mental models

A fellow student in my Honour's Specialist Physics course online quoted Edward F. Redish with:

"Mental models tend to minimize expenditure of mental energy. People will
often do extra physical activities -- sometimes very time-consuming and difficult -- in
order to avoid a little bit of serious thinking."

Sooooo true. It may frustrate me that my students refuse to THINK about their answers, the lab, my question, and so on but I can be equally guilty - in my lesson planning (not much, I hope!) and every day life: cooking, filing ....