Effort Expenditure Decreases Risk Aversion When Dealing With Gains but Not Losses

Separate lines of research suggest that people tend to avoid mental effort, but also value it. Evidence for this effort paradox in the same context is scarce. We tested whether people discount effort prior to the investment of effort and value effort following its investment. In three preregistered experiments (total N = 450), participants repeatedly chose between executing a low-effort task for a small reward and a high-effort task for a larger reward. Participants then chose whether or not to gamble with their rewards. As people tend to become more risk averse as subjective value increases, we reasoned participants would be less likely to gamble with rewards the harder they had to work for them. In Studies 1 and 2, we framed the experiment in terms of gaining rewards. In Study 3, we framed the experiment in terms of losing rewards. In all three studies, effort was discounted prospectively, meaning people demanded higher rewards to invest more effort. Contrary to our predictions, we found that people were more likely to gamble with the rewards the more effort it required to obtain them, but only when the rewards were framed in terms of gains (Studies 1 and 2). Collectively, these results suggest that any potential effort paradox is unlikely to occur when people are aware of the association between investing effort and gaining rewards. Our results also imply a novel hypothesis, namely that the aversive feeling accompanying effort might motivate people to engage in risky behavior.