The surprising truth about what motivates us

The surprising truth about what motivates us(youtube.com)

12 points by aweida 16 years ago | 5 comments

knowtheory 16 years ago |

What a trite and naïve rephrasing of Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs ). I will certainly grant that Economists and Business people need to have these ideas battered into their thick crania, however it's irritating to have the speaker present ideas as if they were novel which are not only not novel, but actually thousands of years old.

If you pay people well enough to decouple their concerns about economic survival from their work, it shouldn't be surprising that there isn't a relationship between increased reward leading to increased performance. That's a pretty fundamental part of the humanist movement which predates the French and American Revolutions (Liberté, égalité, fraternité! or Americans might prefer Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). Even then, Humanism was merely the popularization and egalitarian movement to provide for everyone the model which the wealthy and elite have been following since at least the time of Aristotle!

Put succinctly, this guy isn't describing the Open Source movement, he's describing at least 2500 years of Academia. You pay people a tenured salary, because they, free of concerns regarding economic security, will produce works for the benefit of all.

And this is telling for two reasons. First, Academia is not free from woe and misery. Second, and i would hope that Economists would realize this, just because you have (partially) removed monetary incentives, does not mean that there is no currency or economics in Academia. The reason why the "Publish or Perish" mentality exists, is because it's what's used to differentiate academics. Academics trade on their reputation, and their reputation is measured based on publication.

ent 16 years ago | |

It is true that this is pretty much meant to be a populized presentation but I would say it's still quite interesting (at least, for a non-psychologist). It does pack quite alot in a short and entertaining video :)

Also, I don't think Maslow's Heararchy of Needs really explains why people perform worse when they are paid more. According to it, shouldn't paying more just stop making much of a difference after a certain point?

DenisM 16 years ago | |

I think any attempt to further our common understanding should be welcome. clearly previous attempt didn't work very well because this video is news for most people who have seen it.

knowtheory 16 years ago | | |

I certainly don't deny any such attempt. But i think that again it's a bit naive to say that things like this are new, and ignore historical precedent. I think that self-actualization and being able to determine the course of one's life is important, especially for work (i certainly wouldn't be able to live any other way). But treating that as a panacea for misery in the work place, or saying that it'd address the ethical lapses of places like Wall Street is naive or perhaps disingenuous.

I'm not knocking the message, i'm knocking the delivery and lack of context.

georgecmu 16 years ago |

Duplicate.

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1408731]