ArticleBMC psychology2021
Dispositional individual differences in cognitive effort investment: establishing the core construct.
Article in BMC psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Noninvasive Brain Stimulation over the Frontopolar Cortex Promotes Willingness to Exert Cognitive Effort in a Foraging-Like Sequential Choice Task.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Trial
- The two faces of cognitive motivation in cognitive stress: The stress-reducing effect of positive affect and the stress-intensifying effect of motivation.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Metacognitive Ratings on Cognitive Tasks: Task Difficulty and Effort Rating Differences in Children With ADHD and Neurotypical Children.Journal of attention disorders · 2026Article
- Exaggerated frontoparietal control over cognitive effort-based decision-making in young women with anorexia nervosa.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Cholinergic Denervation Patterns in Parkinson's Disease Associated With Cognitive Impairment Across Domains.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- The role of cognitive motivation and self-regulation in coping with occupational demands.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Learned industriousness as a translational mechanism in anorexia nervosa.Nature reviews psychology · 2023Article
- Cognitive effort investment: Does disposition become action?PloS one · 2023Article
- Using machine learning to investigate earning capacity in patients undergoing psychosomatic rehabilitation-A retrospective health data analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Dispositional individual differences in cognitive effort investment: establishing the core construct.BMC psychology · 2021Article
- Cognitive Motivation as a Resource for Affective Adjustment and Mental Health.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Dispositional cognitive effort investment and behavioral demand avoidance: Are they related?PloS one · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIndividuals tend to avoid effortful tasks, regardless of whether they are physical or mental in nature. Recent experimental evidence is suggestive of individual differences in the dispositional willingness to invest cognitive effort in goal-directed behavior. The traits need for cognition (NFC) and self-control are related to behavioral measures of cognitive effort discounting and demand avoidance, respectively. Given that these traits are only moderately related, the question arises whether they reflect a common core factor underlying cognitive effort investment. If so, the common core of both traits might be related to behavioral measures of effort discounting in a more systematic fashion. To address this question, we aimed at specifying a core construct of cognitive effort investment that reflects dispositional differences in the willingness and tendency to exert effortful control.
methodsWe conducted two studies (N = 613 and N = 244) with questionnaires related to cognitive motivation and effort investment including assessment of NFC, intellect, self-control and effortful control. We first calculated Pearson correlations followed by two mediation models regarding intellect and its separate aspects, seek and conquer, as mediators. Next, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis of a hierarchical model of cognitive effort investment as second-order latent variable. First-order latent variables were cognitive motivation reflecting NFC and intellect, and effortful self-control reflecting self-control and effortful control. Finally, we calculated Pearson correlations between factor scores of the latent variables and general self-efficacy as well as traits of the Five Factor Model of Personality for validation purposes.
resultsOur findings support the hypothesized correlations between the assessed traits, where the relationship of NFC and self-control is specifically mediated via goal-directedness. We established and replicated a hierarchical factor model of cognitive motivation and effortful self-control that explains the shared variance of the first-order factors by a second-order factor of cognitive effort investment.
conclusionsTaken together, our results integrate disparate literatures on cognitive motivation and self-control and provide a basis for further experimental research on the role of dispositional individual differences in goal-directed behavior and cost-benefit-models.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.