Effort justification

What it is

Valuing an outcome more because we worked hard for it.

Related

• Cognitive dissonance bias
  Effort that would otherwise seem wasted is justified by valuing the outcome more.
• Sunk-cost fallacy bias
  Past effort makes the thing feel more valuable, so we keep going.
• Liking bias bias
  We like what we have worked for, including groups that made us work to join.
• Choice-supportive bias bias
  Having chosen or worked for something, we remember it more favourably.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#60: Effort justification

References

• Wikipedia: Effort justification en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”