Lectures on the Theory of Pure Motives

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Murre ◽  
Jan Nagel ◽  
Chris Peters
Keyword(s):  
Pure Motives

scholarly journals Forgoing earned incentives to signal pure motives

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (29) ◽  
pp. 16891-16897
Author(s):  
Erika L. Kirgios ◽  
Edward H. Chang ◽  
Emma E. Levine ◽  
Katherine L. Milkman ◽  
Judd B. Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Safe Driving ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Past Action ◽  
Right Reason ◽  
The Right ◽  
Pure Motives

Policy makers, employers, and insurers often provide financial incentives to encourage citizens, employees, and customers to take actions that are good for them or for society (e.g., energy conservation, healthy living, safe driving). Although financial incentives are often effective at inducing good behavior, they’ve been shown to have self-image costs: Those who receive incentives view their actions less positively due to the perceived incompatibility between financial incentives and intrinsic motives. We test an intervention that allows organizations and individuals to resolve this tension: We use financial rewards to kick-start good behavior and then offer individuals the opportunity to give up some or all of their earned financial rewards in order to boost their self-image. Two preregistered studies—an incentivized online experiment (n= 763) on prosocial behavior and a large field experiment (n= 17,968) on exercise—provide evidence that emphasizing the intrinsic rewards of a past action leads individuals to forgo or donate earned financial rewards. Our intervention allows individuals to retroactively signal that they acted for the right reason, which we call “motivation laundering.” We discuss the implications of motivation laundering for the design of incentive systems and behavioral change.

Beyond pure motives

2013 ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Jacob Murre ◽  
Jan Nagel ◽  
Chris Peters
Keyword(s):  
Pure Motives

scholarly journals Pure motives with representable Chow groups

2010 ◽  
Vol 348 (21-22) ◽  
pp. 1191-1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Vial
Keyword(s):  
Chow Groups ◽  
Pure Motives
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