Reward Substitution: Doing The Right Thing For The Wrong Reason

“Knowledge is not the key” –Dan Ariely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkfYDhZGAVE “When we think about human behavior, we often think that people are motivated by big visions, but the reality is that those things influence are wishful thinking, but they rarely influence are actual behavior. And because of that, there’s a gap between what we know what we should be doing and what we actually do.”

“Telling people what’s the right thing to do in principle is just not the right way to do anything.”

Present bias. We are tempted on the moment and act on the moment. These are problems of trading now vs. later, and knowledge is really about later and is not really effective for now, because now we are driven by the environment in which we are being placed.
The equation is not going to the gym for health and fitness, the equation is going to the gym for the immediate rewards. The effect of fitness is delayed, the effect of the contribution and the streak game is happening now.

Solution 2 - Loss Aversion: Give something to people, and threat to take it back.
- Lottery: Make it more exciting.
- Regret: Happiness is not driven by where we are, is driven by a contrast between where we are and where we think we could have been. And if we think we could have been somewhere better we are miserable, and if we think we could have been somewhere worse, we are happy.
How would you be more miserable, If you missed your flight by 3 minutes or 3 hours? 3 minutes because you can imagine that you could have made it, you can see the other reality. In the Olympics, the third place is happier than the second