How Do You Get People To Work Harder? Keep The Reward A Secret

NPR:

When we’re asked to do something, we often ask, “What’s in it for me?” or “What am I going to get out of it?” Research suggests not knowing what you will get can sometimes be a strong motivator.

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GREENE: …And it is actually that the mystery of not knowing why you are doing something can actually make you want to do it more, which sounds a little surprising. What’s this new research?

VEDANTAM: Well, that’s right. So when you think about human behavior, most of us think that we actually want to know what’s going to happen. If I ask you, David, would you work at NPR, but we’ll tell you only at the end of the year whether you’re going to get paid and how much you’re going to get paid? You probably would say, no, I don’t want that job. There’s too much risk and uncertainty.

I spoke with Ayelet Fishbach at the University of Chicago. She turns out to have a different point of view. Along with Lucy Shen and Chris Hsee, Fishbach finds that there are times when actually not knowing would you’re going to get is actually a very strong motivator. So let me tell you about one of the experiments she conducted.

Read the whole story: NPR