© 2012 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/can-i-borrow-a-feeling/
In 1973, a trio of psychologists convened in a preschool classroom to perform a diabolical experiment upon unsuspecting children. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett sought to demonstrate that one can take an activity the children naturally enjoyed—namely drawing—and render it hollow and meaningless. More specifically, these scientists hypothesized that if one rewards a human for doing something he or she naturally enjoys, and then remove that external reward, the original intrinsic pleasure will atrophy and perish.
The children were separated into three groups: Group A were promised a handsome certificate of achievement if they would draw during their free-play time. Group B were not informed of the certificate, but they were given one if they opted to draw on their own. The control children of Group C were neither offered nor given any parchment-and-calligraphy tokens of recognition.
The researchers observed, recorded, and rewarded the students. Two weeks later the phychologists reconvened in the observation booth, and found that the children of Group A had lost most of their interest in drawing whereas Groups B and C still illustrated with enthusiasm. This tendency, which has since been supported by additional experimentation, is known as the Overjustification Effect.
We Damn Interesting authors were once like those children. We doodled away with nary a care, writing for writing’s sake. But the publication of our book brought a one-time monetary reward which nullified the joy of our original fancy-free writing spree. The fire hose of dopamine became a trickle, as did our article output.
To combat the Overjustification Effect we have created what we hope will become a persistent external incentive: Damnload. This system allows visitors to purchase our catalog of articles, in whole or in part, as an eBook for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Android, etc. Articles published to the live site will remain free as always, but now our thousands of pages of Damn Interesting articles can accompany readers into airplanes, wilderness, and/or faraday cages. Hooray for everything.
© 2012 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/can-i-borrow-a-feeling/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
first woot
Does this mean more frequent articles to come? Woohoo!
DI and, well… Well played ;)
I will buy the ebook for sure! If I only could, when I was on a 55 hour trip!
Oh, and by the way, I won’t buy the “Everything Now and Forever” option, overjustification effect, You know…
This tendency, which has “”been”” since been supported by additional experimentation, is known as the Overjustification Effect.
Small typo there, nothing serious. Good work with the article, I enjoyed it :)
Lots of tasty brain candy ‘on the go’ for me! Will be signing up to fill my Kindle with yummy real soon!
Thank you DI :)
Yay, a little bit of activity! Hmm I’ll definitely have to consider buying some stuff, if and when I get a bit of dough.
One scenario I imagined was a shrub sculptor, spotted in his yard by the neighborhood. He’s asked to sculpt around the block, and as he does it for fun, he agrees. Perhaps incentive later appears, in some form. If it later ceases, does he simply return to his own yard, disregarding the neighborhood?
Another was a street guitarist who never realized he could collect tips. Would a surprise fluke day/week of donation (say someone leaves behind a collection hat) followed by the usual “drought” disrupt his routine?
The effect might have something to do with a perceived “agreement” broken or maybe just spite. Not sure kids are big on the latter.
While the effect exists, it really seemed that Allen was getting somewhat tired of this even before the book. There have been other sites like DI in the past, and they lasted only a few years too.
Was reading that as meaning we’re going to have to pay for future articles. Thankfully I think I’m wrong in that assumption and anticipate many more free articles to come!
Huh. Well that explains a lot in my life.
Hmmm,…. So what you are saying, if we give you guys our money, you will print more DI stories for us? If I buy this iPad version of all DI what kind of story guarantee will we receive in return? One story every two months? Is there a money goal you are trying to reach? Do you accept other forms of rewards other than money? Knitted sweaters perhaps?
sad face :( and where can I find these other sites?
Hi, long time reader first time poster here. The book sold because you did the work up front and developed a following. Using the Overjustification Effect as an excuse to get paid after such meager output since the book came out is lame. You want more of my money, show me yours first. Blah. That’s not an article that’s a sales pitch designed as an article. Damnlame.
This seems like a pretty good idea and hopefully it allows those creative juices to shoot out of you once more and cause the birth of more damned interesting pieces for this site.
I also did buy your book when it came out and it is fantastic, but that said after all the build up both in just writing here and then over the book I felt a little taken when the whole website went belly-up shortly after. It wouldn’t qualify as a bait n switch but it kind of stung like one.
Like blackjack above, I’m a long time reader, just now registered (fresh meat, FNG, Cherry, whatever you all want it to be) and can understand the effect. I was wondering when the site (and crew) would re-energize, and am damned glad to see you all back.
Hope all is well and wish you much success.
I think that you should run ads. A small ad in the top or bottom margin of a webpae isn’t going to hurt the quality of your writing. Then maybe you could afford to pay some more people to do more of the stuff that takes you away from doing what you love to do. Thanks for a great website!
The fact that you don’t enjoy writing anymore sounds like a personal problem to me. I feel no more inclined to pay to read these articles than I did before. Maybe your next article should be on the psychological effects of advertising.
Maybe YOUR next article should be on SHUTTING UP! *runs and hides behind his dad*
F**king idiot… I bet you didn’t even read the damn article… Please do a DI article on First and Second idiots.