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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 18, 2016 17:36:12 GMT
“What really motivates us is not relaxation, not comfort, it’s other things. It’s about achievement, about conquering, about pursuing some goal, about rising some peak. In behavioral economist Dan Ariely's TED talk, we see that the connection between economics and motivation is not as clear cut as previously thought, as money is no longer the primary motivating factor, but rather, one of many. In one of his experiments, they paid people to build Bionicles (Lego robots), offering $3 for the first one, then $2.70 for the second one, with a continuing diminishing payrate. People were willing to build 11 Bionicles under the meaningful condition, where they didn't have to see their robots being broken down, whereas they were only willing to build 7 under the sisyphic condition, where they saw their robots being broken down in front of them, to be reused to make more robots if they wanted to. Under this sisyphic condition, the people who loved Legos built the same number as those who didn't, suggesting that the demotivation had choked the enjoyment from Legos. Without meaning, people's motivation and effort declined. The connection between motivation and ownership/effort/work was further clarified by an origami experiment, where origami builders, especially those given hard instructions, highly valued their work, compared to an objective evaluation of the value of the origami (which was usually fairly low, since the origami was likely poorly built). He drew examples from building IKEA furniture and how we value it more because we built it ourselves, and how the popularity of cake mixes only increased after the instructions were changed to include having to personally add more ingredients (eggs and milk), because having to put in more effort makes the product more appealing. Ariely concludes that motivation is not merely payment, but a result of payment in conjunction with creation, challenge, ownership, identity, and pride. Money can sometimes be a substitute for all these other factors of motivation, but is not inherently about all these factors. How have you guys dealt with demotivation, and why do you think you were feeling not very motivated to do something? How can our society change to become more motivational, in light of the fact that economics alone is not enough to drive people anymore? TED talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfcro5iM5vw |
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Post by melody7song on Apr 19, 2016 3:29:12 GMT
I think this is a really relevant topic, especially for us freshman college students who have a plethora of distractions we can entertain ourselves with not only on our computer screens but right outside our dorm rooms. A lot of the time, just like the people without the meaning to build their Legos, we don't really think that there is meaning to the work we do. Yes, we know that there is a job and money that is a result from our studying and doing homework, but it is not direct or immediately satisfactory. Thus, it's super easy to procrastinate and not be motivated to do work. I love how these examples of IKEA furniture and things we create ourselves being more meaningful -- those core ideas of identity, challenge, ownership, and pride really do ring true. In everyday life, I know that when I cook myself a meal, it will taste better than if someone else cooked me the exact same meal.
I also want to comment on how money can be a substitute for all these other factors of motivation. I recently heard about a study that was done about happiness' correlation with money. In all countries except USA, there was a positive correlation, but in America's general population, there was none whatsoever. It was interesting seeing this and now that I see this post, I am wondering if it maybe has something to do with our motivation for earning money. Is it to benefit our lives or to show off to others..?
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Post by Emily Leung on Apr 19, 2016 5:28:27 GMT
I read Dan Ariely's book called Predictably Irrational which talked a lot about the studies he conducted that revealed how much our perception of items can affect how we experience them. For example, groups that were told the pain killer was worth more (say, a $10 bottle vs a generic $4 bottle) experienced higher rates of pain relief than people who were given the "$4" bottle even though the drugs given to both groups were exactly the same. Just by being told the price, our brain immediately perceives the drug a certain way and reacts to it accordingly.
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Post by jreitsma on Apr 19, 2016 20:03:44 GMT
I have dealt with the classic demotivation of not wanting to study, workout, or eat well from time to time. I believe I began to feel unmotivated to do these things because by maybe skipping a task I know I should do, causes a ripple effect of continuing not to do necessary tasks because of the first missed task. By not following through with certain things I am normally motivated for, I start to tell myself, well I didn't swim today, so why eat healthy? I'm already on a bad track. It becomes a downward spiral. A counter example would be when I have a productive day of studying, exercising, and eating healthy, I feel as if I have the momentum to continue to be productive the next day, and if the next day is productive, the day after that tends to be. What I am trying to say is when we feel productive, and that we are putting in the best we can in all areas of life, we tend to have a higher self-esteem, which can be a motivation in and out of itself. We feel valuable, strong and as if our life has meaning. All these can help with motivation.
