It is true that people respond to incentives. It has been said, the primary law

Question

It is true that people respond to incentives. It has been said, the primary law of economics is actually, “what you want more of you subsidize and what you want less of you tax”. Therefore it is axiomatic a behavior will tend to occur if there is a reward for a behavior and will diminish if there is a tax on the behavior. Imagine you are in an elementary school cafeteria. There is a lunchroom monitor who jumps on a table and blows a whistle whenever the monitor decides the noise is too loud in the cafeteria. Although the students then get quiet, they start to laugh and then the instances of noise in the cafeteria getting “too loud” becomes more frequent than prior to adding the lunchroom monitor. Why? What might be a non-coercive (i.e. no threat of violence and no ideas that are ridiculous or impractical) way to get the lunchroom quiet?

Explanation / Answer

Incentives work and that is why punishment and reward system so well. But you have to use them carefully and correct placement is necessary and is the key. Sometimes where a threat of punishment is not credible enough, the incentive of being rewarded might be more successfull. Here we realize that the monitor may not be having enough credibility that might be visble through his actions like when he jumps on a table and blows a whistle whenever the monitor decides the noise is too loud in the cafeteria.

The correct mechanism can be the one where reward is provided to those who stay quiet and this would encourage others to quiet, perhaps a free meal as a reward would work.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.