Are people motivated more by fear or reward?

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o hai guyz

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Jan 15, 2010
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Not just AM related but in business in general, I just didn't post this in Shooting The Shit because there's be too many noobs talking bullshit. For example you hire a contractor to do a job, he's late, would he be more inclined to hurry the fuck up if you (a) told him he'd get a 50% bonus if he finished it on time, or (b) told him he'll get a 50% pay cut if he doesn't finish it on time, or (c) told him you'll cancel the project and he won't get paid at all if he doesn't finish it on time?

In psychology we have Reward Theory which believes that people respond better to rewards than punishments, ie. telling your girlfriend "thanks babe, I love you, that was really thoughtful" after she bakes you a cake, versus telling her "you're such a shitty girlfriend you never bake me any fucking cakes" when she doesn't (she'll be more inclined to bake you more cakes if you used the first example - the reward).

On the flip side it's also easy to motivate people with fear, ie. which of the following is more effective - (a) telling someone you'll kill his sister if he doesn't do what you say, or (b) telling someone you'll give him a million dollars if he DOES do what you say? In most cases, the first example would motivate him a whole lot more, regardless of how "good" the second example's reward is.

What do you guys think? From personal experience rewards don't seem to be as effective because people are just like "oh well I'm not gonna get that shit anyway so I'm not even gonna try" but I don't see as many examples of punishments being used in business contexts, so I'm curious. Thoughts?
 


Generally speaking, we're innately motivated to a greater degree by the fear of losing something than the prospect of gaining something. That said, it also depends on the personality. Some people want to jump off a cliff just to see what happens, some don't want to leave their homes for the fear of the 10,000,000 things that "could" happen.
 
I might add that from a business perspective, monetary incentives are only most useful when you've hired the right person/people to begin with. Otherwise, greater financial rewards rarely get the correct behavior to any real degree from the wrong person and the right people don't generally need greater monetary incentives as they are intrinsically motivated to do a good job, or love what they are doing, or deeply believe in it etc.

Usually when someone is whining about needing more money, thats your first clue that you've made a horrible hiring mistake. Pay that person more money... and generally, that same whining will continue again in a few weeks or months.
 
I'm motivated by reward by living a great lifestyle, and also motivated by fear for losing a great lifestyle.
 
MidgetTears said:
I might add that from a business perspective, monetary incentives are only most useful when you've hired the right person/people to begin with. Otherwise, greater financial rewards rarely get the correct behavior to any real degree from the wrong person and the right people don't generally need greater monetary incentives as they are intrinsically motivated to do a good job, or love what they are doing, or deeply believe in it etc.
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So in that case, you'd use the fear motivator? something like "finish this job on time or you won't get paid shit"?
 
Everything I've read has convinced me that fear is a more powerful motivator than hope/reward/whatever you want to call it.

However, not everything can be put in those terms. If someone is looking for a book on how to play piano and you have a "Learn Piano in 10 days!" CPA offer how exactly would you phrase it in terms of fear?

Fear is best applied to the eight strong life forces (go read Cashvertising).
 
o hai guyz said:
So in that case, you'd use the fear motivator? something like "finish this job on time or you won't get paid shit"?
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My point was more that hiring the right people is the most important factor. You can't motivate an employee by fear (for any real period of time anyway), anymore than you can beat a child into becoming a great kid. The best employees are those who are there because they believe in what they are doing and because they believe in who they are doing it with. When you start breaking that down with emotional terrorism, any reasonable person quickly shifts their thinking from "us", "our project", "our company" to "screw it.. i need to take care of myself". People need security, when you tamper with that, you lose them.
 
Nice thread

Fear of the fact that I need to support my family and build a big enough stack of change to retire on and avoid poverty in my elderly years.

I don't want to be old and at the mercy of a crummy dayjob private pension.
 
o hai guyz said:
but I don't see as many examples of punishments being used in business contexts, so I'm curious. Thoughts?
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Actually, these "punishments" are everywhere:

+ countdown timers on landing pages (available for the next xx minutes!)
+ limited quantities (only 57 trials left)
+ Black Friday sales where the sheeple camp outside of stores to get one of those 10 plasma TVs (again, scarcity)
+ Every single Apple launch, where again, the sheeple camp outside of the store (scarcity played out to perfection)
 
As a hobby stock swing trader, I can tell you fear is much much more powerful emotion than greed/reward. But that is not to say using fear is a good business tactic. To get work out of people you need to not shit on them 24/7
 
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