Friday, September 30, 2016

Freakonomics Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have In Common?
Freakonomics Chapter 2: How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?

In 150 words, consider how motivation is a key part of context and how it has the power to sway intent. Don't worry about addressing both articles specifically; instead think thematically. (Of course, you may refer to them explicitly if you need to.)

If you left your copy of the text at school/home and need to access an electronic version, do so here.

24 comments:

  1. "There are few incentives more powerful than the fear of random [consequence], and that on its own is a major driving force in today's society. As we shift from a mindset of placing the value of one's time and effort above a monetary income, to a world where one's strongest motivations are that of a number. Does everything just come down to manipulation? A what can you do for me, even if you don't know you're doing anything specifically for my well-being? Those who are unable to "provide" for us in some way will more likely than not be removed from our lives. They are seen as having no purpose, unable to provide that incentive to remain an acquaintance, never less a friend. Therefore, "we are likely to abuse information in our personal lives... whether by withholding true information or editing the information we choose to put forth". How are we supposed to have a true motivation when we are ignoring the true data presented by both those around us and ourselves?

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  2. To hold information that others do not have is to hold power. How you use that information and your motivation for using it is what makes your intent "good" or "bad".

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    1. CONTINUED (Sorry I forgot to complete this): Motivation is all about incentive, and in the case of the schoolteachers the incentive for altering their students answers was money. Obviously that incentive is a key part of the context of a situation when a teacher (who is supposed to educate children) would compromise their students education. It shows that that teacher's intent was that of personal gain. What if, for example, the reward for having such good test results from a particular classroom was a scholarship for each student in that class? Then the intent of a teacher changing students marks would be for the benefit of the kids. I wouldn't say that either situation would be good or bad but it demonstrates how easily motivation can sway intent.

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  3. Motivation can be difficult for people who work in professional settings where they may feel their hard work goes unnoticed or the constant pressures of a competitive environment wears them down. Motivation is generally what energizes, maintains, and controls behavior. Motivation can be the key to achieving success, but sometimes it can sway our original intention. Much like the teachers in the second chapter of Freakonomics, who wanted to achieve success in their work environment by showing improvement in their classes’ marks but there wasn’t much motivation. However, as soon as there was a prize involved for the teacher whose class would show the most improvement, the motivation increased, the intention changed and most teachers took the easy route of cheating and changing student’s answers to the right ones. Motivation has the power to sway our intentions, change our behavior and sometimes make us do things we normally wouldn’t.

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  4. In order to address how motivation has the power to sway the internet, we have to give motivation some form of a definition. Motivation is the reason why one behaves the way they do. Given that definition, it is easy to see the power motivation has and how motivation spurs the internet. Place a single rumor into the sea of social media, one that is a tale of some sort of social injustice and you will have a mob of people motivated to take justice into their own hands. In this era where we have incredible amounts of data at our fingertips, many take the knowledge for granted and never bother to look into the legitimacy of the information they are presented. Due to this the number of cases where humans are motivated to revolt over falsified information or a story that only had a shred of truth becomes slightly comical. On the other hand though, the internet has also given many people opportunities they would of never had and has motivated our society to continue advancing despite the barriers we might face.

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  5. Motivation I believe is an incentive to get someone or yourself to do something you don't feel like doing. For example, doing homework that you've been procrastinating on. One would say, "Do the homework, so you can watch Netflix for the rest of the time", or "Do this so you can take a nap later", etc. It is a force that drives a task. You can't blame motivation for bad intentions towards something. If you are motivated to do something, you have a purpose behind it. Motivation may drive you to do something but it doesn't determine your intention behind the task. The two may be correlated but one doesn't cause the other.

