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Updated: Aug 30, 2025

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Cognitive effort for self, strangers, and charities.

Gregory J Depow1, Hause Lin2,3, Michael Inzlicht4,5

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada. greg.depow@mail.utoronto.ca.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

People avoid cognitive effort for others, even for charities. This contrasts with physical effort, suggesting cognitive tasks are less valued when benefiting others.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Behavioral economics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Effort is generally aversive, yet individuals sometimes exert effort for others.
  • Previous research indicates people invest more physical effort for charity than for strangers.
  • The willingness to exert cognitive effort for others remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether people avoid cognitive effort for others compared to themselves.
  • To examine how cognitive effort investment differs for charities versus intragroup strangers.
  • To explore the underlying mechanisms influencing effort allocation for others.

Main Methods:

  • Two studies involving participants making repeated decisions on investing cognitive effort for self or others.
  • Participants decided whether to exert cognitive effort to obtain financial rewards for themselves and for a charity or intragroup stranger.
  • Computational modeling and machine learning analyses were employed to understand decision-making processes.

Main Results:

  • Participants were less willing to invest cognitive effort for a charity than for themselves.
  • Cognitive effort was more likely for a charity than an intragroup stranger, but self-benefit was still preferred.
  • Cognitive effort linearly discounted the subjective value of rewards, differing from physical effort findings.
  • Greater self-other similarity predicted increased willingness to exert effort for others.

Conclusions:

  • Individuals tend to avoid cognitive effort for others, even for personally meaningful causes.
  • The valuation of cognitive effort for others is significantly lower than for oneself.
  • Self-other similarity may play a crucial role in motivating effort investment on behalf of others.