Research on aversion to cognitive effort? I was reading Danny K's recent book for fun (Thinking Fast and Slow, 2011), and he suggests briefly that some people's reliance on their intuitions (i.e., "System 1") might sometimes indicate a sort of aversion to cognitive effort (i.e., "System 2").  

For example, if you give a participant "Joe" a tricky problem that has an intuitive but false answer, Joe might not think too hard about the question, so he'll just give his (false) intuition.  In this case, Joe does not attempt elaborative processing or sustained cognitive effort (i.e., engaging System 2) because he has learned that this can be unpleasant and/or tiring.  Thus he relies on his intuition and gets the question wrong.

While there are probably many alternative explanations for Joe's behavior, it seems that aversion to mental effort could be one.  Is there any research exploring this idea? Or any research that frames it in another way (e.g., something to do with affective forecasting, learning, self-regulation)? Or am I totally making this up?
Yes, if I understood your question correctly, there is a great deal of research in Social Psychology about humans being "cognitive misers". In layman's terms, it means that humans find mental effort aversive and hence tend to rely on heuristics, categories or mental shortcuts while making judgements or while making decisions.

The theory comes within the domain of Social Cognition, and it was first introduced by social psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor. It challenges the assumption in traditional economics that holds consumers as rational decision makers, and as a consequence this theory has been influential in behavioral economics. Kahneman and Tversky's work on documenting human biases can be understood simply as an extension of human's inherent limitations in cognitive processing.

This theory is very useful in political science, where voter decisions are studied. Furthermore, it also explains social phenomenon such as stereotyping.

Sources:  

Fiske, S.T., &amp; Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social Cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070211914.

Tversky, A.; Kahneman, D. (1974). "Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases". Science 185 (4157): 1124–1131. doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124. PMID 17835457.

Macrae, C. N., Milne, A. B., &amp; Bodenhausen, G. V. (1994). Stereotypes as energy-saving devices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 37–47. doi:10.1037/0022-
3514.66.1.37