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The present research tested the effect of manipulated perceived control (over obtaining the outcomes) and effort on reward valuation using the event‐related potential known as the Reward Positivity (RewP). This test was conducted in an attempt to integrate two research literatures with opposite findings: Effort justification occurs when high effort leads to high reward valuation, whereas effort discounting occurs when high effort leads to low reward valuation. Based on an examination of past methods used in these literatures, we predicted that perceived control and effort would interactively influence RewP. Consistent with the effort justification literature (cognitive dissonance theory), when individuals have high perceived control, high effort should lead to more reward valuation than low effort should. Consistent with the effort discounting literature, when individuals have low perceived control, low effort should lead to more reward valuation than high effort should. Results supported these interactive and integrative predictions. Our research integrated two contrasting hypotheses for how effort influences reward valuation. The hypotheses were effort justification and effort discounting. Perceived control (low vs. high) should interact with effort to influence reward valuation. When individuals had high perceived control, high effort led to high reward valuation. When individuals had low perceived control, high effort led to low reward valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This 'IKEA' effect leads us to believe that our creations are more valuable than items that are identical, but constructed by another. This series of studies utilises a developmental perspective to explore why this bias exists. Study 1 elucidates the ontogeny of the IKEA effect, demonstrating an emerging bias at age 5, corresponding with key developmental milestones in self-concept formation. Study 2 assesses the role of effort, revealing that the IKEA effect is not moderated by the amount of effort invested in the task in 5-to-6-year olds. Finally, Study 3 examines whether feelings of ownership moderate the IKEA effect, finding that ownership alone cannot explain why children value their creations more. Altogether, results from this study series are incompatible with existing theories of the IKEA bias. Instead, we propose a new framework to examine biases in decision making. Perhaps the IKEA effect reflects a link between our creations and our self-concept, emerging at age 5, leading us to value them more positively than others' creations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excess and non-functionality of religious practices appear designed to exploit the psycho-logical effects of loss aversion and effort justification in individuals. Collective rituals, for exam-ple, include features that seem to maximize these effects inducing pure waste states in its practitioners. I argue that these psychological effects provide Wiebe with a proximate mecha-nism specific to religion that explains why religion may be particularly effective in building dis-tinct groups. I propose, however, that religion may originally have developed as a technology that exploits loss aversion and effort justification in individuals to recycle their wasted efforts through narratives about gods and magical causation. This recycling technology may, at a later stage, have developed into institutionalized religion which exploits the same psychological effects of loss aversion and effort justification but for social functional purposes. Whether this later develop-ment was caused by a growing need for hazard precaution is an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effort justification phenomenon, in which greater value is given to rewards that require more effort to obtain, is frequently explained in terms of cognitive dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Here, we employed a novel combination of operant and lick analysis techniques to show that rats place more value on a sucrose reward when it follows high effort than when the same reward follows low effort. This is the first demonstration of a direct analogue of the effort justification phenomenon in nonhuman animals. As the behavior of rats is normally considered in terms of relatively simple mechanisms, the current results question the need for complex cognitive accounts for the effort justification phenomenon (in rats or humans). As an alternative, we examine the possibility that high effort produces an aversive state that enhances reward value by a process of contrast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]