Nudge Blog & Employee Motivation in Cartoons | Psych at Work »
I just discovered this entry on the Nudge Blog (their tagline is “improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness”). It’s an illustrated/cartoonized version of Dan Pink’s talk on what motivates employees and what doesn’t and I’ve embedded it here (below). It highlights the point that money isn’t always or the only solution. I love to see intelligent research and findings explained in creative ways like this and so I just had to spotlight it here! (The Nudge Blog is also pretty awesome and I definitely recommend it!)
Hard-Wiring Happiness | Brain Pickings »
With a link to the talk at Columbia University by Srikumar Rao (of Are You Ready to Succeed? fame)
Psychology Journal #2
Journal #2: Paying Girls Not to Get Pregnant, July 23, 2009 by Carin Ford (higheredmorning.com)
The University of North Carolina’s come up with an unusual incentive in hopes of encouraging teen girls not to get pregnant. In an attempt to reduce the number of teen pregnancies, UNC at Greensboro is providing classes in abstinence and the use of contraceptives to girls ages 12 to 18 — and paying them a dollar a day not to get pregnant. Girls who attend the 90-minute weekly meetings – and who don’t get pregnant – collect $7 at the end of each week. The money is put aside and can be collected when the girls enter college. But is it ethical to pay girls not to have babies? Or is this a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures? The teen birth rate is on the rise these past two years, with 7.2 pregnancies for every 1,000 teenage girls. Although a handful of girls enrolled in College Bound Sisters have gotten pregnant since it began more than 10 years ago, there are also success stories. This fall, in fact, four graduates will begin college with the help of the money – in some cases, $3,000 – they’ve earned in the program.
What do you think? Is this a good idea to pay girls to avoid becoming pregnant to reduce the teen birth rate? Bonus points are offered if you take the time to look up intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and think about those ideas.
Although current sex education programs are definitely lacking and need to find a way to reach today’s youth, upon researching the pros and cons of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, I have to disagree with this manifestation of the sex education movement. Paying girls to not get pregnant can be equated to treating the symptoms instead of the cause. Instead of helping these girls to realize their self worth, motivate themselves by setting goals, and practice critical thinking to evaluate the consequences of their actions, UNC has effectively demeaned these girls self actualizing motivations and replaced them with shallow capitalistic ones. Although this may be an effective strategy to keep the sniffles of pregnancy at bay, the underlying pneumonia of self-defeating thought processes is still present. The fact that the girls can not collect on their stipends until they enter college may seem like great motivation, but one must consider the possibility of extrinsic motivation causing subversive behavior in response to an authoritative figure dictating what is right. UNC telling these girls they can not have the money unless they enter college, when college may not be their chosen path, seems a likely cause for the pregnancies of some of the participants.
Self-entitlement of grads can be a curse »
by Jean M. Twenge - May. 30, 2009 12:00 AM
My Turn
This month and next, thousands of young people will receive diplomas from high schools, colleges and graduate schools. Those graduating this year face the daunting task of finding jobs in perhaps the worst economy since the Great Depression. They also face another challenge: overcoming their childhood of plenty and the sense of entitlement it created.
“Within our generation, we think we have to start at the top,” Chris Ramos, 24, a 2009 graduate of California State University-San Marcos, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. He is not alone. According to a Harris Poll taken last year, 21- to 31-year olds were voted the most greedy and self-indulgent - even by the twentysomethings themselves, who were actually more likely than older generations to agree that the young generation had these entitled attitudes.
A recent study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence is even more disturbing. It found that two-thirds of college students believed their professors should raise their grades if the student simply explained that he or she was trying hard. One-third believed that if they attended most of the classes for a course, they deserved at least a B in the class. Almost a third thought they should be able to schedule the final exam around their vacation.
For college faculty members like me, these findings quantify attitudes that sometimes annoy us. But there is a much more serious consequence to such entitlement, one that falls on the young people themselves: What happens when these students do poorly on a project for their first job but expect praise because they “tried hard?” Or they find that just showing up isn’t enough to keep a job? Or they think it’s OK to miss the big presentation because they have something more relaxing to do? Even before the recession made jobs more precarious, it was clear that the transition between college and the working world would be difficult for many in this group.
Of course, these young people did not raise themselves. It wasn’t their idea for kids’ sports leagues to give trophies to children who merely showed up. Parents told kids they were special and argued with teachers when this specialness wasn’t recognized. Young people didn’t write the TV shows they watched that featured people experiencing overnight success.
