ArticleEmotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion2025
Affective Influences on the Intensity of Mental Effort: 25 Years of Programmatic Research.
Article in Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Physiological responses to acute psychological stress as a biomarker for depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletinPooled it
- Put Your Oxygen Mask on First: When Regulators Feel Worse, They are Less Effective at Interpersonal Emotion Regulation.Affective science · 2026Article
- Cardiac Autonomic Dynamics Differentially Shape Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind: Evidence From Respiratory Manipulation.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- A Hitchhiker's Guide to Physical and Cognitive Effort.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Review
- Self-Protection Motivation and Its Psychological Construction: A Process Model Distinguishing Two Unique Motivational Orientations.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Review
- Interest and effort in learning and performance.The British journal of educational psychology · 2026Article
- Approach Motivation and Reward Sensitivity: Effects of High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) to Brain Hemispheres on Effort-Related Cardiovascular Response.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article highlights the systematic impact of experienced and implicit affect on the intensity of mental effort. The key argument is that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge can influence responses in the cardiovascular system reflecting effort intensity by informing individuals about task demand-the key variable determining resource mobilization. According to the motivational intensity theory, effort rises with experienced demand as long as success is possible and the necessary effort is justified. Twenty-five years of programmatic research have provided clear evidence that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge systematically influence the intensity of effort. Importantly, affect's impact on effort is moderated by task context variables, like objective task difficulty, incentive, and other general boundary conditions.
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Registered trials
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.