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But we didn't stop there, we kept on doing
one more experiment.

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00:00:04,840 --> 00:00:09,416
And this other experiment, looks slightly
different.

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00:00:09,416 --> 00:00:15,513
We gave people a sheet of paper, with lots
and lots of letters, randomly arranged

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00:00:15,513 --> 00:00:19,882
letters, and we asked people to find pairs
of letters.

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00:00:19,882 --> 00:00:24,050
That were the same, ss for example, or bb
and so on.

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00:00:24,050 --> 00:00:26,712
And we paid people.
We paid people more for the first sheet,

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00:00:26,712 --> 00:00:29,927
and less for the second sheet.
And less for the third sheet, and so on.

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00:00:29,928 --> 00:00:33,625
And after they submitted each of them, we
asked them, do you want to do the next one

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00:00:33,625 --> 00:00:37,292
for slightly less money, and so on.
And we had the regular condition in which

10
00:00:37,292 --> 00:00:42,061
we asked people to write their name on it.
And on every sheet and when they submitted

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00:00:42,061 --> 00:00:46,115
it.
The experimenter looked at the sheet from

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00:00:46,115 --> 00:00:51,827
top to bottom, scanned it, said aha and
put it down on the pile of paper.

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00:00:51,828 --> 00:00:55,809
In the second condition we didn't ask
people to write their name on it and the

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00:00:55,809 --> 00:00:58,430
experimenter now didn't even look at the
sheet.

15
00:00:58,430 --> 00:01:00,810
They just took the sheet and put it on the
pile.

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00:01:00,810 --> 00:01:04,226
And in the third condition the
experimenter, there was no name, the

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00:01:04,226 --> 00:01:07,720
experimenter took the sheet and directly
put it through a shredder.

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00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:12,657
So there was not even a recognition of
anything.

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00:01:12,658 --> 00:01:15,964
And we call this the acknowledge
condition, the ignored condtion and the

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00:01:15,964 --> 00:01:18,593
shredder.
Condition and the question was, when

21
00:01:18,593 --> 00:01:23,013
people started working they started
getting high price and then the question

22
00:01:23,013 --> 00:01:27,434
again is what price would they stop?
And what we found was in this shredded

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00:01:27,434 --> 00:01:30,982
condition people stopped at about $0.30
cents per page.

24
00:01:30,983 --> 00:01:35,660
In the acknowledge condition they stopped
at $0.15 per page.

25
00:01:35,660 --> 00:01:39,938
So people were willing to work much, much
more for much lower pay in the acknowledge

26
00:01:39,938 --> 00:01:42,699
condition.
Which means that the moment you say to

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00:01:42,699 --> 00:01:45,587
somebody, you look at their work, you say
uh-huh.

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00:01:45,588 --> 00:01:50,136
It's a much, much better situation.
People are willing to work for much less

29
00:01:50,136 --> 00:01:53,673
money but what happened in the ignored
condition, right?

30
00:01:53,673 --> 00:01:57,450
The shredder was the extreme negligence
and lack of caring.

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00:01:57,450 --> 00:02:02,877
The acknowledge was, you know in our case
the, the most rewarding from a personal

32
00:02:02,877 --> 00:02:05,010
relationship.
What happened in the ignore?

33
00:02:05,010 --> 00:02:08,820
You don't destroy the work but you don't
look at it and you don't say uh-huh.

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00:02:08,820 --> 00:02:11,872
It turns out that was exactly like the
shredder.

35
00:02:11,872 --> 00:02:14,220
And there's kind of two pieces of news
here.

36
00:02:14,220 --> 00:02:18,870
The first piece of news is that if you
want to get people to feel that they are

37
00:02:18,870 --> 00:02:23,670
getting something in terms of meaning,
appreciation and so on, it's not that

38
00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:25,890
hard.
All you need to do is to look at their job

39
00:02:25,890 --> 00:02:28,560
and say aha.
That gets a lot of the job done.

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00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:33,847
Not to mention if you say thank you or
some other sense of appreciation.

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00:02:33,848 --> 00:02:38,018
On the negative side, it means that
ignoring people, even to a slight degree

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00:02:38,018 --> 00:02:41,823
gets you almost all the way as if you're
shredding their work, right?

43
00:02:41,824 --> 00:02:44,959
I mean, think about it.
The shredding condition was clearly

44
00:02:44,959 --> 00:02:48,248
unimportant.
The ignored condition got people almost

45
00:02:48,248 --> 00:02:52,320
all the way, right?
So if shredding was really demotivating.

46
00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,660
Just ignoring got you almost all the way
to that, to that level.

47
00:02:55,660 --> 00:03:01,185
Which means that both, it's easy to get
people to feel motivated, but it's also

48
00:03:01,185 --> 00:03:05,320
incredibly easy to eliminate every sense
of motivation.

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00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:10,488
And if you think about life this way, you
could probably think about lots of people

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00:03:10,488 --> 00:03:13,969
around you working for you, with you, your
own work.

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00:03:13,970 --> 00:03:18,880
And ask the question of, how do we inject
more meaning into this situation?

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00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:20,920
What are the cases that we can increase
meaning?

53
00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:26,066
And what are the cases in which we can at
least, eliminate the decreasing of

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00:03:26,066 --> 00:03:29,187
meaning?
And I think, in both of those areas,

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00:03:29,187 --> 00:03:31,843
there's lots of room for improvement.