We're Hard-Wired for the Least Effort

For life to exist, energy is required, and a lot of that energy gets put into efforts to accomplish goals or challenges. Yet, much of the time we make choices based on what we think will require the least effort, not necessarily what is the best choice to make in itself. Whatever is more challenging is often seen as less appealing.

_{OTA Photos/dlickr, CC BY-SA 2.0}

A study published in eLife suggests the brain calculates the cost of effort for various options. This then influences the behavior we ultimately choose to do. Not only that, but it even affects our perception. The higher the cost to act, the less we pay attention to that option and no longer even see it. Our perception becomes hindered by the cost of effort.

The lowest hanging and easiest to grab fruit requires the least effort. We won't even bother looking at, let alone trying to grab, the rest of the fruit (options) so essentially we don't even see the rest. "What other fruit, what other options? All I see are those in front of me." We think the lowest hanging fruit is the best to choose, and just go with it because of the least cost of effort.

Researchers had 52 people take a series of tests involving a cloud of moving dots. They were asked to judge whether the cloud was moving left or right. They would move a handle in the desired direction to indicate their judgment. As expected, participants would move the handle in the same direction as the moving dots.

Here's where the cost of effort shows it's head to bring us down. When the researchers added a resisting load to one of the directions, the participants became biased and tended to shift their judgments to avoid the effort. Instead of moving the handle in the same direction as the dots, the direction that had the resistance resulted in an avoidance of responding in the direction which required the most effort. There was a tendency for people to not push the handle in the correct direction.

This means that even if the cloud of dots was moving left, but the resistance weight was applied towards the left handle, people were more likely to judge that the dots were moving towards the right because it was easier for them to choose that direction. Apparently, they started to "see" the dots move in the direction opposite to that of the resistance. Imagine that.

And strangely, when participants were asked to verbally respond with an answer for the movement, they were still answering with a tendency to avoid choosing the direction that had the most effort required. The brain changed how they interpreted the visual input to influence their behavior into choosing the path which required the least effort. And this is all happening automatically from our heuristics that choose the quickest and least effortful methods to get through life.

The results of the research suggests that the traditional view of the motor system is incorrect. It's not strictly an output process that only expresses our decisions based on what we see, as if the motor process wasn't influencing the decision. The motor response seems to feedback and report the effort required to actualize a decision into an action. That feedback of the effort experienced will influence whether the choice we make is actually what is represented in reality, i.e. we don't see the actual reality of the dots moving left, but make ourselves believe they are going right instead.

So rather than report the actual movement as it is, the brain is fooling itself into an incorrect answer in order to choose the easiest option. The research also suggests that people will be less likely to see the world a certain way if certain behavior is more effortful.

Changing behavior is a difficult thing to do. Many of us have addictions to various things, such as smoking, food, alcohol, drugs, entertainment, or whatever else. Changing our behavior is something that requires more effort than continuing to do what we already have been doing.

Instead of changing our behavior towards what we know is better, we often choose to keep doing what is easier and not change. This influences us to not even see or consider changing our behavior anymore since it's already determined to be too much work compared to the "better" easier option of not changing. Our choices become seen in a more limited or nonexistent (i.e. not seen) way. Then we may not even see any option or alternative choice and we just keep doing what we do, to our own detriment.

The easier path isn't always the best. Sometimes the best path is the hardest with the most effort required. It's often the case where the high hanging fruit is better. Reach for and accomplish the challenges that bring greater long-term success. Is vote-selling and vote-buying really what's going to bring greater long-term success for the Steem platform? Or is it simply the easiest and least effortful path that keeps us dragged down and not seeing the reality of how this behavior is hurting the platform's long-term success?

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Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

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