Did you take standardized tests to get into college? Like the SAT and ACT? How many people were in the room when you took the test? Does it matter? Research by Stephen Garcia and Avishalom Tor shows that it may matter a lot. Less people = higher scores – Garcia and Tor first compared SAT…
Category Archives: motivation
100 Things You Should You Know About People: #82 — People Are Motivated By Progress And Mastery
Why do people donate their time and creative thought process to Wikipedia? Or the open source movement? When you stop and think about it you realize that there are many activities that people engage in, even over a long period of time, that require high expertise, and yet are of no monetary or even career…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #81 — Intrinsic Rewards Trump Extrinsic Rewards
Let’s say you are an art teacher, and you want to encourage your students to spend more time practicing their drawing. You create a “Good Drawing Certificate” to give to your students. If your goal is to have them draw more, and for them to stick with it, how should you give them the certificate?…
100 Things You Should Know About People: #38 — Even The Illusion Of Progress Is Motivating
You are given a frequent buyer card for your local coffeeshop. Each time you buy a cup of coffee you get a stamp on your card. When the card is filled you get a free cup of coffee. Here are two different scenarios: Card A: The card has 10 boxes for the stamps, and when…