Is Suffering a Virtue?
KEY POINTS
- Across different contexts, people intuitively link effort with value.
- This association can be a useful social heuristic, allowing us to infer desirable character traits.
- The evaluation of effort is also implicated in some of our most meaningful activities.
- As with all heuristics, this one too can backfire, resulting in waste, burnout, and unsound priorities.
Effort as a sign of value
"In a new paper, researchers from the universities in California and British Columbia reported a series of studies showing that people intuitively attribute moral value to effort.
People in the US, South Korea, and France judged employees to be more moral when they worked harder, even if the extra effort did not produce more or higher quality products. They also judged those who strived to complete a task as better people compared to those who produced the same outcome effortlessly. These findings extended to non-productive activities, like exercising: people preferred to interact with a person who struggled through a 5K run than with someone who completed the exact same run without suffering. They also preferred to support a fundraiser who ran a marathon rather than one who ran a shorter distance.
Effort as a sign of commitment
In reality, our intuitions about effort may provide a useful heuristic. Those who are more devoted to a cause should be willing to put more effort into it. By observing their effort, therefore, we can assess something less observable: their level of commitment.
This heuristic is particularly handy in situations where commitment to social norms is crucial but hard to discern, such as in groups tied by a common ideology — think of religions, armies, or criminal gangs. These groups often have strict, publicly observable requirements for membership, such as costly rituals. Through investments of effort (time spent on weekly church attendance or the pain of going through an initiation), group members signal their cooperative intentions by declaring their willingness to uphold the group’s traditions, norms, and ideals. Indeed, studies show that participants in costly rituals are seen as more dedicated and trustworthy, are preferred as cooperative partners, and are considered better mates."
Read the full available article on Psychology Today
Reflection: Do you think suffering is seen as a virtue in our society?
#Suffering #Effort #Commitment
@professionalVision2624 Suffering can be different for each person. Sometimes people find painful specific activities that other people may actually enjoy. In any case, effort is always appreciated as it is the opposite of inaction. Spending effort of succeeding even the simplest thing is very important and should be encourage. In many cases it is a sign of a healthy mind and/or body. All people can find a purpose in life and it always brings happiness to do something meaningful, whatever that means for each person. Thank you so much for the interesting post!
@calmDew1576
I agree! Thank you for commenting!
