Imagine that you have a test tomorrow that you need to study for. How much cognitive effort will you put in? Researchers have found that your behavior can be predicted by the calculation of the costs and benefits of studying. What might these costs and benefits be?
To keep it simple, we can say that the benefit of studying is to obtain a good grade. Obtaining a good grade is better for your final report, and you may just like getting good grades. An important cost has to do with the level of cognitive effort you must exert—to obtain a good grade, you will sometimes have to think harder.
Researchers describe your decision to use cognitive effort as a function of the potential benefits and costs. You could think of this as a math equation: the sum of costs and benefits results in a certain value. The more you value something, the more likely you are to put cognitive effort into it.

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2020.00073