Effort feels bad. We dodge it, minimize it, complain about it. But we also crave it. In our new paper, we revisit the effort paradox and show why the aversion and the attraction make sense. With @aidanvcampbell.bsky.social & @blairsaunders.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🎉 Our paper is now out in Communications Psychology! We explore how effortful leisure (like puzzling) can be a source of meaning in daily life. Across 5 studies (N = 2,569), we find: - Effort makes leisure feel more meaningful - But not necessarily less enjoyable 🧵 doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Japan gets something we don't: the subway cleaner and burger cook aren't weird for caring so much about his work—they're practicing a philosophy of presence. Meanwhile we optimize everything into meaninglessness. New post! open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...

🚨New paper alert! 🚨 I've been fascinated by this contradiction for years: we hate exerting effort, yet we value things more when they're difficult to achieve. Is the effort paradox real, illusory, or adaptive? Have a read! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I confess: I spent decades selling a self-control narrative that was wrong. My latest post explains why willpower doesn't work the way we thought, and how we accidentally created a moral meritocracy around personality traits we don't choose. open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...

The Paradox of Hard Work: Why do people enjoy doing difficult things? www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Received news that my paper with @minzlicht.bsky.social was accepted at Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin🥳. In it, we examine how trait measures of empathy predict everyday state empathy, and what this teaches us about how we measure and experience empathy: osf.io/preprints/ps... #empathy

Does effort make life more meaningful? Was Sisyphus living the dream? In our new paper (now accepted in Cognition!), across 6 studies with nearly 3,000 participants, we found that more effortful tasks feel more meaningful 🧵