On Incentives

The new book I started today Freakonomics was published in 2005 and was on the New York Times Bestsellers list. I started this book without finishing my last book I blogged about because I tend to do that ... not finish a book. I don't like to read the ends a lot of the time. So anyway - this new book is great so far (only 25 pages into it) and is about a new way to use the tools of economics. The authors actually use economics to answer interesting questions - I like this idea. The main reason I am writing about this book already is because of this idea of incentives that it brings up.

"Economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing."
- page 20

"An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. But most incentives don't come about organically. Someone - an economist or a polotician or a parent - has to invent them."
- page 21

This particular idea has been popping up all over in my life. A little over a week ago I gave a lesson at Family Home Evening on Elder Anderson's talk It's True Isn't It? Then What Else Matters? and the thing I focused on the most was if we truly believed the Gospel to be true, how was that demonstrated in our activities? In other words, how are we spending our time and what motivated us to spend time in positive ways - or in Levitt and Dubner's words, what incentives motivate us into action? President Hinckley said it this way:

"When [an individual] is motivated by great and powerful convictions of truth, then he disciplines himself, not because of demands made by the Church but because of the knowledge within his heart."

I love this quote because I need to work on discipline sooo much.

I was telling my co-workers the other day about the positive peer pressure at The BYU to obey the honor code or even to not walk on the grass by using sayings as "Cougars Don't Cut Corners" - brilliant whomever thought that one up.

Another example of this idea popping up in my life was in a meeting at work today. We were talking about incentives to complete surveys. I completed one because it came with a $2 bill in it - I couldn't just take the money and not fill out the survey! A co-worker completed one because it came with Godiva chocolates and another co-worker completed a survey so they would stop sending it to her for the tenth time.

The book also talks about the differences between morality and reality, which to my idealistic self is very sad. "Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work - whereas economics represents how it actually does work." - page 13. I wish that these two were a little bit more in line.

Incentives. Motivation. Its what makes us tick. When listening to friends mill over a decision they have to make I always find myself saying, "you have to decide whats worth it to you." What is "worth it" to me might not be "worth it" to you ... and vice versa.

So what makes you tick? Think about it - be a little introspective for awhile. It may be more telling then you would like it to be.