Inzlicht, M. & Ben-Zeev, T. (2003). Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 796-805.
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2003
Inzlicht, M. & Ben-Zeev, T. (2003). Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 796-805.
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 645-662.
But sometimes—whether it’s running a marathon, climbing a mountain, or assembling furniture—we willingly choose difficulty over ease. Michael Inzlicht, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, calls this the effort paradox. While we often eschew hard work, other times we value it, viewing things as more rewarding if we have to work for them. We hike mountains even though we could see the same view by gondola and willingly spend more on furniture we put together than on preassembled pieces. “Both things seem to exist at once: we avoid effort, we also seem to like it,” says Inzlicht.
Famous rapper Snoop Dogg is well known for his love of the herb: He once indicated that he inhales around five to 10 blunts per day—extreme even among chronic cannabis users. But the habit doesn’t seem to interfere with his business acumen: Snoop has sold 35 million albums across the globe and has collaborated extensively with numerous other successful celebrities, including domestic doyenne Martha Stewart. He’s hardly alone in his cannabis hobby. In Canada, where I live and work, about 9 percent of residents use cannabis three or more times per week.
It’s probably all too familiar. Against your best intentions, you find yourself reaching for a late-night snack again. You snap at a colleague who didn’t really say anything wrong. You find excuses so that your daily run becomes a biweekly one. You’re convinced you don’t want to behave that way anymore, but here you are, doing it again. Psychologist Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto has long been fascinated by how we keep ourselves in check — or don’t — whether you call that willpower, self-control or something else.
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