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Opportunity cost calculations only determine justified effort – Or, What happened to the resource conservation principle?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2013

Guido H. E. Gendolla  and
Michael Richter
Guido H. E. Gendolla
Affiliation:
Geneva Motivation Lab, FPSE, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland. guido.gendolla@unige.chmichael.richter@unige.chhttp://www.unige.ch/fapse/motivation/
Michael Richter
Affiliation:
Geneva Motivation Lab, FPSE, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland. guido.gendolla@unige.chmichael.richter@unige.chhttp://www.unige.ch/fapse/motivation/
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Abstract

We welcome the development of a new model on effort and performance and the critique on existing resource-based models. However, considering the vast evidence for the significant impact of experienced task demand on resource allocation, we conclude that Kurzban et al.'s opportunity cost model is only valid for one performance condition: if task demand is unknown or unspecified.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , December 2013 , pp. 686 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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