Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada.
Hill/Levene Schools of Business, University of Regina, Regina, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2022 Sep 2;12(1):15009. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-19163-y.
Effort is aversive and often avoided, even when earning benefits for oneself. Yet, people sometimes work hard for others. How do people decide who is worth their effort? Prior work shows people avoid physical effort for strangers relative to themselves, but invest more physical effort for charity. Here, we find that people avoid cognitive effort for others relative to themselves, even when the cause is a personally meaningful charity. In two studies, participants repeatedly decided whether to invest cognitive effort to gain financial rewards for themselves and others. In Study 1, participants (N = 51; 150 choices) were less willing to invest cognitive effort for a charity than themselves. In Study 2, participants (N = 47; 225 choices) were more willing to work cognitively for a charity than an intragroup stranger, but again preferred cognitive exertion that benefited themselves. Computational modeling suggests that, unlike prior physical effort findings, cognitive effort discounted the subjective value of rewards linearly. Exploratory machine learning analyses suggest that people who represented others more similarly to themselves were more willing to invest effort on their behalf, opening up new avenues for future research.
努力是令人厌恶的，人们往往会回避它，即使努力能给自己带来好处。然而，人们有时也会为他人付出努力。那么，人们是如何决定谁值得自己付出努力的呢？先前的研究表明，人们相对于自己，会回避为陌生人付出体力劳动，但会为慈善事业付出更多的体力劳动。在这里，我们发现人们相对于自己，会回避为他人付出认知努力，即使这个他人是一个对自己有个人意义的慈善机构。在两项研究中，参与者反复决定是否要付出认知努力，以获得自己和他人的经济奖励。在研究 1 中，参与者（N=51；150 次选择）为慈善机构付出认知努力的意愿低于为自己付出的意愿。在研究 2 中，参与者（N=47；225 次选择）更愿意为慈善机构而不是同组的陌生人付出认知努力，但他们还是更愿意选择对自己有利的认知努力。计算模型表明，与先前的体力劳动研究结果不同，认知努力会线性地降低奖励的主观价值。探索性的机器学习分析表明，那些更倾向于将他人与自己视为相似的人，更愿意代表他人付出努力，为未来的研究开辟了新的途径。
