mental effort until now. This study reveals that thinking hard hurts, so to speak. That explains why you may start something, but soon think: “Pfff, let me just check my social media feeds…”.

Researchers have been debating for quite some time whether mental effort is enjoyable or not, says Bijleveld: “We know that people avoid thinking hard, if they can. But there are also researchers who say that some people actually seek out mental effort because they associate it with reward: at school, for instance, children learn that mental effort can lead to higher grades and other positive feedback.”

Together with his fellow researchers Louise David and Eliana Vassena, Bijleveld studied large amounts of data about the level of irritation and frustration that people experience when conducting certain cognitive tasks. The researchers also investigated previous studies, in which healthcare professionals, military personnel, office staff and amateur athletes were assigned tasks, such as testing new equipment.

Negative feelings

In all cases, mental effort appeared to trigger negative feelings. “The findings were really striking”, says Bijleveld. “It doesn’t matter where you live or what job you have: everyone finds brainwork annoying.” Even people who are perhaps rewarded more often for thinking hard, like those with academic qualifications, experience mentally burdening tasks as annoying. Their feelings are just as negative as those experienced by people who carry out repetitive work.

Still, plenty of people voluntarily put in mental effort. The researchers contend that this is not because of but despite the mental effort. Bijleveld: “We mainly do Sudoku puzzles or play chess or Candy Crush because of the reward, not because we enjoy it so much.” We are therefore not intrinsically motivated to think hard, but the pleasant feeling we get when we achieve something draws certain people to do such activities.

According to the researcher, developers of educational material or new software, for instance, would do good to bear in mind the negative feelings that such products trigger. “If people have to master a new app or maths method, this requires mental effort. If you want that to work out, it would be good to reward the users.” This could be done by adding game elements, for instance, like visual effects or noises. These aspects help people to work through a task.

Meaningful

Generative AI can also save people from having to do a lot of annoying brainwork. Still, the emergence of this sort of artificial intelligence won’t make life more enjoyable, claims Bijleveld. “We may not experience those negative feelings as often while working, but the outcomes of our work will also not be as rewarding, as they won’t have taken so much effort. If you work hard on something, it becomes more meaningful. AI may take that away from us sometimes.”