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A University of Iowa Professor…

… shares the results of his study on how to motivate employees to work hard.

First, a description of his method:

The study involved giving a group of students small gifts when they came to a training session, and playing music during breaks to perk up their moods. A second group of workers, a control group run for comparison purposes, received their gifts at the end of the day and heard no music.

And now the results:

What he found was that people who were naturally upbeat and positive reacted positively to the gifts and music, and their moods became more positive. However, those who were not naturally positive actually reacted negatively to the gifts and music. Brown suspects this is because the less positive individuals are skeptical and question the motives of the experimenter.

There are thus two kinds of employees:

1.) Morons. Morons tiptap along to whatever (What did the trainer choose? Say he chose this, and some subjects began screaming. This indicates their lack of natural positiveness.). This group will also droolingly accept a keychain.

2.) Others. Others display skepticism and a tendency to analyze their surroundings. These traits point to their lack of natural positiveness.

Conclusion: Non-natural positives would have to be, I guess, subjected to more aggressive motivational procedures than natural positives. They cannot even be reached until their inclination toward critical thought has been broken down.

Margaret Soltan, July 5, 2009 11:45AM
Posted in: march of science

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4 Responses to “A University of Iowa Professor…”

  1. francofou Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 12:35PM

    I know this to be true, since I always agree with what you write.

  2. francofou Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 12:36PM

    PS. And it’s *especially* true in Iowa.

  3. Bonzo Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 1:53PM

    I think these small gifts are called trinkets. Small islands have been bought with them as well as compliant doctors.

  4. Cassandra Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 4:18PM

    All I want to know is this:

    When do *I* get *my* pony for doing work?

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