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  6. Motivation generally is a positive encourager for productivity and efficiency. The only time a problem arises is when the said motivational incentive backfires or when people find an easier path for a reward. Examples of this in the book include the Day care-center analogy where the adults would pay a fee of $3 for picking up their kids late instead of the amount of late students decreasing it increased. The reason for this was because the amount of the fee was too small and it gave parents a change in incentive since they believed that if it just cost $3 more to keep the kids in the day care they could continue being late since it didn’t seem to be an inconvenience to the Day care. This issue could have been easily solved if the said fee was changed to a higher price since it would then motivate parents to pick their children up earlier

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  7. Motivation isn't necessarily good or bad; what you do with it deems the value of it. Similarly, the Freakonomics authors manipulate results to form these predictions. Motivation is simply reasonable and practical thinking that sways our decisions and opinions one way or another. The authors are motivated to see a totally different perspective of society and its daily norms. They present ideas in a way that almost makes them taboo in today's society. Motivation and intention and correlated one drives the other. Similarly, the authors of Freakonomics are trying to generalize society based on the most frequent patterns; their intention is to show how people are not all that different by comparing two opposite phenomena. Thus showing that motivation can be driven by intent and context.

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  8. Motivation is the incentive present in every human. Motivation is of two parts; external motivation and internal motivation. What I mean by them is that external motivation is associated with an award , money, status, power, etc. that motivates us towards a purpose . While internal motivation is associated with personal happiness and pleasure that pushes us towards a purpose. I believe that in most our lives external motivation is the most dominant. I say this because many of the teachers in the article were not affected by the outcomes of their students on the test. As soon as there was an award, external motivation, came into effect the teachers started to care and look out of their students more and made sure they got high marks. To ensure they did many would change the answer to a increase the class mark.

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  9. Motivation is not exclusive in whether it leads to positive or negative decisions and morphs our intentions. Motivation is a natural process in which we debate the pros and cons of a choice and the options that seem to have the most benefits which in return, inspires a sense of drive. It is the incentives that push us to act a certain way. Intent can be sculpted into what we think has the best outcome. Even though we may intend to make a choice that could be seen as moral, there are layers in which we are motivated to choose for reasons that benefit us. For an example, the teachers would change the answers on students worksheets which was motivated by the fact that they would get paid extra if their students got did better. This process of cheating could be justified in that the teachers, aside from being paid more, probably believed that boosting the students marks would also allow the students to move on and excel. Motivation is powered by incentives which can alter our intentions.

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  10. Motivation, in relation to incentives, has power to sway intent. Incentives drive motivations, and in turn, motivations sway intent. One works toward something they actually want. If no drive, or motivation, is existent then there is no reason to work toward a goal. Incentives provide a reason for that drive. They may be economic, social or moral, and often all three coincide. Although they can be a positive influencing factor, they can also negatively change the original intent. For example, a school teacher might want to properly educate her grade 3 students, she may have the moral incentive to teach them properly. But, with the introduction of the high-stakes testing, her economic incentive- her bonus for producing big test-score- and social incentives-to keep her job- become more dominant and overtake her moral incentives.In the end, motivation is determined by which ever incentive is stronger and that will determine intent.

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  11. Motivation is something that drives us to do things that we should or shouldn't, what we need or want to do. It's a form of manipulation that can change any decision that we make. Whether it's something small as choosing between a type of cookie or big as altering the results of a match , motivation has the the power to sway intent. As to how motivation (specifically if it's good or bad) is a key part of context, well that’s where incentives come into play. An incentive can also have the power to sway intent because of the motivation behind it. For example in chapter one, a third grade teacher changed the answers of her students to ensure that almost all her students passed the exams. If her students passed, she was seen as a better teacher. The teacher’s motivation wasn’t bad but the context in what she did was.

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  13. Motivation: reason(s) that someone may be motivated or push to complete a task. It has the power to drive us to complete a goal because it acts a the prized carrot at the end of the race, and we are the horse that runs . Motivation is usually seen in the form of a prize or simply something that is better or seen superior to what we already have, it give our reason in doing something, a bigger want and a greater illusion of need.The purpose or rather the intent of task or mission has a greater chance of being completed as it has a greater benefit than what we had initially assumed. Us as humans always want to better ourselves(mentally and physically) and achieve more in everything we do and usually motivation is the tool that can make us run to the finish line rather than stroll.

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  14. Great thinking! Maybe connect incentives with motivation as well, seeing as how the book is strongly related to incentives, and maybe more depth into the relationship of motivation and intent? Other than that, great work!

