An idea that challenged me this past week was that people can trade between moral and monetary motivations in surprising ways. It comes from the book Freakonomics.
The scenario is people picking up their kids from day care. The problem was that some people would come late to pick up their kids. In order to try to solve this problem, the day care providers imposed a fine when people were at least 10 minutes late.
So what happened? More people were late picking up their kids! Why would that be? Before the fine, people felt morally obligated to be on time. They felt guilty when they were late. But by imposing a fine, the moral motivation was gone. Now it was mere economics. They might reason, "I'm willing to pay the fine today because there's something else I want to do." Without the moral obligation, people just made a financial decision, and more people were late.
This has challenged me to think about what motivates me, and how I motivate others. It raises some fascinating questions about giving grades in school, or how parents raise their kids.
What I need to explore more is when I let go of moral obligation simply because there is a monetary motivation at the same time.
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