Motivated Laziness

This pre-analysis plan describes an experiment about whether ignorance can serve as an excuse to be lazy. We propose a theory of motivated laziness based on models of present bias and motivated reasoning. This theory predicts particularly large discounting of the future when there is an excuse available, so that a person who is present-biased and a motivated-reasoner will use this excuse to justify myopic behavior. We modify the moral wiggle room experiment from Dana et al. 2007 by replacing their self-other trade-off with a present-future trade-off. Participants will be required to exert effort on an unpleasant task and can choose how to allocate effort between the present and a separate date in the near future. Participants will choose between two effort scenarios, one of which requires a known amount of effort the present, while the other requires an initially unknown and possibly larger amount of effort in the future. Participants may without cost learn the required future effort in each effort scenario, though they can also choose a scenario while remaining ignorant of the future consequences. The theory of motivated laziness predicts that some individuals will decline to reveal the scenario, using their ignorance of the future consequences as an excuse to avoid effort in the present.