(Photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels) It really does hurt to think sometimes, according to new research. Scientists say that if someone complains that it hurts to think, they may be onto something. Mental exertion appears to be associated with unpleasant feelings in many situations, according to a new study published in the journal .
Senior author Professor Erik Bijleveld, of , said: “Managers often encourage employees, and teachers often encourage students, to exert mental effort. "On the surface, this seems to work well: employees and students do often opt for mentally challenging activities. “From this, you may be tempted to conclude that employees and students tend to enjoy thinking hard.
"Our results suggest that this conclusion would be false: In general, people really dislike mental effort.” (Photo by Michael Wysmierski via Pexels) The Dutch research team conducted an analysis of 170 previous studies, published between 2019 and 2020 and comprising 4,670 participants, to examine how people generally experience mental effort. The team did so by testing whether mental effort is associated with unpleasant feelings and whether that association depends on the task or the population involved.
The studies used a variety of participants, from military employees to amateur athletes, in 29 countries and involved 358 different cognitive tasks. In all the studies analyzed, participants reported the level of effort they exerted as well as the extent to which they experienced.