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paola
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Post by paola on Apr 19, 2016 21:03:01 GMT
This thread brings up some really interesting points - and as Melody mentioned, these points are extremely relevant to our young lives today. Finding the right and correct amount of motivation to achieve our goals is a very challenging thing to do. In my opinion, motivation comes from within and comes from how one perceives his or her goal and how much one cares about it. A lot of the times, we find ourselves demotivated to do something because we find the work to get there to be meaningless. Perhaps we are disinterested in the work and thus put it off to do it later. Although in some situations it can be hard to do, in order to increase motivation in our society, people should engage in work that is meaningful to them and relevant to their everyday lives.
I recently read the essay “The Demeaning of Work”, by Barry Schwartz, which highlights the gist of what I’m trying to say. Although his essay revolves around the working place, I think we can all learn something from it. Schwartz states that there are three types of “views” one can have toward his or her job. The first view is viewing your work as a “job”. A “job” is viewed as a temporary arrangement to pay the bills until you start your career. Usually the work in this category is seen as useless to the individual. You do it for the money and that’s it. People in this category often report their job as being very demotivating. The second view is a “career”. Career minded people expect to work their way up the career ladder into positions of greater authority and more money. However, these people usually get stuck and hit a wall; they fail to achieve the career goals they set for themselves. Disappointed, these people increasingly lose motivation throughout their career path. The third view is the one Schwartz tells us to strive for - a “calling”. Those who hear a calling are not that concerned about a paycheque or about moving up. They find their work genuinely meaningful and believe that their work is making a difference in the world. These people report feeling the most motivated and happy in the working place.
Schwartz encourages us all to adopt a “calling” mentality, as that will lead us to freely given motivation and happiness. In my opinion, the implementation of such a calling should begin in institutions - where kids first learn why they go to school. Their education should be geared towards finding their liking in certain subjects and focusing on finding careers that revolve around such liking - instead of finding careers that bring you the most money.
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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 20, 2016 19:05:53 GMT
Melody: I agree with what you're saying that sometimes, the long-term motivation of getting a job after college isn't enough to motivate us in the moment. We really appreciate the short-term motivation, because it's certain, it's familiar, and we don't have to wait for it; this brings us back to the marshmallow experiment.
That's an interesting study you bring up. Tons of studies have been done regarding the happiness index in certain countries, and consistently, many Scandinavian countries top the list, though some are social democracies and thus, citizens keep a relatively little percentage of their income, compared to the United States. Many of these countries allow people to have more vacation days, and they actually take them, whereas generally most employers in the U.S. don't offer many paid vacation days, and thus people are sometimes unwilling to take them. Perhaps, in the U.S. we believe that money can be a substitute for motivation and fulfillment, when it seems that motivation is actually composed of many more factors than mere money. When we try to earn money simply to show off to others, money becomes our only motivation, and that may not be enough to equate to happiness.
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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 20, 2016 19:12:35 GMT
Emily: That study reminds of all the studies done on placebos as well, where because we're told something will work, our bodies tend to react to it as if it really will; I suppose that is the power of our mind, and also how badly we want to trust what people say is true.
Our brain seems to naturally correlate money with value, when often, as we see in the clothing industry especially, money and value are often not correlated - I can buy a shirt for $10 that's really high quality, or a really terrible quality shirt that they told me was worth paying $50 for. Why do you guys think this is? Is it because our monetary system was originally built upon equating money with value/worth?
