Freakonomics Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have In Common?
Freakonomics Chapter 2: How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?
In 150 words, consider how motivation is a key part of context and how it has the power to sway intent. Don't worry about addressing both articles specifically; instead think thematically. (Of course, you may refer to them explicitly if you need to.)
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Motivation is the one driving point- regardless of the destination although taken into account- that influences surrounding people if the willpower is strong enough. All the components of motivation- moral, political, societal- change intent regarding your context. In chapter one, the societal component of the sumo-wrestlers context altered the decisions they made in order to help other wrestlers in the elite (the wrestlers' own society). Their overall destination is to come out on top from the rest, however their intent is swayed to help others and themselves if it means majority can come out on top. The daycare's intent is to take care of children while their parents are at work, but when parents arrive late to pick up their kids, the daycare will put a fee after pick up time as a hopeful incentive to ensure parents will arrive on time. Yet, in this specific situation, the incentives do not work, rather give the parents overall assurance that arriving late won't make them feel guilty because the connotation put on the "late arrival fees" takes away their guilt now that the company is solely revolving around money after hours instead of pure guilt. The motivation for the parents to come on time changed because the day care altered the situation. By placing a fee, they basically ended up saying: "it's okay that you're late, just pay us this amount whenever you're not on time and we're going to get along just fine." The guilt was taken away so therefore the motivation was changed. In fact, the late parents now had little to no motivation to arrive on time since they could buy their way out with a small amount.
ReplyDeleteMotivation indicates a potential outcome, with power your motivation is often swayed to keep your power or further it, but you wouldn't tell the person you're trying to influence if they get the lesser end of the deal. The context has been changed, one person knows the true motivation and outcome. When given the offer of power and influence, people are driven to reach a point to achieve that status, and in turn are more likely to try and cheat the system to ensure that influence is given to them. Power can change honest intent to corrupt motivation to secure positions of authority. Motivation, depending on the context and a variety of influencing factors, can alter the response and change the motivation of others, changing the overall context and outcome.
ReplyDeleteYou may judge yourself on intent, but others on action and what they do instead of what they mean. Intent is very important when judging what someone has done. Motivation may be just as important as intent when assessing a situation. What the person's motivation is and how much motivation they have for carrying out an action are just as important as what they mean by doing the action. The type of motivation they have, whether it be economic (e.g. monetary gain), social (e.g. being seen as "good" in the eyes of others), or moral (e.g. feeling good about what you've done) play an intrinsic role in what they do, and how much they can be swayed on intent and what they mean to do. A teacher giving false reports of test scores' motivation is primarily economic, but if changing test scores could heighten their social status,their intent would change. Intent is nothing without motivation.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the Daycare study was to sway parents to pick up their kids in a time period of 5-10 minutes by applying a 3 dollar fine. If they were late, they were forced to pay a 3 dollar fine as well as being faced with moral guilt. I expected the parents who came late to pick up their kid to come on time to avoid the 3 dollar fine, but the number of parents who were coming late increased. The motivation however did not sway the parents to repent their mistake of picking their kid late, but changed the intent and purpose of the parents and daycare. The intent of parents now are buying their way of the problem, reassuring them that they are in their own terms repenting because of the 3 dollar fine. The 3 dollar fine is their incentive, they are reassured that picking up their kids is fine, but the moral judgement of it is wrong!
ReplyDeleteMotivation was embedded in the context of the stories in the two chapters and certain circumstances allowed it to sway peoples intent. The teachers of Chicago that were teaching classrooms that had poor performing students, were in a circumstance or in a context that favoured motivation. There were motivated to cheat, and although their intentions weren't mean't to be seen as cruel, their morals were stripped when the idea of an reward was presented. They were suddenly made to think differently because of the context that was surrounding them. If you take the daycare parents as an example, the incentives of being fined for being late, motivated them to feel less guilty or no guilt at all. They were pushed to being more late, because all of a sudden paying the fine was payment for the guilt. Being a sumo wrestler mean't that if you weren't cheating you weren't trying hard enough, sumo wrestler's left their honor, for the sake of winning because you couldn't lose. All of these examples, included people that were swayed because their motivational context pushed them to go against their intent.
