When do people want something back for their mental labor? Based on equity theory, we propose that conscious experiences of success and effort—which emerge during cognitive work—shape people’s subsequent desire for social and monetary rewards. We examined this idea in a series of experiments, in which participants carried out a cognitive task, in which we manipulated task difficulty (easy vs. difficult) and performance feedback (high vs. low) within subjects. After each trial of this task, we probed people’s desire for compensation, in terms of social appreciation or money. Findings were in line with the entitlement hypothesis, which assumes that the experience of success can cause people to feel entitled to money. However, we found only indirect support for the effort compensation hypothesis, which assumes that the feeling of effort increases the subsequent desire for compensation, and no support for the intrinsic reward hypothesis, which assumes that people desire less social appreciation after already having experienced success. When considered together, our results suggest that labor-related feelings (of success and effort) shape people’s subsequent desire for money and social appreciation in several ways. These findings have potential implications for the effective use of performance feedback in work contexts.

中文翻译：

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认知劳动塑造了对社会和金钱补偿的渴望

人们什么时候需要脑力劳动回报？基于公平理论，我们建议在认知工作中出现的成功和努力的自觉经历，会塑造人们对社会和金钱回报的随后渴望。我们在一系列实验中检验了这个想法，在这些实验中，参与者执行了一项认知任务，其中我们在受试者内部操纵任务难度（容易与困难）和绩效反馈（高与低）。每次尝试完成此任务后，我们都会从社会欣赏或金钱方面探讨人们对补偿的渴望。调查结果与权利假说相符，它假设成功的经历可以使人们感到有权获得金钱。但是，我们仅发现间接支持努力补偿假设的假设，即假设努力的感觉会增加随后对补偿的渴望，而没有发现支持内在奖励假设的假设，即假设人们在经历了成功之后便渴望较少的社会欣赏。综合考虑，我们的研究结果表明，与劳动相关的（成功和努力的感觉）以多种方式影响着人们随后对金钱和社会升值的渴望。这些发现对于在工作环境中有效使用绩效反馈具有潜在的影响。