Money can be WEIRDly motivating

New research finds that those from WEIRD societies find money more incentivising than their non-WEIRD counterparts.

11 November 2024

By Emma Young


Employers seeking to make their staff work harder have a couple of main strategies available to them. One is to offer performance-related pay incentives. The other is to use psychological techniques, such as offering more praise, or encouraging workers to feel that high productivity is expected — that it's the norm.

Research shows that both can motivate people and improve their performance, but the latest, large-scale experiments have suggested that monetary incentives are much more effective, note the authors of a recent paper in Nature Human Behaviour. However, write Danila Medvedev and colleagues, the participants in these studies were almost entirely from the US. "Can managers and policymakers in India, Indonesia or Nigeria apply scientific insights from these studies to issues facing their own countries?" the team wondered.

To find out, they re-analysed some existing data and also ran a series of online studies on a total of more than 8,000 participants from two WEIRD societies — the UK and the US — and five non-WEIRD nations: China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

In the first set of studies, participants from the UK, China, US, Mexico, and South Africa were shown a series of images, one by one, and asked to identify any that contained a building. The maximum time that they could spend on this was ten minutes.

All of the participants were told that after completing ten images, they would be entitled to a flat base fee. However, one group also received a type of psychological intervention — such as being told being told that most people perform well on this task, which made it clear that hard work is the norm. Another group of participants — those in the 'monetary condition' — instead received a financial incentive to work harder, in the form of an additional 'piece rate' bonus of between five and nine cents for each extra set of ten images that they assessed.

In each of these studies, the team directly compared participants from one WEIRD country — either the UK or the US — with participants in at least one non-WEIRD country. When they analysed the data, the pattern of findings was clear. Time and again, additional monetary incentives were more effective than psychological methods at getting WEIRD vs non-WEIRD participants to work harder.

In a study that compared participants from the UK and China, for example, the team found that, in China, bonus payments increased effort by 19.0%, while in the UK, the effect of bonus payments was more than five times bigger, increasing effort by 109.5%.

In one of the other studies, on participants in Mexico and the US, the team found that offering bonuses was not as clearly superior to a psychological norm incentive at encouraging Mexican, compared with American, participants to work harder.

In fact, when the team analysed the amount of effort per dollar spent for each of the conditions, they found that for Mexico (as for China, in fact), the monetary condition was less cost-effective than the norm condition. Another striking finding from this particular study was that as soon as the participants became entitled to their base pay — so, when there was no financial incentive to continue — over half of the American participants quit the task but over 90% of the Mexican participants continued with it.

A further experiment revealed that even a tiny bonus scheme (just one penny for every 20 images assessed), when compared with a social norm incentive, increased effort by 48.1% in the US, but only 1.6% in India. The team's analysis led them to conclude that while offering additional piece-rate payments, rather than a psychological incentive, was cost-effective in the US, in India, it was not.

In a final study, the researchers recruited more than 2,000 bilingual Hindi- and English-speakers in India to complete the same task. Again, one group was offered extra monetary rewards, while another received a psychological, social norm incentive. But while some were given the task in Hindi, others were given it in English. The analysis showed that the money advantage over the psychological incentive was bigger when the task was taken in English. In this study, the participants were also asked how they felt about the task. Those who did it in English were more likely to say that they did it only for money.

The team suggests that because non-WEIRD cultures tend to be more collectivist — more likely, as they note, to value duties and responsibilities to the people around them — this might help to explain their results.

They also acknowledge a few limitations to the work, including the assumption in their analyses that psychological incentives to work harder carry no cost. In the real world, some employees exposed to strong expectations to work harder may become more stressed, more sick, and less productive.

However, the findings are, the team writes, another reminder to avoid extrapolating conclusions from studies on the small minority of the global population that live in WEIRD cultures to the rest of the world. And the overall message is clear: "monetary - relative to psychological - incentives may increase effort less in non-WEIRD cultures." However, they also stress that this data should not be used to justify paying people in non-WEIRD cultures less. "Non-monetary incentives cannot and should not be seen as a substitute for paying a fair wage."

Read the paper in full:
Medvedev, D., Davenport, D., Talhelm, T., & Li, Y. (2024). The motivating effect of monetary over psychological incentives is stronger in WEIRD cultures. Nature Human Behaviour, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01769-5

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/money-can-be-weirdly-motivating(accessed 14.11.24)

Why my Psychology lecture made me delete social media

Florence Plant, a second-year undergraduate at the University of Sheffield, tells her story.

