Abstract
How do performance incentives impact subjective experiences of mental effort? Incentives may offset the costs of effort expenditure, resulting in reduced feelings of effort. Or they could lead to an increase in effort expenditure and a corresponding increase in feelings of effort. We tested the influence of incentives on experiences of effort, fatigue, and affect in a series of four experiments (N = 894). Participants completed a mentally challenging task (an n-back task) under conditions of a monetary incentive for good performance or no incentive, manipulated in both within-subjects and between-subjects experimental designs. Results revealed that incentives increased feelings of mental effort, especially in within-subjects designs. Incentives also increased pleasant affect and reduced fatigue, especially in between-subjects designs. One implication of these findings is that incentives for good performance increase mental effort and task engagement without increasing aversive affective states.