If you’ve ever felt physically exhausted after a long day sitting at your desk, scientists may have discovered why.
Thinking intensely often triggers feelings of intense frustration, stress and even pain, according to a major new study.
As a result, the Dutch experts behind the research insist that employers should do more to “reward and support” staff for giving them difficult work.
European workers were more prone to discomfort compared with those in Asian countries and “really dislike mental effort,” they added.
“The greater the effort, the greater the discomfort people experience,” said Erik Bijleveld, a doctor at Radboud University in the Netherlands who led the study. “When people are required to make substantial mental effort, you need to make sure you support or reward them for their effort.”
The results of the study suggest that, overall, most people find that mental effort harms their mind and causes frustration.
The study, 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 strain.
They analyzed whether mental effort is associated with unpleasant feelings and whether those feelings depend on the task or the population involved.
The study involved a variety of participants, including healthcare workers, military personnel, amateur athletes and university students from 29 countries.
The study involved more than 350 cognitive tasks, including learning a new technology, navigating an unfamiliar environment, practicing golf swings and playing a virtual reality game.
In all the studies analyzed, participants reported the level of effort they exerted as well as the degree to which they experienced unpleasant feelings such as frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance.
Dr Bijleveld said: ‘Managers often encourage employees, and teachers often encourage students, to exert mental effort.
‘At first glance, this seems to work well: employees and students often opt for activities that pose a mental challenge.
‘While this may lead one to conclude that employees and students like to think intensely, the results suggest that, in general, most people actually dislike mental effort.’
The greater the effort, the greater the discomfort people experience.
‘It is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to take this into account when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, applications, materials or instructions.’
The association between mental effort and adverse feelings was less pronounced in studies conducted in Asian countries compared to those in Europe or North America.
Dr Bijleveld suggests this fits with the idea that how we respond to mental effort might depend on people’s learning history.
High school students in Asian countries tend to spend more time on schoolwork than their European or North American counterparts and may therefore learn to endure higher levels of mental effort from an early age in their lives, he said.
Even though some tasks are mentally challenging, people still willingly take part in them, and it could be beneficial for employers to consider this, Dr Bijleveld added.
‘For example, why do millions of people play chess? People can learn that mental effort in some specific activities is likely to lead to a reward.
‘If the benefits of chess outweigh the costs, people may choose to play chess and even say they enjoy chess.
‘However, when people choose to engage in activities that require mental effort, this should not be interpreted as an indication that they enjoy the mental effort itself. Perhaps people choose activities that require mental effort in spite of the effort, not because of it.’
