Mark_Eichenlaub comments on SotW: Be Specific - Less Wrong
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Hmm. I'd understood that there was some pretty convincing evidence that offering cash incentives like this is counterproductive - it decreases creativity and effectiveness of troubleshooting. I don't have scholarly cites handy (I know there was a CMU/LSE study) but this is popularised in Dan Pink's "Drive". (There's a TED talk and a great RSAnimate video on this.)
In the RSAnimate talk, Pink cited research that found that once people were doing the task (presumably under time pressure), higher incentives produced worse results.
That's different from using an incentive to get people to come do the task at all.
I noticed a similar flaw in some studies Dan Areily was citing to prove that incentive pay didn't work, and e-mailed him about it. He didn't have any counterarguments when he responded to me, but he did keep citing the studies IIRC...