Turns out people dislike losing more than they like winning. So if you want stuff done, give people their wages ahead of time and then take away small amounts per day if they don’t perform. Also, people can’t parse risk. They are willing to pay disproportionately to get from zero to any miniscule percentage (lottery), or to get from 99.999999% to a full 100% (insurance). That’s why the stock market is a brilliant implementation of social hacking. More interesting observations here.

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