Performance Play

I know I talk about my school a lot, but I swear, it's not because I'm on some weird propaganda play. It's really just because my school releases some interesting research (and is filled with really...interesting..people) and so the stories abound. I came across this article in my Economist about how you motivate people ("Making Pay Work"). This was interesting to me for two reasons: I like to be motivated, preferably by a happy, warm fuzzy feeling or, more commonly through financial means. I also like to motivate people. I've been chosen at school to be a LEAD Facilitator. This means I'm one of a group of second years that will be one of the first to welcome our 1st years to school in the fall, and we'll also moderate a class for these first years (called LEAD for Leadership Effectiveness and Development) that's basically a leadership class. For obvious reasons, motivation is really important in this case.

In the article, they cite that you can have a system of punishment and rewards (catch more criminals if you increase the probability that they will get caught and the severity of punishment once caught) and that you can also incentivize through money or intrinsic motivation. So they did an experiment where two groups were given a 3D puzzle and asked to create a variety of shapes. Because the puzzle was challenging and mentally taxing, intrinsic motivation was high. One group left alone worked hard. The other group was monitored and given a $1 reward for each shape they completed successfully. And then...."This payment was later withdrawn with the result that the second group now put in less effort than the first. Its members switched off, turning instead to Playboy or the New Yorker."  Now what type of experiment offers Playboy and the New Yorker? And were there any men in this study? They preferred to solve puzzles than look at Playboy in spare time? What kind of weird, inaccurate experiment was this?!

I also learned (about myself) that I'm one of those people they claim as motivated by fairness. On one hand, I have a strong desire to help those I find helpful. On the flip side, I have a desire to punish those I don't find helpful. So there's that.

Ultimately, the article concludes that one should monitor harshly or not monitor at all, because the middle ground (that most favored by scientists) actually have strong drawbacks, whereas the extremes have fewer draw backs. Better get to hardcore slacking off then.