ReplyDeleteMotivation suggests that people are susceptible to the power it can provide. During the course of chapter 1, different scenarios were introduced in which the incentives were changed which overall changed the intentions people had. The daycare, for instance, lowered moral incentive and boosted economic incentive which completely changed the context in which parents could come late. Considering the moral incentive was lower, the parents were motivated to believe that there was nothing wrong with coming late and that it was worth nothing but a social construct in money. Motivation changes the people who seize that drive in that they begin to pursue different intentions whether they mean to or not. The examples of cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers both revolved around the idea that an economic incentive or motivation changed the context in which the two groups operated in that teachers began teaching things according to the test or sumo wrestlers began diminishing their competitiveness for money. Motivation is a key factor in swaying intent as you become driven to achieve something desirable, whether it be money, fame, promotion, or authority. This poses an experimental thought: would you allow motivation to sway you if you were in a position where there was different, unexpected context?
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking about the motivation of someone who had a certain intention you have to see the context of the situation, in court when you have someone who killed another you would look at the context of the situation, for example self defense or a serial killer, the motivation of a serial killer than a person defending themselves is vastly contrasting. The intention is very different for each person and they are directly related. As in sumo wrestlers they use a different kind of motivation depending on the amount of points they get, they want to stay in the league and therefore another person who knew they did and already had the points to succeed would throw the match and both people would be content with their wins. Their different motives in this context of the match, to win, makes each person have a swayed intention, let the other win, and if they get into their situation, they will help the same way.
ReplyDeleteThe context and intent of a situation does depend on the motivation because motivation is a form of power. When the motivation changes, so does the intent and context. If one is going to sell a pen, their intent is going to be to sell that pen. The intensity of the context of this situation changes with the motivation. If the motivation is to save your daughter by using the pen money to buy medicine, one will use their utmost capability to sell the pen. In another example, a jury is chosen to have no motivation except to bring justice and seek truth. The reason behind this is to make sure that their is no bias so the context of the trial stays in an unbiased state. Unfortunately, this does not always occur due to the motivation of others. This can sway the intent of the jury. Instead of justice being their motivation, it could be bribery.
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ReplyDeleteMotivation and intent go hand in hand and they both allude to some type of bigger goal or achievement. The context of a situation has the ability to heighten said motivation therefore changing the outcome of that goal or achievement. For example, when emotions are involved, the context of that situation is changed, which usually means that said motivation is heightened and the original outcome of the overall goal is either changed or more intensively strived for. For example, in chapter one, before the daycare applied the three dollar rule to their service, the parents felt obligated to pick their children up on time. However once the three dollar fee was enforced the parents felt no obligation, that obligation was now being compensated for with. The three dollar fee was supposed to be a way to get parents to pick up their children on time but instead all it did was act as compensation which meant that there was now no need to feel guilt. In this situation, the emotion being compensated for resulted in a reduced motivation.
ReplyDeleteChapters 1 and 2 describe how social, economic, and moral incentives change the way people do what they do. Incentives, are just a reason to do something in a way, they are factors in determining the outcome of a situation, action or decision. The importance of one incentive over another can cause a whole new resolution, and the balance or imbalance of these different motivations change the context itself. Many, if not all decisions, from the smallest of things like choosing what to wear in the morning, to the biggest, are all either subconsciously or consciously affected to the incentives, or gains that we can get from the decision. Since we know that incentives almost directly control action, it can be said that if you change the incentives of a person, you can directly control their actions. This is related to the topic of how society controls us. Technically anybody, can manipulate or control society, if they know which incentives will indirectly force society to act in the way they want it to, and which will be an obstacle, then balance them in a way to favor their wanted outcome. This also relates back to how if you can change the position of the eye, you can change their perspective of whatever it is into the perspective you want them to see.
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ReplyDeletePeople feel awkward doing something that isn't acceptable in the modern society. In the first chapter of Freakonomics, there was an experiment conducted in which parents who were late to pick up their kids from a daycare were fined an extra three dollars. When the fine was placed more parents started to show up late because they started to feel that it was okay to show up late to pick up their child. When there was no fine for being late the parents of the children were motivated to pick up their child because they felt bad to keep the people at the daycare working after the fine was placed they say it as a way that they could pay back the daycare. Other examples for things like stealing where people are motivated not to steal because of the consequences they have to face such as jail.
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