Individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort: Relation to need for cognition, motivation and cognitive capacity

Anne Wil Kramer; Anna C.K. Van Duijvenvoorde; Lydia Krabbendam; Hilde M. Huizenga

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100978

Individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort: Relation to need for cognition, motivation and cognitive capacity

Anne Wil Kramer^*, Anna C.K. Van Duijvenvoorde, Lydia Krabbendam, Hilde M. Huizenga

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

There exist large individual differences in students’ willingness to invest cognitive effort within the academic domain. In a preregistered study, we investigated whether individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort, as assessed by an experimental effort discounting task, were related to need for cognition, academic motivation and cognitive capacity. We found that adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort was related to need for cognition and cognitive capacity as indexed by task-performance. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in need for cognition and cognitive capacity contribute to differences in adolescents’ cognitive effort-investment, but academic motivation does not.

Original language	English
Article number	100978
Pages (from-to)	1-13
Number of pages	13
Journal	Cognitive Development
Volume	57
Early online date	24 Dec 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100978
Publication status	Published - Jan 2021

Funding

AK was supported by the Start Impulse grant to NeuroLabNL from the Dutch National Science Agenda (NWA) [grant number 400.17.602 ]. HH was supported by a VICI grant awarded by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) [grant number 453-12-005 ]. LK has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 648082 ). AvD was supported by an ORA-grant [grant number 464-15-176 ] (partly) financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) . The funding source had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, nor the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Funders	Funder number
Dutch National Science Agenda
ORA-grant	464-15-176
Northwest Airlines	400.17.602
European Research Council
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	453-12-005
Horizon 2020	648082

Keywords

Cognitive capacity
Cognitive effort
Effort discounting
Motivation
Need for cognition

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title = "Individual differences in adolescents{\textquoteright} willingness to invest cognitive effort: Relation to need for cognition, motivation and cognitive capacity",

abstract = "There exist large individual differences in students{\textquoteright} willingness to invest cognitive effort within the academic domain. In a preregistered study, we investigated whether individual differences in adolescents{\textquoteright} willingness to invest cognitive effort, as assessed by an experimental effort discounting task, were related to need for cognition, academic motivation and cognitive capacity. We found that adolescents{\textquoteright} willingness to invest cognitive effort was related to need for cognition and cognitive capacity as indexed by task-performance. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in need for cognition and cognitive capacity contribute to differences in adolescents{\textquoteright} cognitive effort-investment, but academic motivation does not.",

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AU - Van Duijvenvoorde, Anna C.K.

AU - Krabbendam, Lydia

AU - Huizenga, Hilde M.

PY - 2021/1

Y1 - 2021/1

N2 - There exist large individual differences in students’ willingness to invest cognitive effort within the academic domain. In a preregistered study, we investigated whether individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort, as assessed by an experimental effort discounting task, were related to need for cognition, academic motivation and cognitive capacity. We found that adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort was related to need for cognition and cognitive capacity as indexed by task-performance. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in need for cognition and cognitive capacity contribute to differences in adolescents’ cognitive effort-investment, but academic motivation does not.

AB - There exist large individual differences in students’ willingness to invest cognitive effort within the academic domain. In a preregistered study, we investigated whether individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort, as assessed by an experimental effort discounting task, were related to need for cognition, academic motivation and cognitive capacity. We found that adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort was related to need for cognition and cognitive capacity as indexed by task-performance. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in need for cognition and cognitive capacity contribute to differences in adolescents’ cognitive effort-investment, but academic motivation does not.

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Individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort: Relation to need for cognition, motivation and cognitive capacity

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