- The best way to get British people to try harder at work may be to pay them more
- Britons put in twice as much effort when extra cash is on offer, study suggests
It is bad news for employers, but the best way to get British people to try harder at work may be to pay them more money.
Unlike in some other cultures, British people will put in twice as much effort when extra cash is on offer, a study suggests.
Showing them the money appears to works better than more subtle attempts to suggest they should work hard because other people do.
Researchers led by the University of Chicago recruited 1,067 people in the UK and 1,086 in China for a social experiment.
The volunteers were asked to look through a series of images and identify each one with showed a building.
British people will double their work efforts if they think a financial reward is on the table, study finds (stock image)
They got either a flat fee to do this, or an added incentive.
The added incentive was the psychological ‘nudge’ of being told other people doing the task had tried hard and completed 160 images, or a simple cash payment for every 10 images they managed to get through.
For people in China, the cash reward encouraged almost 20 per cent more effort than was seen in people give the psychological nudge or a flat fee.
But British people were so motivated by cold, hard cash that they put in more than twice the effort – completing more than double the number of images compared to people given a flat fee or psychological nudge.
The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, also compared the US, India, Mexico, and South Africa in various experiments.
When also asked to identify buildings within pictures, more than half of people from the US quit the task as soon as they could when no extra money was available to continue, while more than 90 per cent of people in Mexico were conscientious enough to keep going.
The findings suggest people in western, rich countries like the UK and US feel less obligation to try hard when there is nothing in it for them.
The findings suggest people in western, rich countries like the UK and US feel less obligation to try hard when there is nothing in it for them (stock image)
People in China, India, Mexico and South Africa may have been poorer in some cases, but were less motivated by money in comparison to psychological nudges.
Danila Medvedev, who led the study from the University of Chicago, said: ‘People in western cultures like the UK have learned to think that time is money.
‘So they believe extra work should be further compensated with money, and duty and responsibility become more important to them when money is involved too.’
Researchers also analysed the results of a previous study where people in the US and India were asked to press two keys on a keyboard as many times as possible.
People in India were more willing to do the task when the money went to charity than people in the US.
