The Work and Play Lab is serious about mental and physical effort, but also about leisure and rest. The lab is primarily focused on understanding the nature of effort, how people push themselves to reach their goals. This has led to an emphasis on the psychology of self-control and the related concepts of cognitive control and executive function. For example, work in the lab has examined how self-control wanes over the course of a day as fatigue and boredom set in. It has also examined an unappreciated aspect of empathy: that empathy requires effort, and as such is often avoided.

Inspired by the philosopher Josef Pieper who said that work is the means of life; leisure the end, the lab has started focusing on how people spend their free time and the consequences of these choices. For example, work in the lab is examining why and how people use Twitter, and some of the consequences of this use for wellbeing and political polarization. Work in the lab has also examined the joys of empathy—when people celebrate and resonate with others’achievements. Current projects on leisure also include questions about recreational cannabis use and the downsides of people treating their work as leisure.

In the past, the lab also conducted research on prejudice and discrimination, especially at they impact academic performance. Also noteworthy is the lab’s commitment to open and transparent science, which among other things includes regularly running replication studies.

What follows are questions that have guided the lab’s research and representative publications that address these questions.

Self-Control

Why is self-control so hard? Is self-control a limited resource? Does self-control help people reach their goals? What strategies do people use to control themselves? Is ego depletion real?

Is empathy hard work? Can AI express empathy well? Are doctors especially empathic? Does empathy feel good? Do people readily share in other’s good fortunes?

Do people avoid mental effort? Do people find effort meaningful? Is exerting effort boring? Can people be taught to value hard work? Do people prefer effort over doing nothing?

Why doe people use social media and how does it make them feel? Does cannabis make people lazy and unmotivated? Why do we find smartphones so addictive? What kinds of leisure promote wellbeing and a sense of meaning and purpose?

Why are women under-represented in math and science? Can negative stereotypes undermine academic performance? Can anti-racism interventions ironically increase prejudice?

Is the well-known ego depletion effect replicable? How does social psychology move on from decades of questionable research practices? Are self-replications valuable? Why are meta-analyses problematic?