Transfer of effort across behaviors

Eisenberger, Robert; Carlson, Jeffrey R.; Guile, Michael N.; Shapiro, Neil R.

doi:10.1016/0023-9690(79)90043-2

Cited by 72 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Moreover, they learn to generalize the effort–reward association to novel tasks that might have unique demands. For example, rats that are reinforced for exerting high intensity force on a lever are more likely to persist on an unrelated runway traversal task than rats reinforced with low-force lever presses ([95]; see also [96]). Similarly, college students and preadolescent children who are rewarded for completing cognitively demanding tasks subsequently exert more effort and persist longer on unrelated tasks, relative to those who were instead rewarded for completing easy tasks [97,98].…”

Section: Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, although anecdotal, mountaineers and other endurance athletes report valuing their sport precisely because it demands a great deal of effort [9]. When rats and children are rewarded for exerting effort in one task, they are more likely to apply effort in other tasks, suggesting that effort has become a secondary reinforcer for them [95–98]. Finally, some people intrinsically pursue and enjoy effortful cognitive activities for their own sake [25,26].…”

Section: Synthesis: When and Why Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Effort adds value to the goals that we effortfully pursue [67], but effort can be rewarding in its own right [10,99,104]. Effort is not only valued in retrospect, but can feel rewarding while it is being exerted [95,104,108], and these rewarding experiences can also be anticipated when making decisions about future actions [91–93]. …”

Section: Synthesis: When and Why Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued

Inzlicht

Shenhav

Olivola

2018

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

514

353

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According to prominent models in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and economics, effort (be it physical or mental) is costly: when given a choice, humans and non-human animals alike tend to avoid effort. Here, we suggest that the opposite is also true and review extensive evidence that effort can also add value. Not only can the same outcomes be more rewarding if we apply more (not less) effort, sometimes we select options precisely because they require effort. Given the increasing recognition of effort’s role in motivation, cognitive control, and value-based decision-making, considering this neglected side of effort will not only improve formal computational models, but also provide clues about how to promote sustained mental effort across time.

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Section: Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Synthesis: When and Why Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Synthesis: When and Why Effort Adds Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued

Inzlicht

Shenhav

Olivola

2018

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

514

353

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…By performance dimension is meant any behavioral feature that may be scaled ordinally. Generalized effort has been found to appear in two performance dimensions concurrently: (a) Following reinforcement contingent upon increased lever-press force, rats ran more quickly during operant runway shuttling and also paused for shorter durations between successive runs (Eisenberger, Carlson, Guile, & Shapiro, 1979), and (b) with college students, increases in the effort required for the solution of anagrams, mathematics problems, and perceptual identifications produced increases in the length of subsequent essays and in the essay quality per unit length (Eisenberger, Masterson, & McDermitt, 1982).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Accuracy Versus Speed in the Generalized Effort of Learning‐disabled Children

Eisenberger

Mitchell

McDermitt

et al. 1984

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Reinforcement of effortful performance in a given academic task has been found to increase the subsequent performance of other academic tasks. The learned-effort hypothesis assumes that individuals learn which dimensions of task performance are correlated with reinforcement of high effort, and generalize across tasks. Therefore, reinforcement of increased effort in a given dimension of one task should result in greater generalized effort in the same dimension of transfer performance than in another dimension. In accord with this view, preadolescent learning-disabled students who received points for high reading accuracy subsequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did students whose points had been based upon high reading speed or upon mere completion of the reading task. Students who received points for high reading speed subsequently constructed stories more quickly than did children whose points had been based upon high reading accuracy or upon reading-task completion. Consistent with the more explicit and frequent feedback for accuracy than for speed in most academic tasks, generalized accuracy was much more durable than generalized speed.Key words: generalization of effort, speed, accuracy, performance dimensions, learnedeffort hypothesis, token economy, learning-disabled children Why are some students more persistent than others when given difficult academic tasks? Reinforcement interpretations emphasize the previous schedule of reward. Persistence on difficult academic tasks has been found to be greater following intermittent success than after continuous success, which is consistent with well known effects of intermittent reinforcement upon subsequent extinction. For simple sentences and difficult sentences that contained words beyond the children's reading ability. All the children were next asked to read a new set of difficult sentences. The children attempted a greater number of the new sentences following the mixture of success and failure than after success alone.Recent research indicates that reinforcing various types of increased effort can influence the subsequent performance of other types of reinforced behavior. With rats, for example, requiring a greater lever force or a greater number of lever presses per food presentation increased the subsequent persis-

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“…Similarly, runway performance in extinction was an increasing function of the number of lever-presses required previously for food pellets (Eisenberger, Carlson, Guile, & Shapiro, 1979;McCuller, Wong, & Amsel, 1976). The number of occurrences of one behavior per reinforcer can affect other behaviors' reinforced performance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Discriminative Control of Generalized Effort

Eisenberger¹,

McDermitt²,

Masterson³

et al. 1983

The American Journal of Psychology

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Increasing the degree of effort required for the successful performance of one behavior has been found to heighten the subsequent performance of other behaviors. The present research tested whether discriminative stimuli for effort control the quantity and quality of transfer performance. Two experimenters administered alternately a perceptual task which required college students to identify subtle differences between cartoon drawings. The high-effort experimenter required five identifications per pair of drawings; the low-effort experimenter, one identification. The later assignment of an essay by the high-effort experimenter, as compared to the low-effort experimenter, resulted in a greater essay length and quality. These findings suggest that cues which signal the degree of effort required for reinforcement exert discriminative control over generalized effort.

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Transfer of effort across behaviors

Cited by 72 publications

References 20 publications

The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued

The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued

Accuracy Versus Speed in the Generalized Effort of Learning‐disabled Children

Discriminative Control of Generalized Effort

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