Harsh ‘cognitive labor’ for housewives

We need a better understanding of the society we live in — such as the aggravating low birthrate and increasing refusal of marriage, as well as the prevalent prejudice and slander in our society.

SHIM SAE-ROMThe author is a communications team reporter of the JoongAng Holdings. Recently, the psychological term “cognitive miser” drew attention after it was introduced on a variety program. It refers to modern people who spend less energy on cognitive brain function by saving “thinking” — just like a miser who is stingy with money. In 1984, two psychology professors — Susan Fiske, a professor at Princeton University, and Shelley Talyor, distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles — presented the novel idea based on their study of human irrationality that appears in society, such as stereotype and prejudice.

KAIST Professor Jeong Jae-seung, a brain science expert, says that as the brain is an organ that uses the most energy in our body — consuming 23 percent of the total energy needed — humans tend to save intellectual energy in order to survive with minimal energy.

If one is to make a proper judgment, a complex process of exploring and collecting information, reasoning and making a decision is needed, so the brain that feels burdened by the process naturally programs itself with the habit of “thinking rashly and deciding quickly,” explains Prof. Jeong.

In an era when everyone is too lazy to use their brains, an argument recently surfaced that women, who make up half of mankind, suffer from severe “cognitive labor.” In 2019, Allison Daminger, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published a paper titled “The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor.” The professor said that women suffer from greater mental labor than men for housework and childcare. She analyzed that even when quantitative division of housework seems fair on the surface, women play the role of commander-in-chief to identify any problems with the housework and manage the whole situation, resulting in inequality of brain exhaustion.

The professor argues that running a household requires a four-step cognitive activity to anticipate, identify, decide and monitor. For instance, when you want to send a child to an afterschool class, you must spend your energy in weighing the environment (anticipate), finding out the need for private education (identify), determining which private academy to send her kid to (decide), and continuously monitoring all the progress involved.

The same applies to housework such as cooking and cleaning. In-depth interviews with 35 couples show that women had noticeable burdens in two areas — anticipate and monitor. Whether you agree with a particular theory or not, it is evident that we need a better understanding of the society we live in — such as the aggravating low birthrate and increasing refusal of marriage, as well as the prevalent prejudice and slander in our society.