Yet young people are now paying the price for these attitudes that have left them so ill-prepared for the realities of the workplace. Sadly, many will find they lack the work ethic and attitude necessary to succeed. In time they might learn, but the lesson will be time-consuming and painful.
To make matters worse, many young people believe that self-centered and entitled attitudes will help them succeed. My research finds that recent generations of college students score higher in narcissism, or having an inflated sense of self, than their predecessors. Quite to my surprise, young people usually readily agree that yes, their generation is pretty self-focused.
But, they argue, this is a good thing - it’s necessary to be self-centered to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. You have to self-promote, and you have to have lots of self-confidence to make it.
Unfortunately this strategy is unlikely to pay off. Highly self-centered people are often overconfident and take too many risks; studies show they are more likely to drop out of college and to produce highly volatile results that can bankrupt companies. Entitled people create conflicts with others.
And self-promotion, very useful in the correct dose, can prove toxic if used too heavily or combined with a haughty attitude. Even high self-esteem, though good in some ways, does not cause success; the definitive research review found no definite link. As just one example: In the U.S., the ethnic group with the lowest self-esteem is Asian-Americans, who also demonstrate the best academic performance.
The good news is that many young people are motivated, hard-working and not entitled. Even in this economy, they will succeed. For those still expecting a trophy just for participating, the road will be longer, rougher, and filled with the potholes created by an upbringing of unrealistic expectations. The silver lining of this recession is that they will learn this lesson sooner rather than later. And, hopefully, we can raise the next generation to avoid the curse of entitlement.
Jean M. Twenge is an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University and co-author of the recently released book “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement” (Free Press).
Why Getting Revenge Isn't Worth It | Psychology Today »
Recently, an editor at PT asked me to dig up some good juicy stories about revenge. Most of the ones I found dealt with how the scorned practiced retribution against their (ex) lovers’ bodily appendages à la Lorena Bobbit.
Reading about these unique crimes of passion got me thinking about my own style of revenge, which surprisingly, is NADA. But why? Is it because I’m a Leo—so self absorbed that I’m not willing to invest the energy and finesse required into seeking meticulously planned retribution? Perhaps, it is simply because I’ve never been hurt so badly… no wait, not true either.
I had a cheating boyfriend too. Like these newsworthy women, I was also enraged, but my rage never turned into a breaking news segment on the 6’oclock news. Instead, I locked myself in the bathroom for hours, trying to talk to my best friend, hoping she would tell me why this happened? I was so busy trying to understand the dynamics of the situation, I didn’t know what to do. Was revenge a healthy response?
Related Articles
- Strength is in. Power is out.
- From a Single Man – and Fetching Writer – Who Lost Everything in a California Blaze
- Get a life: Should it mean understand a life or just move on?
- Retaliation Self-efficacy: Lessons in Cool from a Streetfighter
- Advice: Consensual Affair
According to social psychologist Kevin Carlsmith of Colgate, the reason for revenge is to achieve catharsis. However, his recent study suggests that revenge is, in fact, counterproductive to achieving that goal. The study explains that those who seek to punish continue to think about the perpetrator, keeping the pain and the anger very much alive in their minds, while those who “move on” or “get over it” think less about the perpetrator. Carlsmith’s team tested this theory by staging an interactive game where players could earn money if they all cooperated with one another. However, if a player did not cooperate, he could earn more at the expense of the others. Researchers planted certain “free riders” who would encourage everyone else to cooperate, but would later not cooperate himself. Two groups were tested—one that could punish the “free rider” (and they all did), and one that could not punish.
Interestingly, the results showed that revenge was not as sweet as it sounds. The punishers reported feeling worse than the non-punishers, but also predicted that they would have felt far worse if they hadn’t been able to punish. On the other hand, the non-punishers, the happier group, believed that they would have been happier if they had the opportunity to seek revenge against the “free rider.”
What does this all mean?
Carlsmith says, “Rather than providing closure, it does the opposite: It keeps the wound open and fresh.”
He suggests that when we don’t get revenge, we can trivialize the event. We are able to tell ourselves that because we didn’t go crazy (hacking away our boyfriend’s body parts), it wasn’t the end of the world, after all. That way, it’s easier to move on.
The verdict?
Studies say no to revenge. It only hurts yourself. Still, love, hate or hurt can drive any woman crazy, so men out there, please be on your best behavior.
