Meanness & Executive Pay

This post is based on a submission by reader Phillip Vedol. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
According to a recently published paper increases in compensation lead to increases in meanness among corporate leaders.

You talkin' to me?
(Photo: patrick_q at Flickr)

Commentary
The study's posits that "higher income inequality between executives and ordinary workers" leads to a perception of power that ultimately results in maltreatment of "rank and file workers" (p. 1). This follows the research on the relationship between power and lying and reinforces the image of powerful managers who abuse their position (e.g., Emmett Milbarage in Chuck).

Meta
Have you experienced this sort of behavior? What about the opposite (magnanimous over-paid managers)?

See Also

• When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations for the original paper.
• Executive Compensation: The More Leaders Make, the Meaner They Get at the Harvard Business Review Research Blog for a longer discussion.

Playgrounds that Generate Electricity

Summary
Empower Playgrounds has installed a carousel for children that generates electricity in Ghana.

(Photo: hlusta on Flickr)

Commentary
In 2008, the children at the Golden Sunbeam Montessori School in Ghana received a most welcome gift: a merry-go-round. But unlike other carousels, this one generates electricity that is used in LED lamps. A zip-line that generates electricity is set to go into operation soon.

Meta
What other naturally fun forces could be harnessed (but not enslaved)?

See Also

• BYU and Empower Playgrounds install electricity-generating merry-go-round in Ghana.
  
• Could it become a workwheel? for a statement of how students are not forced to play on the playground.
• Empower Playgrounds on Wikipedia.
  

Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation

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Summary
Motivation is an important part of our lives. Managers seek motivated employees, teaches search for ways to motivate their students, and investigators try to piece together people's motives. Dan Pink discusses the "mismatch between what science knows and what business does."

(Video: TED)

Commentary
The important distinction in motivation is whether the motivator is intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivators are ones that you feel you can control, such as your level of effort, whereas extrinsic motivators are outside of your control: rewards, punishments, etc.

Pink quotes from a 2005 commissioned by the Federal Reserve of Boston called "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes". Some random excerpts (emphasis added):

• "With some important exceptions, we observed that high reward levels can have detrimental effects on performance" (abstract).
  
  
• "[O]ne mechanism via which increased motivation can backfire is when it leads to greater self-consciousness" (p. 3).
  
  
• "[T]he performance of participants was always lowest in the high-payment condition when compared with the low- and mid-payment conditions together..." (p. 13).
  
  
• "Many existing institutions provide very large incentives for exactly the types of tasks we used here – those that require creativity, problem solving, and concentration. Our results challenge the assumption that increases in motivation necessarily lead to improvements in performance" (p. 19).
  
  
• "[W]e were surprised by the robustness of the effect..." (p. 19).

Meta
How do you cater to people's intrinsic motivations?

See Also

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
• Psychological Barriers