07 March 2024


Psychology really can change your life. I discovered this recently, after a social psychology lecture filled me with the seemingly sudden urge to delete my social media.

The decision to do this at the age of 21 was more difficult than I’d like to admit. I belong to a generation that has grown up online, and I have been using social media platforms avidly from the age of 13. It has only been in the last few months that I have finally deleted some of the apps that had previously encompassed the majority of my free time, such as Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and Twitter.

It was a lecture on ‘The Dark Triad’ (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) that did it. Our lecturer detailed the myth of Narcissus: the cold-hearted young man who was lured to the water to see himself, and subsequently wasted away due to his captivation with his own reflection. This myth was shocking to me: Narcissus’s youth made his decay appear all the more tragic and oxymoronic.

We went on to learn about the recent rise in narcissistic behaviour in young people, through studies such as Jean Twenge and colleagues’ (2008) meta-analysis. Their review of 85 studies found a 30 per cent increase in narcissism amongst college students from 1982 to 2006. Further studies have suggested a link between this increase and social media usage. For example, Reed et al. (2018) found a positive correlation between levels of narcissism and frequent usage of visual social media in 74 young participants.

These studies affected me. I saw a parallel between the narcissistic behaviour of young people and the youthful Narcissus’ wasted life. This social media-induced narcissistic increase was found to be particularly prevalent in young women. Another study by Twenge et al (2018), found a heightened prevalence of low mood and depressive symptoms in these subjects. Although re-analysis of Twenge’s studies by UK psychologist Amy Orben and colleagues have disputed Twenge’s claims, I related to the findings. I was a young woman enticed by the narcissistic influence of social media, in turn only amplifying other low mood symptoms of my teenage years.

Through my lectures, I was layering a research lens over my real-life experience of the allure of social media while growing up. It has only been since learning about these correlations that I have been able to understand how much social media contributed to some of my own personal struggles with self-image, and to gain some insights into how my own social media use was part of a more general psychological phenomenon.
Growing up with social media

Various studies have found visual media to play a particularly prominent role in juvenile attitude formation (Goldberg & Gorn, 1974), and this became apparent during my secondary school career. Social media dominated my own interests and those of my peers. Visual social media really shaped our choices regarding a range of subjects, such as fashion trends, hobbies and overall desirable behaviours. It seemed a fun and creative form of escapism to explore and discover our interests and emerging identities.

However, like most teenagers, I was subject to the moderators for high social modelling, as detailed by Robinson et al., (2011), such as low self-esteem and high empathy. These moderators meant that social media often had an exhausting impact, as some of these social norms seemed unattainable to me, especially at such a young age. This caused a range of negative self-attributions through the use of upwards comparisons (Wheeler, 1966), seeking out larger presences on social media that upheld unrealistic standards.

All these presences were a fertile breeding ground for early narcissistic attitudes, magnifying my low self-esteem and fuelling a need to prove my self-worth through my appearance. It is not surprising to me that girls as young as nine exposed to media influence indicate a desire to change their bodies (Schur et al., 2000).

Social media exacerbated more general problems that I was having at school. As a teenager, I inevitably had altercations with my friends and schoolmates, and social media meant that these problems always followed me home. The removed responsibility and audience inhibition (Latané & Darley, 1968) that comes with online platforms often meant that the things that were said exceeded the social or moral limits on what people felt able to say in person. This led to me spending hours and hours obsessing over messages online, wasting away my evenings in my bedroom; an image that to me is now strikingly analogous to that of Narcissus rotting away by the pool.

Social media was not an entirely negative experience, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken me until the age of 21 to delete these apps. Social media use is ubiquitous, with at least one platform used by 97 per cent of teenagers in the 2000s (Plackett, 2023). Social media was fun and addictive; it helped establish a solid group membership at school. I worried that I might lose my membership of the groups that I was in (Laursen et al., 2021) if I wasn’t on there.

However, I now view my attachment to social media in the same way that I view Narcissus’ attachment to his own image; while I knew it wasn't good for me, I just couldn’t tear myself away.
Using social media while starting university

Starting university was something of a whirlwind experience, and that journey without social media would have been incredibly difficult. Having the support of my best friends only a message away kept me sane. In order to maintain contact with the first new friends that I had somehow made in my early lectures, I needed an online platform. Social media can of course be incredibly helpful in communication and friendship building, as other studies have shown (Caplan, 2003).