Main Reference:
Carlsmith, Kevin M., Wilson, Timothy and Gilbert, Daniel, The Paradoxical Consequences of Revenge (September 29, 2008). Journal of Personalityand Social Psychology, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=1277905
Jen Kim is a PT intern
Bob Sutton: Testosterone Levels, Top Dogs, and Collective Group Confidence »
My favorite behavioral science website, BPS Research Digest, posted a summary of an amazingly weird and rather troubling psychological experiment. The upshot is that people —- both men and women —- vary in testosterone levels and (no surprise), when people with high testosterone levels aren’t in leadership positions, “they can find it stressful and uncomfortable when denied the status that they crave.” A bit more surprising is that the reverse is true as well, that “people low in testosterone find it uncomfortable to be placed in positions of authority.” The main finding from the research is that when groups suffer from “mismatch” between status and testosterone levels (where those with high testosterone levels are placed at the bottom of the pecking order, and those with low levels are placed at the top), the group has less confidence in its abilities get things done. I quote from the BPS summary:
Michael Zyphur and colleagues assigned 92 groups of between 4 and 7 undergrads to an on-going task that involved meeting twice a week for 12 weeks, and included creating a professional management-training video. Six weeks into the project the researches measured the participants’ testosterone levels via saliva samples. They also asked all members in each group to vote on each others’ status. Then six weeks after that, at the end of the project, the researchers measured each group’s collective efficacy by summing members’ confidence in their group’s ability to succeed.
The key finding was that groups made up of members whose status was out of synch with their testosterone level tended to have the lowest collective efficacy. The researchers think that testosterone-status mismatch within a group probably has a detrimental effect on that group’s collective confidence. However, another possibility, which they acknowledge, is that a lack of group confidence leads to a mismatch between testosterone levels and status among group members.
The implication is fairly horrifying —- perhaps companies will start using testosterone levels to make decisions about whether or not to put people in leadership positions. Even if it is “evidence-based” (although these results are preliminary), the thought makes me a bit sick.
Here is the reference:
Zyphur, M., Narayanan, J., Koh, G., & Koh, D. (2009). Testosterone–status mismatch lowers collective efficacy in groups: Evidence from a slope-as-predictor multilevel structural equation model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110 (2), 70-79.
I actually posted about this article before, but liked what Sutton says and how he wrote about it, so voila!
Today's children decide their school and career path early | Eureka! Science News »
Today’s children decide their school and career path early
Published: Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 08:14 in Psychology & Sociology
‘What is very striking,’ says Professor Croll, ‘is that for this generation there is absolutely no gender stereotyping in hopes for the future. Furthermore, what children say at the age of 11 about school participation after the age of 16 is highly predictive of their actual behaviour.’ The research concludes that to increase participation in schooling post-16, schools need to focus on giving advice and information to children as soon as they enter secondary education. Greater attention also needs to be paid to social relationships, in order to make school a more enjoyable experience for some children. But the study acknowledges that schools face a difficult balance between encouraging high expectations and providing realistic opportunities and goals.
Girls are as likely as boys to see themselves as supporting families and boys are as likely as girls to see marriage and children as a significant part of their lives. However, by far the most important, for both boys and girls, is getting a good job. School is seen as instrumental in achieving this.
‘A major background of the research is concern for relatively low levels of participation in education post-16,’ says Professor Croll, ‘as well as the under-representation of children from disadvantaged backgrounds at university.’
However, the study found no support for the view that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have attitudes to education or value systems that are incompatible with those of school. Indeed, virtually all children think school is important.
Furthermore, although intentions for post-16 participation are lower than might be hoped, only a small proportion of the children said that they definitely would not go to university. This suggests that the possibility of higher education is becoming a norm for this generation of young people.
The study found that a significant number of children were confused about the educational routes available to them and did not understand the link between specific educational and employment opportunities. For example some planned to go to university but also said they intended to leave school at 16.
More significantly, the children in the study were occupationally ambitious with 70 percent choosing professional and managerial occupations. Children whose own parents were in such occupations were more likely to be ambitious but two-thirds of children whose parents were in manual occupations wanted professional and managerial jobs for themselves.
‘Many more children wanted these kinds of jobs regardless if these jobs will be available in the future,’ says Professor Croll, ‘and the question arises of not just who wants them but also who will get them.’
Professors Croll and Attwood have fed their findings into the Government initiative on raising the participation age (RPA) and have briefed MPs on their work.
The study, which is designed to advance our understanding of how young children see the educational and occupational possibilities available to them and how they begin to make choices, shows that boys and girls from all backgrounds see education as important for the future.
The ESRC will return to this issue of young people’s aspirations as apart of the longitudinal study, Understanding Society. For the first time thousands of young people will be surveyed about their attitudes offering a new insight into this group.
