About the episode
Researchers from Radboud University studied how we experience mental effort. They saw that even when people engage in voluntary thinking, they still find hard thinking distressing.
We experience something similar when we have to do physical work. From an evolutionary perspective, unnecessary effort should be minimized as much as possible. So it’s no surprise that we find it difficult to motivate ourselves to exercise. But we were less sure about what this meant for mental effort.
In this study, data from people from different countries and from different professional groups were studied. The extent to which these people felt irritated and frustrated while performing cognitive tasks was examined.
In all cases, mental effort seemed to evoke negative feelings. Even if a lot of thinking was part of someone’s education or work. Thinking seems boring to everyone.
But what about puzzles? Sudoku? And quizzes? Lots of people do them for fun, really. Well, we do them mainly because of the reward, says one researcher. In this case, it’s not the thinking itself, but the success that’s achieved that makes us happy.
This is all knowledge that developers of educational materials or new software, for example, could do more with. So how do you ensure that reward?
In some cases, something like AI can take over our thinking. But then we don’t get that nice feeling when we solve something ourselves. Working hard at something also gives the task more meaning. This applies to both physical and mental effort.
And don’t forget that exercising your mind and body can affect how healthy you feel and how well you age. Whether it’s fun or not, in many cases it’s well worth it. Even if part of that reward is long-term.
Read more about the research here: Thinking hard “hurts”
