Evaluating Effort: Influences of Evaluation Mode on Judgments of Task‐specific Efforts

The claim that humans adapt their actions in ways that avoid effortful processing (whether cognitive or physical) is a staple of various theories of human behavior. Although much work has been carried out focusing on the determinants of such behaviors, less attention has been given to how individuals evaluate effort. In the current set of experiments, we utilized the general evaluability theory to examine the evaluability of effort by examining subjective value functions across different evaluation modes. Individuals judged the anticipated effort of four task‐specific efforts indexed by stimulus rotation, items to be remembered, weight to be lifted, and stimulus degradation across joint (i.e., judged comparatively) and single evaluation modes (i.e., judged in isolation). General evaluability theory hypothesizes that highly evaluable attributes should be consistently evaluated (i.e., demonstrate similar subjective value functions) between the two modes. Across six experiments, we demonstrate that the perceived effort associated with items to be remembered, weight to be lifted, and stimulus degradation can be considered relatively evaluable, while the effort associated with stimulus rotation may be relatively inevaluable. Results are discussed within the context of subjective evaluation, internal reference information, and strategy selection. In addition, methodological implications of evaluation modes are considered. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.