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Surprising science of how to motivate people
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I'll show you the power of incentives.
A professor in Princeton University did an experiment which is called "Candle Problem".
In Candle Problem, people are given a candle and tacks in a receptacle and a lighter.
Then, they have to light a candle not to get the wax dripped onto a table.
The solution is to put the candle on a receptacle and fix it on a wall with tacks.
But people often take 5 or 10 minutes to solve the problem, because in the receptacle, there are tacks, and they tend to consider it as a receptacle for tacks and don't use it for a receptacle for the wax.
He gathered students and divided them into 2groups.
He said to the first group like this:
"I want to time you and know the average time for typical people to take to solve this problem."
He also said to the other one like this:
"I'm gonna give you 10 dollars if you are in the top 25 percent of the fastest times, and you get 50 dollars if you are the fastest of everyone."
The result of the experiment is, against what most people might expect, that the average time of the second group is 3 minutes longer than the first one.
It wasn't an accident. It has replicated for 40 years.
It shows that extrinsic motivators, which most companies give to their workers, doesn't work better than intrinsic motivators.
It shows clearly that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does, and it's time to rethink about it.
A professor in Princeton University did an experiment which is called "Candle Problem".
In Candle Problem, people are given a candle and tacks in a receptacle and a lighter.
Then, they have to light a candle not to get the wax dripped onto a table.
The solution is to put the candle on a receptacle and fix it on a wall with tacks.
But people often take 5 or 10 minutes to solve the problem, because in the receptacle, there are tacks, and they tend to consider it as a receptacle for tacks and don't use it for a receptacle for the wax.
He gathered students and divided them into 2groups.
He said to the first group like this:
"I want to time you and know the average time for typical people to take to solve this problem."
He also said to the other one like this:
"I'm gonna give you 10 dollars if you are in the top 25 percent of the fastest times, and you get 50 dollars if you are the fastest of everyone."
The result of the experiment is, against what most people might expect, that the average time of the second group is 3 minutes longer than the first one.
It wasn't an accident. It has replicated for 40 years.
It shows that extrinsic motivators, which most companies give to their workers, doesn't work better than intrinsic motivators.
It shows clearly that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does, and it's time to rethink about it.
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A professor at Princeton University did/performed an experiment which is called the "Candle Problem".
In the experiment/Candle Problem, each person is given a candle, tacks in a receptacle, and a lighter.
Then, They have to light the candle but not to let the wax dripped on(to) the table.
People, however, often take 5 to 10 minutes to solve the problem because of the tacks in the receptacle. They tend to consider it as a receptacle for the tacks instead of as a receptacle for the wax.
He gathered the students and divided them into two groups.
To the first group, he said:
"I will time you(r performance) and calculate the average time it takes for people to typically solve this problem." (polite version)
To the other group, he also said to the other one like this:
"I'm (gonna/)going to give you ten dollars if you are in the top 25 percent of the fastest times, and you'll get 50 dollars if you are the fastest out of everyone."
The result of the experiment is, contrary to what most people might expect, is that the average time for the second group is three minutes longer than the first one.
The results have/It has been replicated for (over) 40 years.
It clearly shows that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does, and it's (probably about) time to rethink it/this.