“The Effort Heuristic” Revisited: Mixed Results for Replications of Kruger et al. (2004)’s Experiments 1 and 2

Abstract

Kruger, Wirtz, van Boven, and Altermatt (2004) described the effort heuristic as the tendency to evaluate the quality and the monetary value of an object as higher if the production of that object was perceived as involving more effort. We attempted two preregistered replications (total N = 1405; U.S. American participants from MTurk and Prolific) of their Experiments 1 and 2. Our first replication using an MTurk sample found support for the original’s findings regarding Experiment 2, yet failed to find support for the original’s findings in Experiment 1. Our second revised attempt of Experiment 1 on Prolific was mixed, with more nuanced findings, showing support for an effort heuristic effect for liking/quality and no support for an effort heuristic on monetary value. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy, theoretical implications and future research directions for the psychology of value and the effort heuristic. All materials, data, and code were made available on https://osf.io/qxf5c/.