Wen-Hai Hu

Professor Otoole
CGS 2301
October 22, 2013
TED Talk Essay
In Dan Arielys Talk, What makes us feel good about our work, he begins by saying
our views on Labor and reward too simplistic. We think that we are like nave rats in a maze.
When we read books on the experiences of mountain climbers, they dont write about joy and
happiness, rather they recount their experiences as grueling hardships with frostbite and
challenges. Yet even when facing privation, they continue to return, to repeat climbing
mountains, each experience with similar hardships. Dan Ariely says that this shows that there are
things that motivate us other than the end reward. Arielys real push to look into this was when a
student told him that he was working on a presentation for two weeks for a large merger,
perfecting it and submitting the work only to be told that the merger was canceled. The student
was really depressed. This sparked Dan Arielys interest into finding out what it is that really
motivates us and fulfils our satisfaction with our work.
To find out the cause of the motivation, he organized several tests. The first test was
building Bionicles, a Lego figurine. Participants were paid 3 dollars to build one Bionicle. The
completed ones were placed under the table and the participant was offered to build another one
for 30 cents less until they no longer wanted to build any more. They were also told that those
they build would be deconstructed for the next participant at the end. This trial he called, the
meaningful condition. The next trial, he called the Sisyphic condition, based on Sisyphus, a
man in mythology who was punished by the gods to push a rock up a hill. He ties this concept to
prisoners in movies when guards order them to dig a hole and refill it, a never-ending cycle. He
tested this by letting them build a Bionicle for the same 3 dollars then disassembled it while they
build another one for 30 cents less. Then when they complete it, the examiner would give them
the pieces and disassemble the newly created piece. In both trials, the participants knew the
Bionicles they were building would be destroyed, but had different outcomes. Those in the
meaningful trial built an average of 11 Bionicles compared to the 7 in the Sisyphus trial, showing
that even small meaning to labor makes an impact to the motivation of the worker. In a third
trial, he told participants the premises of the two conditions and asked them to predict the
outcomes, they were able to predict the correct direction, but not the magnitude of difference
displayed in the trials. The trials also measured those who loved building with Legos and saw a
positive correlation when working in the meaningful condition, but in the Sisyphus condition, the
correlation was surprisingly 0. Dan Ariely says that breaking down their work in front of their
eyes crushed any joy they could get out of this activity.
In Dan Arielys second test, he created a paper with random letters and asked participants
to find identical pairs for money and as the same with the Bionicles, he would offer less for each
paper submitted. In the first trial, the paper was submitted to the examiner who looked it over
said okay, and placed it to the side. In the next, the examiner just placed it to the side without
looking it over. In the third trial, the examiner just took the paper and shredded it in front of
them. In the acknowledged conditions, the participant would submit papers for as little as 15
cents. In the ignored condition, the participant would submit papers until 23 cents. In the
shredded condition, the participants only averaged 30 cents a paper, even with the capability to
cheat because their work was not checked. This shows that seeing their work appreciated played
a larger role in motivation than I expected. Ariely makes the connection of negative motivation
compared to completely elimination motivation, showing that negative motivations drastically
discouraged the participants, almost needing to double the value of each paper.
The third test is similar to the first in that the participants were asked to create something,
in this case origami. The examiner asked the creator and other participants to value the creation.
The builder wanted to pay up to 5x more than the others. The examiners also gave the option of
increasing the difficulty by removing the instructions. This made the creations less appealing, but
showed a greater difference in value for the creator and other viewers, with the builders valuing
it even more and others valuing even less. When the examiners asked the builders how they
viewed their work they said that they believed others would see it the same way they did and not
that the origami was rewarding only to them, the creator. This brought a whole new level of
viewing motivation because the builders believed they could share in the satisfaction of their
creation with others. The time and effort put into their creation displayed personal value and
connection to the work.
Dan Ariely ties all of this together by explaining how societys view has changed over
the years comparing Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Adam Smith promoted efficiency by breaking
down steps of production by allowing each worker do a single step of the process. Marx said that
the workers needed more flavor for them to do better quality work, placing more care for each
piece completed. Dan raises the question is efficiency more important than meaning? In the
industrial revolution, the focus was mainly on Smiths way of efficiency, but now, the two have
switched, and now we are in the knowledge economy. He offers a revised model for labor.
Motivation does not just equal payment for the labor, but includes meaning, creation, challenge,
ownership, identity, pride, etc.


This topic displays how motivation and reward play an enormous role in satisfaction with
labor. He changed the way I viewed labor as just a work for reward role, but clearly it is deeper
than that. Dan Ariely tells a story about a software company wanting its engineers to create the
next big thing. After time was put into development, the CEO tells all of them that the project
was canceled. Afterwards, Dan Ariely tells them of the experiments they did using the Bionicles
and they said they felt the exact same thing. The engineers were asked what the CEO could have
done to make it better. They suggested that they should have been asked to present what they had
completed anyway as a way to share ideas and feel like their work mad some difference. They
also suggested they build prototypes or even integrate parts they have completed into the
company. I am really intrigued by this because the CEO did not suggest these, but the engineers.
Those who did the work were able to suggest a variety of ways for their work to not go wasted
and for them to feel accomplished and stay motivated. Dan Arielys message could create a
workforce who prides in their work, driving up quality in this knowledge economy where
quantity isnt the dividing factor anymore.

I really enjoyed the talk done by Dan Ariely, he like others who have their own talks
really know how to draw in an audience. His talk felt short, but was filled with many example
and studies, making it very informative and entertaining, even if it was over 20 minutes. What I
felt could have been improved upon was the CEOs opinion on the engineers project being cut.
His considerations and point of view would have been eye opening, but I understand the need to
leave this out to drive the point Dan is trying to make and to create a condense and succinct
presentation. Dan also ignored how important each participants time was to them. He was not
able to elaborate why each builder in the origami test thought that others would think their work
was beautiful even if it was unattractive to the objective observer. I also thought his conclusion
was really abrupt and did not see it coming if not for the time at the bottom of the video player.
Dan Arielys focus was more on how easily employees become unmotivated or upset when their
work goes unappreciated rather than what actually drives us to become motivated.
















Source:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work.html