School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2023 Jun;30(3):1115-1124. doi: 10.3758/s13423-022-02198-7. Epub 2022 Nov 4.
Effort discounting describes the devaluation of rewards that require effort to obtain. The present study investigated whether discounting of cognitive effort depends on how near the effort is in time. The present study also investigated whether effort discounting, and its modulation by temporal distance to the effort, might depend on need for cognition, a personality trait that describes how much one enjoys cognitively demanding tasks. Participants performed a validated effort discounting task that measured the extent to which they subjectively devalued a $20 reward when effort was required to receive it. Immediacy of the effort was manipulated by having participants imagine exerting varying levels of effort either immediately, in a day, or in a month. Results revealed linear increases in discounting of rewards as a function of both how much effort was involved and how imminent the effort was. The extent to which both these variables influenced discounting correlated with need for cognition. Individuals low in need for cognition exhibited more effort discounting overall and a linear increase in effort discounting as the effort grew imminent. Individuals high in need for cognition engaged in less effort discounting, which was not modulated by how imminent the effort was. These results indicate that people exhibit dynamic inconsistency in effort-related decisions, such that the degree to which they discount effort depends on how soon the effort is. Additionally, this tendency is linked with systematic individual differences in need for cognition. Lastly, this study demonstrates that these tendencies can be quantitatively operationalized.
努力折扣描述了对需要付出努力才能获得的奖励的贬值。本研究调查了认知努力的折扣是否取决于努力的时间临近程度。本研究还调查了努力折扣及其对努力时间距离的调节是否取决于认知需求，认知需求是描述一个人对认知要求高的任务的享受程度的个性特征。参与者完成了一项经过验证的努力折扣任务，该任务衡量了他们在需要付出努力才能获得奖励时主观贬低 20 美元奖励的程度。通过让参与者想象自己在当下、一天后或一个月后付出不同程度的努力来操纵努力的即时性。结果表明，随着努力程度和努力的临近程度的增加，奖励的折扣呈线性增加。这两个变量对折扣的影响程度与认知需求相关。认知需求较低的个体整体上表现出更多的努力折扣，并且随着努力的临近，努力折扣呈线性增加。认知需求较高的个体进行的努力折扣较少，而且不受努力临近程度的影响。这些结果表明，人们在与努力相关的决策中表现出动态不一致，即他们对努力的折扣程度取决于努力的时间临近程度。此外，这种趋势与认知需求的系统个体差异有关。最后，本研究表明，这些趋势可以被定量操作化。