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  15. Motivation is the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way; the general desire or willingness of someone to do something. Motivation and incentives are closely tied together. Incentives are how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. There are there different types of motivations such as incentives, power, social, growth (internal motivation), etc. Power: we all want to make control of things in our own ways or just even have some sort of power; this is why people are motivated to achieve this. This it linked with social because everyone wants a good social status which in some cases give you special accessibility and power. Growth in other words is internal motivation it talks about self improvements which people try to increase there knowledge and because strong form of motivation to the outside world.

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  16. Motivation is the reason a person has for behaving a particular way. Motivation encourages one to fulfil its goals and achieve the things they want. Motivation is the end result the reward that everyone looks towards. It allows us to make decisions and the ability to change them too. The motivation of the elementary teacher of being seen as a better teacher, swayed intent through her actions of changing the answers in the exam written by her students. Her motivation was to be seen as a better teacher but it changed her incentives when she put in the right answers in her students’ test, so most of her students will pass the exams. By doing so her intention of helping her students pass turned from altered when she changed the answers. She could still have reached her goal with a good intention and incentive, however motivation had the power to sway intent.

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  17. Motivation is when you hype yourself up to do something that might not be what you actually want to do. Intent is the reasoning behind something you do. I believe they are correlated and can influence each other. Without motivation you couldn't finish the intent or end product you envisioned. Incentives is the fuel as without it you wouldn't have motivation or intent. If you intend on doing something but the incentive isn't great then you probably don't have the motivation to do it either. While if the incentive was high and the intention was also good there would be strong motivation.

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  18. The overarching theme in these two chapters was motivations. Motivation is a challenging aspect for people to have. People search for motivation so that they can complete a task even if they dont want to. It is teaching a dog a new trick and everytime they get it right they get a treat. For people who are in a professional work environment they might feel their hard work goes unnoticed or the constant pressures of a competitive environment wears them down. This deminishes their motivation to work or even go to work. But sometime motivations can be scary. for example the teacher in freakanomics were motivated for thier class to do well so they changed some of the answer so it looked like the child preformed better than they actually did. This not just cheats they system but also the student becuas egoing forward they may think they know something then totally underpreform. All of this because the teacher had a motivation. Students are motivated to get 'good marks' Sometimes by their parent or their peers. This can cause them to either work harder or the student gives u beacuse the goal set by the parents or friends are too high so they never feel like they are achieving anything; this makes it hard for the student to keep working so often they will just give up. Motivation can get people to do things or work harder. Its all about how one motivates themself.

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  19. Motivation can be defined as the process of comparing pros and cons of a possible choice that can made in a certain situation. This can be done by physically dividing a sheet of paper in two, and seeing the benefits and risks of doing something. Most of the time, this sheet of paper just becomes quick thoughts in our head, which ‘motivate’ us to do what we believe is right. Therefore, motivation and incentive coincide. Incentive is the reason(s) why we choose to behave one way or another. Sometimes incentive is driven by outside factors such as getting paid more at work, or having a bigger reward for doing something you may have initially thought is bad. For example, cheating may not be something a teacher believes is right at first because they want their students to be successful on their own. However, after the teacher has been warned that they will lose their job if the class average does not go up, the teacher may cheat to save him/herself from getting fired because they want to continue being a teacher.

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  20. Motivation is the driving force that helps humans perform tasks and accomplish their goals. In order to feel motivated, people usually have some sort of incentive to fulfill their objectives. Incentives come in many different forms, whether it be the pursuit of money, happiness or merely some recognition. Intent can be changed by how motivated a person is to do something and can range from not returning a shirt to your friend, to robbing a bank. In both cases, the intent was to gain something at the expense of another, however the motivations are very different.

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  22. Context is not a single entity rather, it is made up of many key elements that shape it. Of these key elements motivation is one of the more crucial elements in defining context. Whatever the motivation might be it has a powerful role in context as it can determine where the context may be and it can also determine certain smaller elements within context such as fiscal level or lack therefore of. Motivation therefore is directly intertwined with intent, in fact it is almost a two way street. Intent is the action of doing something in any context while motivation is the driving force (or power) of the intent. Motivation is like the groundwork laying out all the possible intentions given the context. On the flip side intent can be the power behind motivation as it can increase the motive towards a task. So in this regard motivation has a great deal of power over intent.

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