Should You Try Harder? – the Relationship Between Cognitive Effort and Performance, as Mediated by Perceived Difficulty
While common sense would often have us believe that trying harder leads to better results, the connection between the two has been tenuous within the relevant literature. This paper investigates the connection between cognitive effort and task performance, by manipulating perceived task difficulty. The study tracked self-reported measures of gaming frequency, self-efficacy, Need for Cognition and various perceptions towards the task, including perceived challenge, positive affect, negative affect and tension. These measures were analyzed in relation to perceived difficulty and performance on a reaction-time task – the Google Chrome Dino game. Data analysis showed a statistically significant interaction effect of gaming frequency and perceived difficulty on performance: higher performance scores were associated with lower perceived difficulty, in low gaming frequency individuals, and conversely associated with higher perceived difficulty in high gaming frequency individuals. No statistically significant relationships were observed between perceived difficulty and performance, or Need for Cognition and performance, contradicting previous research in the field. These findings suggest that environmental factors may be more important than personality factors in determining the impact of perceived difficulty on performance; in particular, the results indicate that familiarity with a skillset may have a more impactful role in determining the effectiveness of exerted cognitive effort than Need for Cognition and other personal differences. Future research would benefit from exploring the generalizability of these findings, especially within different contexts and larger sample sizes, to more clearly assess the implications for task performance and work strategies.