Labor and Motivation Flashcards
Do people necessarily complete tasks primary for monetary benefits?
No.
Imagine you’re an employer. Some of your employees have done work that your company has decided to not use. Would acknowledging their unused work be important for their willingness to do future work?
Yes, if the acknowledgement buffered your employees from a sense of meaninglessness
You are about to sell a painting you have made. What is one possible result of the IKEA-effect?
You think your painting ought to cost $300, but others think it ought to cost about $50.
What does the IKEA effect show?
Adding slightly more effort to the act of creation can increase its subjective value to the creator.
How could clothing retailers take advantage of the IKEA effect?
They could offer clothing that is easily customizable and requires some work on the part of the customer.
How does the Toothbrush Theory illustrate the IKEA effect?
We overvalue our own ideas and undervalue the same ideas when they come from others.
How does Zappos use cognitive dissonance to make their staff more motivated?
Zappos pays people to turn down their job offer so that people who accept the offer will justify their decision by valuing their job highly.
What is the relationship between monetary bonuses and performance?
It depends on the type of task that you are measuring
Monotonous, mechanic, tasks: monetary incentives increases performance
Creative tasks: monetary incentives decreases performance.
How might social factors be similar to stress about big monetary stakes?
Anxiety caused by public pressure impedes performance, much like high financial stakes.
What is the relationship between happiness and giving?
It’s a cyclical relationship, where happier people give more, and giving makes people happier.
Anik, L., Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). Feeling good about giving: The benefits (and costs) of self-interested charitable behavior. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper
How does the thought of money affect peoples motivation to engage in prosocial behavior?
“At a general level, the mere thought of money undermines people’s motivation to engage in prosocial behavior”
Anik, L., Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). Feeling good about giving: The benefits (and costs) of self-interested charitable behavior. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper
Which regions in the brain is specifically activated when giving money to charity?
“At the most basic level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence shows that giving money to charity leads to similar brain activity in regions implicated in the experience of pleasure and reward.”
Anik, L., Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). Feeling good about giving: The benefits (and costs) of self-interested charitable behavior. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper
Why might people prefer something they co-created to products that required no labor?
- They value a product they created more than an identical product that someone else created
- They can customize it to their own tastes and idiosyncratic preferences
- They enjoy the process of creation
- The product signals to a person that they are competent.
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper
What seems to make people perform worse on mental tasks (those involving creativity, problem solving, and memory)?
- Being offered a very high reward for high performance
- Competition
- When the task poses an ego-relevant threat
- Ariely, D., Gneezy, U., Loewenstein, G., & Mazar, N. (2009). Large stakes and big mistakes. Review of Economic Studies
How do we explain the difference between how people behave before there is a monetary fine and how they behave after a fine is introduced?
When a fine is introduced, the social consequences are removed, (and it becomes worthwhile to parents to spend a bit of money to be late).
Gneezy, U., & Rustichini, A. (2000). A Fine is a Price. The Journal of Legal Studies
