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[Sappho]

I've noticed how easily small rewards motivate us to do things we might otherwise never do. Look at sites like Kongregate - people (myself included) will often play games we'd never otherwise play just to get a few "badge" points and the occasional "level" -- none of which has any impact on anything other than the little number next to your name.

Inspired by this comic, I had an idea a while back to take little rewards like this and apply them to real life. I suggested on another forum that a group of us get together, list our short-term and long-term goals, agree on point values for steps along the way to those goals, and keep track of these things over time, announcing every success and rewarding ourselves the appropriate points. Everyone's point total would be displayed in one place, providing external motivation to up those point totals doing useful life things instead of playing video games. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'd be a hell of a lot more likely to do, for example, my daily Taiji exercises, instead of watching TV, if I knew I were getting "points" for it.

Unfortunately no one seemed interested on that forum, but it occurs to me now that you guys might be. We'd have to agree on all point values and make them universal, and I think we'd need to set some sort of cap for points per day or something, to prevent someone with no other responsibilities from just racking up points all day long and demoralizing the rest of us. I think I would trust pretty much everyone here to be honest about their accomplishments and not lie to get points.

Would anyone be interested in trying this, at least as an experiment? Whaddaya say, friends? I'd really like to try this, but I don't think it would work if I was doing it on my own.

[Korbac]

I'm up for it if it'll help me do more work / creative things!

Surprisingly, I think a +10 points for practicing 30 mins of guitar a day would help remind me to do so, for example.

[kaijyuu]

Am I the only one who loathes arbitrary reward systems?

I'll do achievements or high scores or whatever, but only if I find the activity in question fun in the first place. You make me do something I dislike for a reward at the end, and I'll likely hate the activity and feel the reward is "tainted" in some way.

[RedKing]

I remember saying I should get a Steam achievement for doing $13,000 in property damage while drunk. But I don't think that's quite what you had in mind...

[Sappho]

Well basically I'm talking about giving a public, visible reward for activities that we should be doing anyway (or want to do but can't work up the motivation to overcome our laziness). Getting exercise that we really need, eating healthier, being more creative, etc. Not just rewarding unpleasant things for no reason. I share your aversion to arbitrary rewards, kaijyuu, although even I can't deny that we seem to have an instinct to seek out rewards, even if there's no real reason to do so. I catch myself doing it all the time. I try to avoid it, and generally try to stop if I catch myself doing it, but it's just our nature. No reason not to take advantage of that for self-improvement reasons. After all, if I hadn't signed up for the 52 books challenge, I definitely would not have read 8 books so far this year. It's the external encouragement that motivates me. I tell myself all the time that I should read more but never really do it, but now I have a tangible goal and other people also working towards it who can see my progress, so I'm reading every day.

My current idea for making it balanced is that each person would get a blank "list" to fill with goals. X would be "minor" goals (5 points, for example), X "medium" (maybe 15 points), X "difficult" (30 points?), and X "heroic" (50 points?). Everyone has the same number of goals for each point value, for each day. Then you can change it the next day, or keep the same ones, or whatever. Or we could do it weekly instead, since not everyone can get online every day.

Somewhere we'd have to keep a list of standardized goals and their point values. Then each person could personalize it with details. So, for example, we could have "Achieve a minor artistic goal (easy - 5 points)" as a general goal, and someone could take that and adjust it to "fill one page of my sketchbook" or what have you.

If we can get enough people interested, it might even be worth starting a small forum just for this. Everyone could have their own thread with their daily/weekly goals summed up and their point total kept in the first post, and then someone else (probably me, at least at first) keeping a list in a stickied thread of everyone's point totals, updated as often as possible.

Thoughts?

[10ebbor10]

I'm principaly against basing the value of my efforts/life on the judgement or reactions of others, so I doubt this is anything for me.

Am I the only one who loathes arbitrary reward systems?

Also, this.

[RedKing]

Aww...I kinda like Steam cheeves for epic fails. Kind of takes the bite out of misfortune, because hey...achievement unlocked.

I might be onboard for something more constructive though.

[Muz]

Am I the only one who loathes arbitrary reward systems?

Heh, hate them too. I like game awards, but RL gamification has failed me so many times. It's not new, Fitocracy and Epic Win use them quite notably. Never really stuck with them. Something like collecting strawberries is ok, because it's easy.

IMO, the main problem with gamification is that it's too hard to keep track. I don't want added bureaucracy to my life. Something like the 52 books challenge works because it's incredibly easy to keep track of and compare progress. This points system is too abstract.

