Why we are wired to believe working hard is a virtue and how to overcome it

Does working hard make you a good person?

University of British Columbia psychology professor Azim Shariff has found we have deeply engrained societal biases that link hard work to morality, even when that work has no purpose or value.

He explains when we see a person working long hours, even if they are doing things that don’t add value or take another person half as long to complete, we are conditioned to think they are highly moral.  

And this bias is universal across cultures. 

This mindset differs for entrepreneurs whose perspective is to value outcomes over effort because it leverages their time to achieve more.

If your conversations focus more on what you want the outcome to be and celebrate creativity, ingenuity and learning from how it was approached, you can shift the cultural dial towards valuing smarter outcomes and overcoming the bias of “working harder is better”.