This Psychological Trick Makes Rewards Backfire

Dang, this explains why turning a creative hobby into a job is so difficult.

"So, how do I play this game again?" "Uh...Don't...starve?" "Woah, woah, slow down."

The next time I see someone saying “do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” I am showing them this video

The school system honestly helps proves this. I used to love reading, but being forced to read books i didn't really give a shit about for some stupid assignment killed my interest in it.

“How do I decide when I’m satisfied?” Christ, sounds like a AI from a scifi flick

So basically: Bloke: I love doing A Society: Please do A, we'll pay you for it Bloke: Well now I'm not doing it

Interestingly, this also happens with penalties. I've heard stories indicating that if you have an explicit penalty for something bad, people are more willing to do it, because they see the penalty as a transaction, whereas if you have no explicit penalty, people don't want to know what the unexpected penalty could be, so they behave.

Dang, that’s why games like Minecraft can remain popular for so long without any real reason to play except for the sake of it... people learn to enjoy what u can do with it more than depending on arbitrary rewards

8:39 “How do I decide when I am satisfied?” Is a statement that’s is simultaneously not very deep and deeply tragic. This guy summed up the struggle of human existence without even thinking.

"Unanticipated arrival of a goat" is just hood talk for "this one kid was real good at drawing"

Can't wait for all bosses to say: "I don't know what you'll get at the end of the month. Or how much. Or at all. But trust me, you'll be more motivated, because you don't know!"

That "how do I know when I am satisfied?" line hit me so hard. It's so short, but accurately portrays a phenomenon where people are so used to spending their time trying to ensure others are satisfied that we never learn how to satisfy ourselves. Even in our spare time, playing video games, are we really satisfying ourselves? Or are we just trying to satisfy the game goals, or perhaps even invisible/theoretical people who would judge our performance in the game should they see us playing it? Yeah, I can see how that question would keep one up at night.

Ending this video with the surprise reward that they are now add-free is genius.

They say "Do what you love for a living and you'll never work a day in your life." To which I'd always retort "Do what you love for a living and it'll become a job and you'll grow to hate it." Good to see science is on my side.

"Challenges that unlock cosmetics" You mean the challenge of reaching for a credit card? I miss seeing a badass skin and knowing it meant you were a badass in the game.

This is the EXACT issue I have with Animal Crossing. It's supposed to be open-ended, build your world and continue to have fun. But I have way more fun focusing on the goals of completing the museum, upgrading my house to its final size, etc. After all that, the game gets boring.

"How do I decide when I am satisfied?" Hey Google? I think one of your AIs escaped onto the Steam forums.

"How do I decide when I am satisfied?" Same dude, same.

"How do I decide when I'm satisfied" is such a mood for those of us with low executive function/executive dysfunction. It's extremely difficult for me to intrinsically motivate myself which makes the same crafting games you praise quite a bit (not wrongly!) into my least favorite genre. I want to like them but I just can't take a wide-open sandbox and build sandcastles in it. I can dig a few holes, maybe make a tower, and then I get bored and move on. Similarly I do find it quite difficult to motivate myself to do anything in games I've "beaten" for example by completing achievements or finishing the stories. I love Into the Breach but once I unlocked all squads and got their achievements, I immediately stopped playing because there just wasn't anything "new" to do. The best motivators for me are things like the koroks in Breath of the Wild , which give a small, almost meaningless reward but which still has some value, and I both have to explore to find them and complete a challenge once I do.