Related article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html

Not really on gamification, but why I think incentives are bad in the long run. It replaces intrinsic motivation with extrinsic ones, which is a lot weaker. Also can look for some formal papers to support this, since I read a lot of motivation psychology.


Here's another idea:
Everyone spends 25 minutes doing something they should be doing that they're too lazy to do. It can be work, study, housework, drawing something, making mods, reading a 'not fun' book, etc. If they successfully complete those 25 minutes, without distraction, they get one point.

Another scoring system for quitting bad habits. Let's say you want to quit smoking (or porn/MMOs/whatever). For every day you don't smoke, you get half a point. This adds up for every consecutive day you don't do it. So, if you don't smoke for 12 days in a row, you have 6 points. Once you start smoking again, the counter resets. You still keep your 6 points, but it doesn't go higher unless you don't smoke for more than 12 days. There should probably be a cap, though. And if you return to those bad habits, like smoking for 4 days in a row, you lose 2 points until you abstain for more than a day.

[alway]

Not really on gamification, but why I think incentives are bad in the long run. It replaces intrinsic motivation with extrinsic ones, which is a lot weaker. Also can look for some formal papers to support this, since I read a lot of motivation psychology.

This. Numerous studies support these general conclusons. Basically these systems tend to work at first, but then end up hollowing out your actual desire to do the things. Then it's merely a matter of time until you realize "Ugh, I'm doing these things I hate because this stupid system says I should. Fuck this system." At which point the arbitrary non-rewards stop working, and have managed to hollow out any actual desire to do the things they were supposed to be incentivizing,  And by the end of it, you've gone backwards, being even less willing to do those things than you were before.

Which is why this particular psychology trick will not really help you get anything done in the long run. And why you should never rely on extrinsic motivation for anything more than a very short-term boost.

[Sappho]

Well I guess it might not work for everyone, possibly not even for most people, but I know it works for me. Intrinsic motivation only works for me if someone else is dependent on my actions in some way (or at least that someone will check to make sure I did it). In a way, I guess that makes it extrinsic. But I am a very externally-focused person. I am always more concerned about how my actions will affect other people than how they will affect me. Maybe I don't have any intrinsic motivation beyond basic survival.

But the idea would only work for me if other people were in it with me, so if others are not really interested then nevermind I guess.

A question, though, regarding all these studies proving that reward systems don't work. When people want to lose weight or quit smoking or get more exercise or what have you, it's generally easier to do so if you have other people doing it with you. You see others working towards their goals and are motivated to do it yourself, and supported and congratulated when you succeed. How is attaching arbitrary "points" to it any different? It's just an easy way of keeping track of which goals you've achieved, isn't it? And if extrinsic motivation ultimately doesn't work, how *are* you supposed to motivate yourself to do things that intrinsic motivation just isn't enough for? Does anyone have a better suggestion?

[werty892]

I'm up for it if it helps me stop being lazy.

[Korbac]

Well I guess it might not work for everyone, possibly not even for most people, but I know it works for me. Intrinsic motivation only works for me if someone else is dependent on my actions in some way (or at least that someone will check to make sure I did it). In a way, I guess that makes it extrinsic. But I am a very externally-focused person. I am always more concerned about how my actions will affect other people than how they will affect me. Maybe I don't have any intrinsic motivation beyond basic survival.

But the idea would only work for me if other people were in it with me, so if others are not really interested then nevermind I guess.

A question, though, regarding all these studies proving that reward systems don't work. When people want to lose weight or quit smoking or get more exercise or what have you, it's generally easier to do so if you have other people doing it with you. You see others working towards their goals and are motivated to do it yourself, and supported and congratulated when you succeed. How is attaching arbitrary "points" to it any different? It's just an easy way of keeping track of which goals you've achieved, isn't it? And if extrinsic motivation ultimately doesn't work, how *are* you supposed to motivate yourself to do things that intrinsic motivation just isn't enough for? Does anyone have a better suggestion?

+++++

100000% agree personally; I'm very unfocused towards personal objectives. Things which affect others are different, but I can rarely motivate myself as my brain doesn't seem to understand the concept of personal long - term development.

... except for going to the gym, and that's sort of out of fear that if I don't I'll revert to being thinner than a toothpick.

[Yoink]

I'm in if points= beer, and thus whenever I manage to complete various success/social milestones I gain points which can be redeemed for beer from Sappho.
More seriously though, this could be fun.

[LordBucket]

I would be hard pressed to give a name, but I once saw an hour or so long presentation on this very topic. The speaker spoke at great length about how WoW works, and was proposing things like government funded programs to give, for example, cash rewards to all girls who graduated highschool without becoming pregnant.

[kaijyuu]

That has to be one of the worst examples ever.