Abstract

An important body of literature suggests that exerting intense cognitive effort causes mental fatigue and can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as indulging in high-calorie food and taking drugs. Whereas this effect has been mostly explained in terms of weakening cognitive control, cognitive effort may also bias behavioral choices by amplifying the hedonic and emotional impact of rewards. We report parallel findings with animals and humans supporting this hypothesis. In rats, exerting cognitive effort immediately before access to cocaine self-administration significantly increased drug intake. In addition, exerting cognitive effort increased the psychostimulant effect of cocaine. The effects of cognitive effort on addiction-related behaviors were eliminated and even reversed when animals could rest in their home-cage for 2–4 h before access to cocaine self-administration. Among humans, we found that expending cognitive effort increased consumption of tasty (but unhealthy) food by increasing the hedonic enjoyment of consuming the food. In addition, the effects were specific for emotionally relevant stimuli (i.e. food rewards) and did not generalize to judgment about neutral objects. Altogether these data suggest that intense cognitive effort can increase the perceived intensity of rewards and lead to their overconsumption. This effect may contribute to bad decision making induced by excessive cognitive effort and make people more vulnerable to indulge in unhealthy behaviors such as use of addictive drugs.

Details

Title
Cognitive effort increases the intensity of rewards
Author
Wahab, Mejda 1 ; Mead, Nicole L 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Stevenson Desmercieres 1 ; Lardeux, Virginie 1 ; Dugast, Emilie 1 ; Baumeister, Roy F 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Solinas, Marcello 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U1084, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Expérimentales et Cliniques , Poitiers 86073 , France 
 Schulich School of Business, York University , Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 , Canada 
 School of Psychology, University of Queensland , Brisbane, QLD 4067 , Australia 
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Oct 2024
Publisher
Oxford University Press
e-ISSN
27526542
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3191892760
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.