The Theory of Learned Industriousness

One theory explaining how people might learn to be harder or lazier workers is robert eisenberg's theory of learned industriousness. It claims that when you are rewarded for expending higher effort, the experience of effortful activity itself is reinforced. In one study, college students were given anagram solving tasks and others easy ones. On later tests of persistence on difficult problems, the high effort group did better than low effort groups. These effects are likely to be context specific. So if you have experienced rewards for high effort in athletics but not academics, you might train hard at the gim, but procrastinate more in school.