Thread by @azimshariff

Really happy with our new paper—"The Moralization of Effort"—now out in JEP:G. The paper shows how people find the expenditure of effort morally good, even when the effort produces nothing of economic value.
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psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-85…

This was a real labor of love, years in the making, with 5 rounds of revisions. It was hard work, especially for 1st author & newly-minted PhD @JaredCelniker. The paper shows that this kind of effort makes people see Jared as more moral, and a more attractive cooperation partner

If there are 2 ppl producing the same number of widgets, of the same quality, but one of them requires less effort to do so, this low effort person is seen as ⬆️competent, but ⬇️moral. Further, he is less like to be chosen as a partner in a trust game than the high effort person

We find similar effects in the US, France and South Korea, and in domains of paid employment, personal fitness, and charitable fundraising. The more you run (and the more effort it takes you), the more moral you are. Co-author @pkpiff runs a lot.

This effort moralization may be a deeply rational social heuristic. People willing to invest high effort in even useless tasks (maybe especially in useless tasks), may be more likely to be capable and willing to invest effort in cooperative tasks with you.

However, as with other folk-economic beliefs, deeply rational intuitions at the individual level can lead to problematic norms at the societal level. The valuation of effort for its own sake, regardless of productivity, can create perverse incentives.

Work can be meaningful, but one wonders how much of the effort we expend is done primarily or even exclusively to burnish our moral reputations. How much of what we celebrate in society is just effort porn?

The societal scaling up of intuitive effort moralization may explain our appreciation of hardworking artists and athletes, but it can also explain workaholism and "bullshit work"--the joyless devotion to mundane work that produces little beyond the signal of effortful engagement.

The #FutureOfWork is in flux. AI & Automation, the Great Resignation, WFH, UBI. Technological & economic challenges and opportunities will collide with psychological ones. Understanding how people moralize effort will be worth the...well, you get it.

Co-authors:
Lead author @JaredCelniker
Andrew Gregory (@gregoryscience)
Hyunjin Koo
Paul Piff (@pkpiff)
Pete Ditto (@BizarroPolitix)
official: psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-85…
preprint: psyarxiv.com/nh9ax/