OxBowBusiness

Motivation ... Brainiac style!

OK, so Brainiac isn't exactly the finely tuned end of science but there is one snippet that I thought was well worth reporting as it concerns the popular business studies topic of motivation.
Brainiac thought it was worth testing an unemployed young man of straw (ie poor as a church mouse) to see if they could assess the effects on him of various forms of motivation. He would have won £100 in cash if:

1. he'd caught up with a man on a bike and taken the £100 dangling from the back of the bike: all he had to do was run after the bike and catch. The bike had head start and the guinea pig had a standing start.
2. he ran 100 metres faster than 16.2 seconds: that was his best ever time at that distance up until this test
3. he ran the 100 metres faster than 16.2 seconds (as above) when being chased by a trained Alsation dog!!! (he was wearing padding on his arm, which is where the dog was trained to attack people!)

1 the bike was too quick for the guinea pig and the man stopped running once he'd realised it was a pointless exercise ... no £100 reward

2 he failed to achieve a better time than his previous best ... no £100 reward ... and in my opinion he didn't look to be trying too hard

3 despite the motivation of being caught and mauled by a well trained guard dog, his time here was a full five seconds slower than under activity 2 ... no £100 reward

I thought this was a good experiment for Brainiac and is a useful one to discuss and replicate ... consider Maslow's hierachy for example and try to work out why under experiment 2, where the guinea pig should have had the best chance of success, he still failed.

If you saw and remember this episode, you may have more of an opinion than anyone who didn't!!

Duncan Williamson

posted by Duncan Williamson @ 4:41 PM