Performance incentives increase time invested in the assisted reasoning task¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3 · i2 medium
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i2 Participants receiving performance incentives took longer to complete the chunk-based reasoning task than participants without incentives. → Dawid Ratajczyk 2026

Evidence¶

Dawid Ratajczyk 2026¶

Dawid Ratajczyk, Agata Dymarska, Adam Matłoka, Michał Tomczyk, Małgorzata Wiącek. (2026). Thinking With AI, Reasoning Without It: Cognitive Offloading to Generative AI Weakens Effort Regulation. Preprint. https://osf.io/59qtm/ doi:10.31234/osf.io/83jum_v1

q3 · i2 · causal · r2

Stage 1 completion time in the preregistered lab experiment, analysed with a 2×2 ANOVA on fourth-root-transformed times. The quoted test shows incentives significantly increased completion time, η²p = .060; incentive-condition participants averaged 1262.17 s versus 1077.48 s without incentives.

"However, there was a significant main effect of incentives on completion time (𝐹(1,153) = 9.82,𝑝=.002,𝜂 2 𝑝 =.060)."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Time and Continuity — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Participants deprived of relevant relational knowledge in Stage 1 take longer on the subsequent network-reasoning task — related
• GenAI use weakens effort adjustment to incentives on subsequent unaided reasoning — related
• AI assistance reduces subjective mental effort across all tasks even when it does not reduce completion time, dissociating time and effort — related