My mum always told me, \u201cYou can catch more flies with honey than you can vinegar.\u201d In other words, people respond better to rewards than punishments. As a leader or a marketer if you want an employee or a customer to change behavior, research says the best thing to do is give them positive reinforcement when they do what you want.<\/p>\n
Several studies conclude that positive reinforcement is the best way to encourage better behavior. Two new studies examine these concepts more and give us better insight into why this works well.
\n<\/p>\n
A new study by the McGill researchers<\/a> indicates that kids lie to their parents when they face punishment. When encouraged to tell the truth about misbehavior without punishment, however, kids tell the truth. Victoria Talway, a Child Psychology Professor, studied four- to eight-year-olds, where participants were told not to peek at a concealed toy when the adult left the room. If the kids were told there would be a punishment, kids who peeked would lie about it. If they were told not to peek but if they did telling the truth would help the situation, they confessed to peeking. Talway\u2019s conclusion was that kids lie to appease adults.<\/p>\n If you threaten your employees or Customers with punitive action when they do something you don\u2019t want, you are potentially encouraging them to lie to you. While you certainly aren\u2019t their mom or dad, they might want to appease you anyway. Unfortunately, you have two problems here. First, they are still doing what you don\u2019t want. Second, they are lying to you, destroying the relationship of trust you need to have a good experience with them.<\/p>\n Daniel Pink is a host of Crowd Control and wrote several books on human behavior<\/a>. He examined what is the best way to discourage minor law breaking.<\/a> He defined minor law breaking as speeding, jaywalking and parking in handicap spaces. Each of these offenses traditionally is enforced with a fine sentence. What Pink discovered on his show was offering incentives to comply with the laws was far more effective than the threat of fines at getting these wayward souls to change their lawbreaking ways.<\/p>\nStudy #2: Rewards Work Better Than Fines<\/b><\/h3>\n