game 6 of 16 · measures effort

Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT)

Inside TELLS it's “Easy or Hard” — coast for a small sure thing, or grind for a bigger, riskier one.

part of the full 16-game test · about 12 minutes

What the Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT) is

Six rounds, one repeated choice: coast for a small, nearly guaranteed reward, or grind through a burst of taps for a bigger prize that might not pay out. Treadway's Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task (2009) formalised this trade-off to measure how much work a person will volunteer when the payoff is uncertain.

What it measures

Your hard-road count is a read on ambition under risk: every 'hard' pick spends real effort on a maybe. Always coasting means you price your energy high and the odds low; always grinding means the prize — or the grind itself — is the point. TELLS feeds it into effort, with decision-making and risk shading.

Coasting

Why sprint when a walk gets you there? You conserve.

Steady

You'll dig in when the reward is clearly worth the sweat.

Relentless

You red-line for the prize, then ask for more.

Why hiring assessments use it

Assessment platforms use easy-or-hard choices to estimate motivation: who volunteers for the stretch task, who optimises for safe output. Neither answer is wrong, which is why the game works — you can't tell which one they want.

TELLS is an independent project — not affiliated with pymetrics, Harver, or any employer's assessment. This is the fun version.