For my first post I researched more about what truly motivates someone to complete a project is it money or is there a much deeper reason? I came across an interesting Ted Talk by Dan Ariely who is a psychology professor at Duke University. The purpose of his study was to determine whether it was the money value that motivated a person to complete the task or the purpose of the individual task itself. He conducted an experiment where he had participants build Lego figures for a set price that successively lowered with each figure they made. He then split the participants into two groups. The first group had their finished figures put under the table and were told that these figures would be broken down later and given to someone else to build. The second group however had their work dissembled right in front of them as they build the figures one by one. The results were that group one built more figures than group two and were overall more productive. This clearly demonstrates that individuals are more motivated to complete a task if they know the task has an intended purpose and will benefit or impact someone in the future. Group one therefore had more motivation because they could see the finished product and knew that their product would be passed on to someone else to enjoy. Where as those in group two they felt a sense of disapproval as they could not understand why there hard work was being taken apart. Even though both groups were offered the same money value increments for their figures it came down to making them for a future purpose because why would you waste your time making it, for it to later get destroyed.
In my opinion I found this study quite interesting as I always believed it was money that motivated people to complete a task. Since watching this video it has broadened my understanding of motivation as being more about happiness and taking pride in your finished project. I can relate this to a real life situation such as tasks you may complete in the workplace. Let's say your boss asks you to create a proposal for an upcoming project within the company. You then spend weeks and weeks working to perfect this presentation to please your boss and impress all those working around. The interesting part is that you worked all those long nights because you understand that there is a greater purpose at the end. By this I mean that by creating this presentation not only do you feel good about your success but it can also benefit the success of your boss or even the company in general. Overall what I take from this is that motivation is not strictly about money rather you feeling pride in your work and knowing the time you spent my benefit others as well.
I know this is a lot of information to process but I want to leave with one question:
In your personal opinion what motivates us to work money or self meaning?
No comments:
Post a Comment