Why Hard Work Ain't Never Easy?

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There may be scientific reason why your job always seems harder than your coworker's. A new study shows that performing an action may distort how we judge others performing similar task. Researchers found that people consistently underestimated the difficulty of a job performed by another person when they were doing the same thing. "Our brains are wired to see other people's actions in relation to our own," says researcher Antonia Hamilton of the University College in London, "Mixing up our actions with other people's actions is part of what makes us very good in social situations, but this new research has shown that this ability also colors our judgments, making it seem easier job!" she explains. Actions Distort Perceptions - In the study, researchers asked a group of people to judge the weight of a box lifted by an actor while they lifted a light weighing about 1/3 pound or a heavy box weighing more than 1.5 pounds. The study showed that actively lifting a box changed the person's perception of the weight of the actor's box. When the participants were lifting a light box, they perceived the actor's box to be heavier than it really was. And when they were lifting a heavy box, they thought the actor's box was lighter than it really was. The results are in line with a theory known as "simulation theory". This theory holds that we understand other people's actions by imagining doing the same thing ourselves. The parts of our brain observed are activated. But when we are doing something at the same time, like lifting a box, some of those areas are already busy and can't be used to help us judge what the other person is doing - making us less objective.