
Science confirms it: People are not pets - mjirv
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/opinion/sunday/science-rewards-behavior.html
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CydeWeys
This is one of those findings in psychology that's always seemed suspect to
me.

What is salary if not a reward for work done on an ongoing basis? The vast
majority of people would not do their jobs for free; they need that reward for
them to keep doing it.

Similarly, I've tried harder at my current job than at previous jobs because
the performance review, promotion process, and merit bonus/raise programs are
much more rigorous. My employer hasn't gotten more and better work out of me
as a result, and I've gotten better promotions and raises as a result too. Is
this not a "reward"? I've seen, with my own eyes, coworkers putting in long
hours at crunch time for a shot at a better annual bonus or higher chances of
promotion (at companies where effort is fairly evaluated and rewarded).

What possible levers does a business have to pull to entice performance from
its employees if not monetary compensation? Every other reward in lieu of
money is (correctly) perceived to deeply cynical. Businesses exists to make
money, and if you make them more money but instead of sharing that with you
they just give you something intangible like praise, then they're ripping you
off.

If effort can't be rewarded with money, then shouldn't the entire economy
collapse? That is the basis of capitalism after all. Something seems to be
deeply off with these studies.

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CydeWeys
> My employer hasn't gotten more and better work out of me as a result

s/hasn't/has/

I can't edit this post anymore, but I need to correct this huge typo as it
greatly affects the meaning of the post.

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Sarki
Yeah, well thanks for stating the obvious...

When you have kids you come very quickly to the realization that rewards
aren't a mean to efficiently motivate. However intrisic motivation is exaclty
this: intrinsic.

So what? Unless you can do Inception in your kids dreams to push them to
realise that what you ask them is not what you want but what's actually good
for them, you're bond to use rewards because that's the only thing that
actually works.

Intrinsic motivation comes from the realization that you must do something for
good (your own or others, but in the end it's only for you... but that's
another ethical topic).

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setr
So If I didn’t misread, as long as you continously give the incentive,
everythings fine and still works as intended? For teaching this is ofc dumb
and explicitly not the outcome you want, but for eg sales incentives, it works
as expected (and probably much easier to do than convince your marketers that
they really do want to sell that product at the highest price for the benefit
of everyone and everything)

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Eridrus
As long as you don't remove it, you haven't made performance worse, but you
may not have made it better either, and you have probably done damage to
intrinsic motivation.

For sales, this may be fine, to the extent that no one has intrinsic
motivation for sales, and the countervailing forces of how sales folks are
usually compensated, but fixed salaries are probably better for motivation,
but maybe not for your hiring/cash flow.

