If people do things for lunk-headed, backward-looking reasons, why wouldn’t we also do things for significance-seeking, self-actualizing reasons? If we’re predictably irrational—and we clearly are—why couldn’t we also be predictably transcendent?
If that seems far-fetched, consider some of our other bizarre behaviors. We leave lucrative jobs to take low-paying ones that provide a clearer sense of purpose. We work to master the clarinet on weekends although we have little hope of making a dime (Motivation 2.0) or acquiring a mate (Motivation 1.0) from doing so. We play with puzzles even when we don’t get a few raisins or dollars for solving them.
Some scholars are already widening the reach of behavioral economics to encompass these ideas. The most prominent is Bruno Frey, an economist at the University of Zurich. Like the behavioral economists, he has argued that we need to move beyond the idea of Homo Oeconomicus (Economic Man, that fictional wealth-maximizing android). But his extension goes in a slightly different direction—to what he calls Homo Oeconomicus Maturus (or Mature Economic Man). This figure, he says, “is more ‘mature’ in the sense that he is endowed with a more refined motivational structure.” In other words, to fully understand human economic behavior, we have to come to terms with an idea at odds with Motivation 2.0. As Frey writes, “Intrinsic motivation is of great importance for all economic activities. It is inconceivable that people are motivated solely or even mainly by external incentives."
~ Daniel H. Pink
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