Honesty is a complex and tricky thing, and we don't want to be honest all the time. Dan Ariely More Quotes by Dan Ariely More Quotes From Dan Ariely When we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and payment as the same thing, but the reality is that we should probably add all kinds of things to it - meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etc. Dan Ariely motivation pride reality To summarize, using money to motivate people can be a double-edged sword. For tasks that require cognitive ability, low to moderate performance-based incentives can help. But when the incentive level is very high, it can command too much attention and thereby distract the person’s mind with thoughts about the reward. This can create stress and ultimately reduce the level of performance. Dan Ariely stress mind people There's something about [cyclically] doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating. Dan Ariely seems The experiments show quite clearly that, as you resist more and more temptation, you're actually more and more likely to fail. Dan Ariely failing temptation shows The problem with opportunity cost is that opportunity cost is divided among many, many things. Dan Ariely cost problem opportunity When you're in pain, tomorrow doesn't exist - just the pain - and the only thing that you want in the world is for it to go away. Dan Ariely going-away pain world In total, by giving people $30 bonus, Intel lost almost 5 percent of productivity. That's a lot. Now, think about it. You give money because you think this would increase motivation. It actually decreases motivation. Dan Ariely motivation people thinking Why would you take money out of your paycheck at the beginning of the month when you don't know how much money you'll need? Dan Ariely paychecks months needs Who would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more. Dan Ariely suffering loss people I don't want to say that the poor are inherently cognitively diminished, but at the end of the day of making difficult, tough decisions, it's very hard to have the energy to think about things with the right mindset. Dan Ariely the-end-of-the-day decision thinking Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it’s about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding. Dan Ariely letting-go loss sports Rainy day savings are incredibly important, because from time to time, bad things happen. And if you're not prepared for that, it's going to be really terrible. Dan Ariely rainy-day saving important The real issue is, how much goodwill do you invest in the work? And goodwill is not something that we can buy with money. It's very hard to buy goodwill with money. Dan Ariely real It is helpful to think of people as having two fundamental motivations: the desire to see ourselves as honest, good people, and the desire to gain the benefits that come from cheating - on our taxes or on the football field. Dan Ariely motivation football cheating that when given the opportunity, many honest people will cheat. Dan Ariely honest opportunity people In terms of the actual curriculum for management education, my own view is very simple-minded: The world is incredibly complex, it changes all the time, and we should not even hope that we could create a general model that accurately describes the world in all its possible states. Dan Ariely simple views world None of us always make the best financial decisions. Dan Ariely financial decision With everything you do, in fact, you should train yourself to question your repeated behaviors. Dan Ariely behavior should facts Kids don't care what party they have, right? They want cake and they want to run around. Nothing else matters. But in this escalation, all the kids want parties like their friends. So, if all the friends have an amazing, expensive party, they all want the same thing. If we all got to scale down as a coordinated effort, all the kids would have been just as happy. Dan Ariely party running kids We can think about how we reduce the pain in paying. So, for example, credit cards are wonderful mechanisms to reduce the pain of paying. If you go to a restaurant and you are paying cash, you would feel much worse than if you were paying with credit card. Why? You know the price, there's no surprise, but if you're paying cash, you feel a bit more guilt. Dan Ariely pain guilt thinking