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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 20, 2016 19:17:43 GMT
jreitsma: The studying and working out example so perfectly describes the college life I think. But actually for me, sometimes after having an extremely productive day studying and working out, the next day, I'll actually justify to myself that I don't need to be so productive, because I was so productive the day before, and then that becomes a downward spiral. I agree though that a higher sense of self-esteem after productivity is a high motivating factor, and perhaps what drives a lot of college students when they can't see the long-term goal.
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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 20, 2016 19:25:06 GMT
Paola: This "calling" mentality seems to have to stem purely from inside yourself, and independent of what happens that could potentially demotivate you, since their motivation/contribution to the world must outweigh all the cons of pursuing this occupation. Our education does seem to be geared more and more towards pursuing what you really want to do in life, rather than pursuing whatever will bring you the most money, due to the expansion of career fields in recent decades (tech, media, etc.) - it's becoming more popular to go to art school and grad schools to learn your field of interest. How can society itself (including the media and how happiness and career stories are portrayed) change to be more encouraging of the ideal of pursuing your passion?
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paola
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Post by paola on Apr 21, 2016 5:19:58 GMT
I agree with you in the sense that it’s becoming more popular to pursue one’s field of interest instead of pursuing the field that will bring you the most money. More and more people are going to specialized schools (art, architecture, film school, etc.) to pursue their passions, in hopes of making a living out of them in the future. However, in my opinion, there still seems to be a stigma attached to people who pursue a certain field that’s generally associated with a low income. In order to get rid of this stigma - or at least to begin to - the media and film industry need to change the way they portray careers. In films, for example, we often see the artists as being the poor protagonists who struggle to make ends meet during economic turmoil, whereas the men in the suits - the businessmen - are always shown as being the powerful, influential, and rich protagonists. Seeing such films, an aspiring artist would not feel very encouraged to pursue his or her passion. The film and media industry should rather portray these careers (business and art) in equal spotlight.
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Post by larissa on Apr 21, 2016 6:02:27 GMT
I also agree with paola. The majority of films portray jobs related to art or music as much harder to become successful in. Aside from jobs related in these fields, anything having to do within humanities is questioned. I've heard this multiple times on campus in where someone majoring in either English or Sociology is asked "What can you do with that?" in which case, the majority of the time people assume that the easiest route would be to just teach. Aside from the media doing their part to stop negatively portraying these sort of jobs, I feel like we shouldn't question those who plan to pursue a career within this category. That could also have an effect on the stigma and can allow for both jobs (business and art) to become "equal". |
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Post by lilyzhuo on Apr 21, 2016 20:32:17 GMT
Paola and Larissa: I definitely agree that the media tends to portray those who deviate from the traditional jobs (businessman, doctor, lawyer) as having somehow "inferior" or "unstable" lives. On the flip side, sometimes we actually look down upon/judge people who are pre-med because we think they're merely doing it because they think that's what they're supposed to do, rather than because they actually love it. Our society is trying to evolve towards being more accepting of pursuing your passion, while still retaining that sense of doubt and uncertainty towards those who do. Perhaps this is something that will only change with time, as we begin to hear more success stories about people with non-traditional jobs, and everyone will be encouraged to pursue their passions, whether they're "traditional" or not. However, it does seem that, already in this new modern era, motivation is no longer "rational," in the sense that our motivation is not primarily, or sometimes even remotely related to, money and selfishness.
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Post by nicolegreenbaum on Apr 21, 2016 21:31:15 GMT
Adding onto Emily's point, I think that price and quality have a very prominent relationship that relates to neuroscience and economics. Consumers should use a product's price to determine if the product is affordable. However, consumers also appear to use a product's price as a measure of the product's quality. Many studies have shown that when consumers have some uncertainty concerning a product's quality, the consumer often assumes that a higher product price indicates a higher level of quality. However, negative correlations between product quality ratings given by consumer union publications and the actual brand prices were often found. Why do you think that is? Why would there be such a thing as price-quality relationship if there is a negative correlation? |
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