It really hurts to think, new study concludes

NEW YORK, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Mental exertion leads to irritation, frustration or other negative feelings in many situations, supporting the concept that it hurts to think, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

The study, conducted by Radboud University in the Netherlands, appeared Monday in the association's monthly journal, Psychological Bulletin.

Managers and educators frequently encourage individuals to exert mental effort, prompting them to often choose mentally challenging activities.

While this may indicate that people tend to enjoy thinking hard, the new study suggests the opposite, senior author Erik Bijleveld, a psychologist and associate professor at Radboud University, told UPI via email.

"So, it is useful to realize that, when it is really necessary to ask people to exert substantial mental effort, it is best to support or reward them," Bijleveld said.

He pointed out that "there is a longstanding controversy in psychology about mental effort. Many psychologists assume that people avoid mental effort whenever they can."

They may take "mental shortcuts, like going with their gut feeling when making a decision, about something -- say, about which restaurant to go to -- rather than to weigh all relevant pieces of information, which is a lot of mental work," Bijleveld said.

Earlier studies indicate that people who can choose between two activities are more likely to opt for the one that requires less effort, he noted, adding, "In short, we know, generally, people prefer the path of least resistance, also mentally. So, it may well be true that people dislike mental effort."

Bijleveld added that "on the other hand, psychologists also assume that people can easily learn associations between mental effort and rewards." He cited an example of students often receiving compliments in schools and universities after they have exerted mental effort.

"So, in life, there are plenty opportunities to learn that mental effort is linked to reward," he said. "If this is true, people may well be able to learn to enjoy mental effort."

To address this issue, Bijleveld and his collaborators decided to summarize and analyze a large amount of previous data on people who exerted mental effort.

They performed a "meta-analysis" of 170 studies, published between 2019 and 2020 and consisting of 4,670 participants, to examine how people generally experience mental effort.

A meta-analysis is a method for combining data from multiple studies to develop a single conclusion that has more statistical power.

The research team tested whether mental effort is associated with unpleasant feelings and whether that link depends on the task or the population involved.

These studies involved a variety of participants -- for instance, healthcare workers, military employees, amateur athletes and college students -- from 29 countries.

The research team collected data from 358 different cognitive tasks -- learning a new technology, finding one's way around an unfamiliar environment, practicing golf swings and playing a virtual reality game, to name a few.

In all studies that researchers analyzed, participants reported the level of effort they exerted and the extent to which they had unpleasant feelings, such as frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance.

Across all populations and tasks, the more significant the mental effort, the higher the unpleasantness that participants experienced.

"The most striking finding was that mental effort feels unpleasant in such a wide range of settings and contexts," Bijleveld said.

"We really looked hard for possible exceptions -- maybe effort feels nice just in some tasks, or just for some people -- but we found no compelling evidence for this."

However, Bijleveld noted that mental effort seemed to feel slightly less unpleasant in Asian populations compared to their North American and European counterparts.

"This finding is intriguing," he said. "It could be explained by differences in school systems. Most of the data from Asia in our study was from China and Japan, and in those countries, children and adolescents do spend comparatively a lot of time on schoolwork."

As a result, "exposure to mental effort early in life may train people to become more able to withstand higher levels of mental effort later on," Bijleveld said, while cautioning that other explanations may exist.

For instance, the words "effort," "frustration" and "irritation" could have different connotations in other languages. Nonetheless, "mental effort was still clearly associated with negative feelings, also in Asia," he said.

Intuitively, it makes sense that people would avoid demanding pursuits, said Stephanie Cox, a professor and clinical psychologist at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown. She was not involved in the study.

"This fact may also correlate with the overall rise in more passive forms of entertainment, media and leisure," Cox said. However, people shouldn't necessarily avoid something inherently strenuous, she added, citing exercise as an example.

"We do not want to steer clear of all activities that are meaningful and valuable in our lives just because they may be taxing," she said.

Simplifying things can help people struggle less mentally and experience better mood, said Michael Hoerger, an associate professor of psychology at Tulane University in New Orleans, who complimented the comprehensive study.

"The findings have broad implications," Hoerger said. "For example, a well-organized job application that is easy to read can help a hiring manager expend less mental effort, maintain a good mood and offer a job.

Also, he observed that "when shoppers are making purchases, they may be more satisfied if given only a few good options rather than everything under the sun."

David Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said it's important to differentiate between mental challenges and anxiety, depression or other serious distress that warrants professional help.

"Challenges -- mental or otherwise -- are almost always part of the package when people are pursuing their goals and dreams," said Rosmarin, who also is a clinical psychologist at McLean Hospital, which serves communities in eastern, southeastern and central Massachusetts.

"Our culture is simultaneously allergic to aversion," he added. "But ironically, we pride ourselves on performance and success, which require withstanding adversity and being resilient in the face of stress."