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You're an outlier. Studies have shown repeatedly that monetary compensation undermines intrinsic motivation: https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-

You're an outlier. Studies have shown repeatedly that monetary compensation undermines intrinsic motivation: https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv > The authors synthesized the results from 128 controlled experiments. The results highlighted consistent negative effects of incentives — from marshmallows to dollars — on intrinsic motivation. These effects were particularly strong when the tasks were interesting or enjoyable rather than boring or meaningless.

satellite2 3y ago
Yes but no. It's always with disappointing rewards tgat those studies are done. Pay people considerable amount and then compare.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  That's a different question. People like money. People may like the activity and the money combined more than just the activity. But the studies show that they like it less than the activity and the money not tied to one another. If Bezos wrote me a large enough check to never participate in specific hobbies again, I would take him up on it. I would be happier than before I took the offer. But I would clearly be even happier with a check that wasn't tied to ruining a hobby.
  - marcianx 3y ago
    I don't take it that way, and I'm deeply fortunate to be living the life suggested by GP. If I get to do what I'm passionate about even if it includes the closely-related grungy part to make it successful (not an altogether different job like marketing) and I am paid enough money to not have to worry about my daily needs and retirement savings, then I have a chance to spend a solid part of my productive day on it, engaging deeply, and building a deeper intuition, all the while not having the personal worries of stability at the back of my mind. My passion no longer needs to compete with my work for my mental energy. And I get to work with talented people who complement my skill, doing the part they enjoy and I don't, to make what we collectively build successful. That being said, I'm a software engineer, and that's a really fortunate occupation to be passionate above due to the breadth of its applicability (e.g. allowing one to work more closely on my topic of interest) and salary potential.
htss2013 3y ago
It's amazing that society still puts so much stock into these types of impossibly confounded studies. Ok, so they found that people who are top earners are no more satisfied with their jobs than bottom earners. Might this be because top earners tend to be the types who neglect other aspects of their lives? Or who are hypercompeitive and are unlikely to be satisfied at any level, otherwise they would have stayed where they were? Or maybe the higher the pay goes, the higher the concentration of high self discipline people willing to endure things they don't like for money. Etc. And we are supposed to wave away all of these confounders because of controlled marshmellow experiments done on random students? I'm sure Harvard meta studies do the best job possible distilling insight from these studies. The problem is how insightful these types of studies are in the first place.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  > It's amazing that society still puts so much stock into these types of impossibly confounded studies That particular example was a meta study of over 100 other studies But sure, I'm sure your expertise in study design and statistics is enough to invalidate their work and the work of hundreds of other researchers simply because you don't agree with the conclusion.
  - gusgus01 3y ago
    This whole discussion reminds me about the conflicting studies around the correlation or lack thereof of money earned and happiness. There was recently another paper about it that re-analyzed the data, so not a meta analysis, but an interesting example of study design and statistic interpretation: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120#executive-summary-abstract https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120#executive-s...
NovaDudely 3y ago
John Carmack learned this the hard way with Armadillo aerospace. When the team went from hobbiests to employees, productivity either stayed the same or declined despite their hours effectively doubling.

satellite2 3y ago

Yes but no. It's always with disappointing rewards tgat those studies are done. Pay people considerable amount and then compare.

HWR_14 3y ago
That's a different question. People like money. People may like the activity and the money combined more than just the activity. But the studies show that they like it less than the activity and the money not tied to one another. If Bezos wrote me a large enough check to never participate in specific hobbies again, I would take him up on it. I would be happier than before I took the offer. But I would clearly be even happier with a check that wasn't tied to ruining a hobby.
- marcianx 3y ago
  I don't take it that way, and I'm deeply fortunate to be living the life suggested by GP. If I get to do what I'm passionate about even if it includes the closely-related grungy part to make it successful (not an altogether different job like marketing) and I am paid enough money to not have to worry about my daily needs and retirement savings, then I have a chance to spend a solid part of my productive day on it, engaging deeply, and building a deeper intuition, all the while not having the personal worries of stability at the back of my mind. My passion no longer needs to compete with my work for my mental energy. And I get to work with talented people who complement my skill, doing the part they enjoy and I don't, to make what we collectively build successful. That being said, I'm a software engineer, and that's a really fortunate occupation to be passionate above due to the breadth of its applicability (e.g. allowing one to work more closely on my topic of interest) and salary potential.

htss2013 3y ago

It's amazing that society still puts so much stock into these types of impossibly confounded studies. Ok, so they found that people who are top earners are no more satisfied with their jobs than bottom earners. Might this be because top earners tend to be the types who neglect other aspects of their lives? Or who are hypercompeitive and are unlikely to be satisfied at any level, otherwise they would have stayed where they were? Or maybe the higher the pay goes, the higher the concentration of high self discipline people willing to endure things they don't like for money. Etc. And we are supposed to wave away all of these confounders because of controlled marshmellow experiments done on random students? I'm sure Harvard meta studies do the best job possible distilling insight from these studies. The problem is how insightful these types of studies are in the first place.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago
> It's amazing that society still puts so much stock into these types of impossibly confounded studies That particular example was a meta study of over 100 other studies But sure, I'm sure your expertise in study design and statistics is enough to invalidate their work and the work of hundreds of other researchers simply because you don't agree with the conclusion.
- gusgus01 3y ago
  This whole discussion reminds me about the conflicting studies around the correlation or lack thereof of money earned and happiness. There was recently another paper about it that re-analyzed the data, so not a meta analysis, but an interesting example of study design and statistic interpretation: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120#executive-summary-abstract https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120#executive-s...

NovaDudely 3y ago

John Carmack learned this the hard way with Armadillo aerospace. When the team went from hobbiests to employees, productivity either stayed the same or declined despite their hours effectively doubling.