Employees should be rewarded for ‘thinking hard’ because of the unpleasant feelings it causes, say experts who found that mental effort makes the brain ‘painful’

Do you ever feel physically exhausted after a long day at your desk? Scientists may have discovered why.

A major new study finds that thinking hard often causes feelings of intense frustration, stress and even pain.

The Dutch experts behind the study therefore urge employers to do more to ‘reward and support’ their staff for doing hard work.

European workers are more sensitive to discomfort than workers from Asian countries and “dislike mental effort,” they added.

The more effort people put in, the more unpleasantness they experience, says Dr. Erik Bijleveld of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who led the study. “When people have to make a significant mental effort, you should make sure that you support or reward them for their effort.”

The research, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, involved a meta-analysis of 170 studies published between 2019 and 2020 and involving 4,670 participants, to examine how people generally experience mental effort.

The study examined whether mental effort is associated with unpleasant feelings and whether these feelings depend on the task or the population group involved.

The study included a variety of participants, including healthcare workers, military personnel, amateur athletes and students from 29 countries.

The study involved more than 350 cognitive tasks, such as learning a new technology, finding your way in an unfamiliar environment, practicing golf swings and playing a virtual reality game.

In all studies analyzed, participants indicated how much effort they put in and to what extent they experienced unpleasant feelings, such as frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance.

Dr. Bijleveld said: ‘Managers often encourage employees, and teachers encourage students, to exert themselves mentally.

‘At first glance, this seems to work well: employees and students often choose mentally challenging activities.

‘While one might conclude from this that employees and students enjoy thinking hard, the results generally suggest that most people dislike mental exertion.’

The more effort one makes, the more unpleasantness one experiences.

‘It is important that professionals, such as engineers and teachers, take this into account when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, apps, materials or instructions.’

The association between mental effort and negative feelings was less pronounced in studies conducted in Asian countries compared to studies conducted in Europe or North America.

Dr. Bijleveld argues that this is consistent with the idea that the way someone responds to mental effort depends on their learning history.

According to him, high school students in Asian countries tend to spend more time on schoolwork than students in Europe or North America, which allows them to learn early in life to handle a higher level of mental effort.

Although some tasks are mentally challenging, people still do them voluntarily. It could be useful for employers to take this into account, says Dr. Bijleveld.

‘Why do millions of people play chess, for example? People can learn that exerting mental effort in certain activities is likely to lead to rewards.

‘If the benefits of chess outweigh the costs, people may choose to play chess. They may even report that they enjoy playing chess.

‘However, when people choose to engage in mentally demanding activities, this should not be taken to indicate that they necessarily enjoy mental exertion. Perhaps people choose mentally demanding activities despite the exertion, not because of the exertion.’