When I got my first job as a waiter, my boss insisted that we never sit down during our 14-hour shifts. Even when no customers were around and all the tasks were done, we had to stand up straight, not so much as to touch a chair.
My colleagues and I tried to argue that taking time off every now and then would allow us to be more productive overall, especially since there were plenty of empty schedules. But he didn't want to know. He explained to us that if people walked in and saw the staff not working, they would have a bad impression of the place.
My boss isn't the only one who thinks there's something worthwhile about the ordeal.
Effort as a sign of worth
In a new paper, researchers from the Universities of California and British Columbia report a series of studies showing that people intuitively attribute moral value to effort.
People in the US, South Korea and France judged employees to be more moral when they worked harder, even if the extra effort did not produce more or yield higher quality products. They also valued people who tried harder as better people—even if someone produced the same result without effort.
For example, people preferred to interact with a person who had run a few meters and felt exhausted, rather than someone who had run the same run without suffering.
These results add to the long literature suggesting that effort is related to concepts of value.
At first, this seems strange. From a rational economic point of view, those who can do the same job with less effort should be preferred because they are more capable and have more potential. In fact, study participants acknowledged this by judging those who put more effort into the same outcome as less competent, but still viewed them as more moral.
Moreover, these results are surprising in an evolutionary sense. Natural selection does not favor useless traits. Why would this psychological predisposition to value inefficient behaviors be so widespread?
Effort as a sign of commitment
Ata që janë më të përkushtuar ndaj një kauze duhet të jenë të gatshëm të bëjnë më shumë përpjekje për të. Prandaj, duke vëzhguar përpjekjet e tyre, ne mund të vlerësojmë diçka më pak të vëzhgueshme: nivelin e tyre të përkushtimit.
Nëpërmjet mundimit, njerëzit sinjalizojnë synimet e tyre bashkëpunuese duke deklaruar gadishmërinë e tyre për të mbështetur traditat, normat dhe idealet e grupit.
Kur intuitat shkojnë keq
Megjithatë, ekziston një paralajmërim. Pavarësisht dobisë së tyre, intuitat tona për vlerën e përpjekjes së tyre shpesh mund të na çojnë në rrugë të gabuar. Zbatuar në kontekstin e gabuar, intuitat tona mund të dështojnë. Për shembull, këmbëngulja e shefit tim për t’u “munduar”, kontribuoi në krijimin e një fuqie punëtore të lodhur në mënyrë kronike, të demoralizuar dhe rrjedhimisht, të pakënaqur.
Adapted by Dimitris Xygalata, anthropologist and cognitive scientist
