Learned industriousness

Abstract

Extensive research with animals and humans indicates that rewarded effort contributes to durable individual differences in industriousness. It is proposed that reinforcement for increased physical or cognitive performance, or for the toleration of aversive stimulation, conditions rewards value to the sensation of high effort and thereby reduces effort’s aversiveness. The conditioning of second-ary reward value to the sensation of effort provides a dynamic mechanism by which reinforced high performance generalizes across behaviors. Applications to self-control, moral development, and education are described. Some individuals are more industrious than others of equiva-lent ability and motivation. One student consistently studies harder than a classmate in a variety of courses. A teacher care-fully prepares lessons, whereas a colleague uses outmoded and incomplete notes. A factory employee carries out assignments diligently as compared to a coworker who exerts only enough effort to avoid being fired. Learning may make a major contri-bution to such individual differences in industriousness. Six decades ago, J. B. Watson (1930/1970) argued that the formation of early work habits in youth, of working longer hours than others, of practicing more intensively than others, is probably the most reasonable explanation we have today not only for success in any line, but even for genius, (p. 212)