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by dschiptsov 5007 days ago
This oversimplified, naive generalization-based psychology.)

Money is a weak motivator? Wrong! Small money, median income, same as everyone salary - yes, this a weak motivator. I would rather do something to improve my life, rather than wasting my precious time in a cubicle.

But let's talk about a lottery, or a mere $250k per year, and, you see, your motivation indicator is getting hard.

The ideas of independence and mastery (as a shortest way to the prior) is little bit closer, but, most of individual has their own individual motivations.

Some dreams of a status-showing gadgets or a car, some dream to impress a girl next door, or show that silly neighbors who worth what. Some like to go to most expensive restaurants and being served like a top tier, only to go back in a subway. There are as many individual motivators as people around.

But one of the "observations" is correct - yes, small money is indeed a weak motivator.)

2 comments

I'm inclined to believe that $250,000 could provide temporary motivation, but over the long haul I feel the effects would start to wear off returning you to the same state you feel with an income of virtually any level (incomes which do not fulfill basic needs perhaps excluded).
I rather think status-seeking lies behind almost everything.
Would you mind elaborating? I've thought this too; but it tends to come out when I'm down.
Its hard to give it a proper treatment here but I think its an important topic. So I'll give a couple of links back to websites where there is a lot of related material and where much of my current thinking comes from.

I've been reading Robin Hanson's blog for at least six years. A lot of what he writes about relates to the topic of status-seeking motivations in disguise. Here is a short one that is pretty decent (if a little argumentative): http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/hiding-status-grubbing...

I'm not sure if this next particular article is a good starting point either, but it is the one where the light-bulb finally went on and I realized nearly all my own motivations are related to status-seeking (you can see my comment, I'm "jhuffman" on this website). http://lesswrong.com/lw/8gv/the_curse_of_identity/