Why Do We Do Things That Give Us Incentives?

💡The inclination to perform tasks that offer incentives is deeply rooted in the principles of motivation, particularly those explored in behavioral psychology and economics.

💡The most common psychological theory that justifies this behaviour of ours is the “Operant Conditioning” proposed by B.F. Skinner in 1938. This theory suggests that a behaviour is most likely to be repeated if there is an incentive at the end of completion. A positive reward increases the likelihood of an individual to repeat that behaviour in the future.

💡For example, if a child gets a toffee every day after completing his homework on time, the child is more likely to do their homework on time every day.

💡On the other hand, from the economics point of view, “Expectancy Theory” proposed by Victor Vroom of Yale School of Management in 1964, that an individual will behave in a certain way because they are motivated, selecting that specific behavior over others, due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be.

💡Continuing the above example, the child anticipates or expects to receive a toffee after completing their homework on time, they are more likely to complete it on time due to the expectation of the reward.

💡Combining these ideas, we can say that: When we expect to get something good (like a reward) from doing a task, it makes us want to do it more. Now, if we get the reward, we're more likely to keep doing that thing again in the future. 

#behaviour #psychology #economics #reward #incentive