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Great job! I have a huge personal interest in motivation and the science behind it, its always fun to see how people try to bring it into technology. I think th

Great job! I have a huge personal interest in motivation and the science behind it, its always fun to see how people try to bring it into technology. I think there's still a lot of room for motivational-tech. That said, this reward style finds significant problems in the literature. Expected rewards act like a chemical fix (quite literally, in terms of how they work in the brain), that require larger and larger doses over time, and eventually crowd out the will to do the behavior on your own. I'd be interested to see how using something like this would work long term. I know its rather simple in its current form, but so are most of the examples researchers use in the laboratory. Regardless of the science, great job on finishing and launching your first Rails app. My only technical note: your images are a bit pixely on my Retina display. Other than that it looks great!

jasonshen 13y ago
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, there is something about a dosage / acclimation effect that can be dangerous about any kind of positive action. I think that using a variable reward system keeps the brain excited (because you don't know what you are going to get) and even extremely simple and low cost variable rewards have helped drug addicts stay sober: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16203960 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16203960
- jknightco 13y ago
  Interesting study, I hadn't seen that one. I think one of the problematic points is this though: "...the chances of winning prizes increased with continuous time abstinent." They're literally upping the "dosage" over time. Also, the variability is in the chance of receiving a reward or not. I think that's a crucial element: rewards work well when they're not guaranteed. My final observation regarding the study is that it only lasted 12 weeks. I'd be worried that the reward group might have a higher percentage of post-program relapse than the non-reward group, as there is significant literature behind the idea that once rewards are stopped the desired behavior stops as well. I appreciate the study! Always interested in reading more about human behavior.

jasonshen 13y ago

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, there is something about a dosage / acclimation effect that can be dangerous about any kind of positive action. I think that using a variable reward system keeps the brain excited (because you don't know what you are going to get) and even extremely simple and low cost variable rewards have helped drug addicts stay sober: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16203960 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16203960

jknightco 13y ago
Interesting study, I hadn't seen that one. I think one of the problematic points is this though: "...the chances of winning prizes increased with continuous time abstinent." They're literally upping the "dosage" over time. Also, the variability is in the chance of receiving a reward or not. I think that's a crucial element: rewards work well when they're not guaranteed. My final observation regarding the study is that it only lasted 12 weeks. I'd be worried that the reward group might have a higher percentage of post-program relapse than the non-reward group, as there is significant literature behind the idea that once rewards are stopped the desired behavior stops as well. I appreciate the study! Always interested in reading more about human behavior.