Environmental Problems & Solutions
Human motivation
Prompts a person to action.
Types of motivators: extrinsic and intrinsic.
Few people are either all extrinsic or all intrinsic.
Interplay of values.
Extrinsic motivation
Receiving external rewards (carrot) and avoiding punishment (stick).
External rewards: e.g. money, fame, grades.
Can be useful to encourage first steps toward change.
Financial incentives can backfire.
‘Experimental economists have found that offering to pay women for donating blood decreases the number willing to donate by almost half, and that letting them contribute the payment to charity reverses the effect. Consider another example: When six day-care centers in Haifa, Israel, began fining parents for late pickups, the number of tardy parents doubled. The fine seems to have reduced their ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as simply a commodity they could purchase.
Dozens of recent experiments show that rewarding self-interest with economic incentives can backfire when they undermine what Adam Smith called “the moral sentiments.”’
Samuel Bowles
When Economic Incentives Backfire
Harvard Business Review (March 2009)
Intrinsic motivation
Self-motivated: originates within an individual.
Personal satisfaction.
Has meaning/purpose.
Mastering new skills.
Intellectual curiosity: have a love of learning.
Self-growth: e.g. going for a run because you find it relaxing or are trying to beat a personal record, not to win a competition.
Feel a sense of duty, a higher purpose.