Incentives and motivation - designing for the irrational human

Question 1

List four types of incentives.

Answer 1

Financial, moral, coercive, natural.

Question 2

How did paying patients $0.3 for picking up their HIV results affect the collection rate?

Answer 2

It doubled from 35% to 70%.

Question 3

Outline two perspectives on human motivation.

Answer 3

Behaviourist - humans are motivated by external stimuli. Needs-based - humans are motivated by internal needs and desires.

Question 4

What did Hershfeld show?

Answer 4

That allowing participants to visualise the effect of their savings plans on their future self caused them to double their saving rate.

Question 5

Specify four cognitive biases.

Answer 5

Anchoring, the representativeness heuristic, and mistakenly seeing signal in noise.

Question 6

What is the weakest philosophical statement in Mareks’ argument?

Answer 6

‘whenever individuals’ preferences are incoherent, the idea of respecting individuals’ preferences is meaningless.’

Question 7

What is a nudge?

Answer 7

A conscious decision to make preferable choices more easily accessible, or more easily favourable, with respect to a person’s cognitive biases.

Question 8

What percentage of the US population live paycheck-to-paycheck?

Answer 8

30%

Question 9

How much do DNAs cost the NHS each year?

Answer 9

£700 million