| In a world where almost everything can now be done by the click of a mouse or the touch of a button, the value of human effort clearly comes into question. Improvements in technology have made life so easy for us that we can do nearly everything with little to no effort. However, in the wake of these technological advances, this research shows that people still place a high premium on human effort. More specifically, I demonstrate that when effort is exerted on a good, consumers reward that effort by increasing their value or utility for the good even if the actual quality of the good is not improved. When effort is exerted, people infer that the individual exerting effort cares a great deal about the good on which effort is exerted and they want to reward the effort. Due to these positive inferences about motivation, exerting effort on a good increases its utility more than spending money on it. The “mere effort” effect is not limited only to the good receiving the effort, as effort can also improve the images of the people (or stores) exerting effort. In addition, the effort premium is moderated by the tradeoffs one must make in order to reward effort, the instructions people are given when evaluating situations where effort is involved, and cognitive capacity. |