However, when starting this big new stage in my life, I was naturally curious to see how my other friends who were all in similar positions were coping with the same change, as Social Comparison Theory suggests (Festinger, 1954). I found that social media users are often inclined to portray their ‘best selves’ online (Chua & Chang, 2016), which set incredibly high expectations for my own university experience. In this sense, social media added to the pressure of starting university, and made me feel as if I was the only person who wasn’t having the best week of their life during freshers.

‘The ostrich problem’ (Webb et al., 2013), could be a factor aggravating this, as it indicates that those who are not happy with their progression, tend not to monitor it. In this case, people who were finding the transition to university slightly more complicated, probably weren’t posting about it online. Consequently, my Instagram feed was teeming with people revelling in freshers and having a seamless integration into their new university lives. This made me feel more alone in my experience. I can now confidently say that I was not the only person who was not having the time of their life during the first few weeks at university! In fact, I found the first few months quite terrifying.

My goal when entering university was to fit in with new people, a new city, and also to learn to live by myself. According to a meta-analysis of 138 studies (Harkin et al., 2016), goal monitoring has proven to be a strong predictor of goal progression. For my generation, goal monitoring is often conducted publicly through the use of social media posts. These posts, depicting everyone’s fabulous experiences, acted as reference values for my goal monitoring, and also as the comparative element of reviewing my progress at Sheffield University. The act of constantly scouring for a comparative measure to assess my own progress now seems to me a miserable Narcissus-like degeneration.
Finally deleting social media

That lecture really was the catalyst for change. I had been a self- and phone-absorbed teenager, and gazing into Narcissus’ pool, reflected back at me was a truth I had denied: social media was facilitating my social comparisons, and in turn damaging my self-esteem.

My increased confidence at university has helped me to recognise these negative effects, while university itself has provided me with various psychological frameworks to explore how and why those effects shaped my teenage years. Where social modelling felt necessary to shape my younger behaviour and ideals (Bandura, 1900s), I have realised I want to live and enjoy my youth as a time to grow and explore. I don’t want to make comparisons between myself and others, whether upwards or downwards. For me at least, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, ‘comparison is the thief of joy’.

I can’t say I feel completely free of the pull of social media. I miss seeing the Instagram posts updating me on the lives of my friends who are now spread all across the country. But it does feel liberating to regain the locus of control over my life. I won’t be doomed to the fate of Narcissus, and I have my passionate and persuasive lecturer to thank for that.
References

Bandura A. Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall; 1977.

Caplan, S. E. (2003). Preference for online social interaction: A theory of problematic Internet use and psychosocial well-being. Communication Research, 30(6), 625–648.

Chua, T. H. H., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 55(Part A), 190-197.

Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. Journal of personality and social psychology, 8(4p1), 377.

Festinger, L. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117-140.

Goldberg, M. E., & Gorn, G. J. (1974). Children's reactions to television advertising: An experimental approach. Journal of Consumer Research, 1(2), 69-75.

Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological bulletin, 142(2), 198–229.

Laursen, B., & Veenstra, R. (2021). Toward understanding the functions of peer influence: A summary and synthesis of recent empirical research. Journal of Research on Adolescence. Advance online publication.

Muris, P., & Otgaar, H. (2023). Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion: A Narrative Review and Meta-Analysis on Their Links to Psychological Problems and Well-Being. Psychology research and behaviour management, 16, 2961–2975.

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563.

Plackett, R., Sheringham, J., & Dykxhoorn, J. (2023). Correction: The Longitudinal Impact of Social Media Use on UK Adolescents' Mental Health: Longitudinal Observational Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e47678.

Reed, P., Bircek, N. I., Osborne, L. A., Viganò, C., & Truzoli, R. (2018). Visual Social Media Use Moderates the Relationship between Initial Problematic Internet Use and Later Narcissism. Open Psychology Journal, 11, 163-170.

Schur, E. A., Sanders, M., & Steiner, H. (2000). Body dissatisfaction and dieting in young children. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 27, 74–82.

Twenge, J.M., Konrath, S., Foster, J.D., Keith Campbell, W. and Bushman, B.J. (2008). Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality, 76: 875-902.

Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., & Benn, Y. (2013). 'The Ostrich Problem’: Motivated avoidance or rejection of information about goal progress. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(11), 794-807.

Wheeler, L. (1966). Motivation as a determinant of upward comparison. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1(Supplement 1), 27-31.

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/why-my-psychology-lecture-made-me-delete-social-media(accessed 14.03.24)