It is inconceivable that people are motivated solely or even mainly by external incentives” (p. 27). Intrinsic motivation is when a person acts upon their own interest and enjoyment. Extrinsic motivation comes from avoiding punishment or obtaining external rewards. Motivation gained from intrinsic beliefs can only come to fruition once everyone is well accounted for. If humans are tasked with mindless routine as jobs, there is a chance that they can be replaced with machinery. When it comes to the workplace, running on extrinsic motivation might boost motivation the first time; however, it starts to dissipate once rewards and incentives runs
Chapters four and five of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, discuss two interesting cases. In the beginning of chapter four, Steven Levitt starts off by arguing that the legalization of abortion played a big role in the sudden reduction in the crime rate in the United States approximately twenty years later. He then goes into the next chapter where he establishes a correlation between how a child is raised and later test scores. Furthermore, in his book he states many reasons for his argument and correlation.
Chapter four of Freakonomics starts off by giving background information of the dictator in Romania. Nicolae Ceausescu was the dictator of Romania that made abortion illegal. With this new abortion law Ceausescu wanted to strengthen Romania’s population. Before the abortion law, there were four abortions to every live birth (Levitt and Dubner, 2009). However, women who already had four children and were apart of the communist party were exempt from this law. Within one year of this act the population had doubled. Studies had shown that people who were born after the abortion law would do worse in school, in work, and would sometimes be more likely to become
There are a multitude of complex, intricate issues and problems that exist in modern day American society. In an effort to begin to fathom the complexity of such issues, society as a whole has created “conventional wisdoms” to explain the otherwise unexplainable phenomena. In addition, so-called “experts” on topics have tried to explain causes for such issues that may not even be causing them in the first place. Perhaps these causal hypotheses and conventional wisdoms are true, or perhaps there is more to the puzzle than meets the eye. In Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner use juxtaposition and selection of details to convince readers to dig deeper into the world and find the truth behind what seems like reality.
The world is an increasingly tricky, sticky place. Mysteries present themselves every day; and in every way, people are puzzled and intrigued and on the hunt for answers. Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics with Stephen J. Dubner, is one such person. Devoting his professional life to cracking the mysteries of seemingly mundane, and sometimes trivial, economic in daily life, Levitt jumps from assumption to decision, connecting dots in sometimes genius, sometimes haphazard, ways, and forming conclusions that occasionally defy conventional thought. Freakanomics gifts readers with several ideas to chew on and challenges deeply rooted thoughts.
This paper aims to present the book review of ‘Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything’ along with the main arguments, course applications and personal opinions.
Sometimes people remain driven to do something because of external reward, or the by the avoidance of an objectionable consequence, as when one obeys the permitted speed limit to avoid a costly speeding ticket. When the motivation leads to an outcome that is outside of the self, it is called extrinsic motivation. In extrinsic motivation, a person performs an action because it leads to an outcome that is separate from the person (Ryan & Deci, 2000). For instance, giving a student money for every A grade, proffering a bonus to a salesman for the most contracts signed, or tipping a stylist for a good haircut. The student, salesman, and hairdresser remain motivated to work for the external extrinsic rewards. In contrast, intrinsic motivation is the form of motivation in which an individual implements an action because the act itself is enjoyable, satisfying, interesting, or rewarding in some internal
Cheating in our culture is often looked at with distain and is something that most find unacceptable. However, the question will always remain, is there ever a time when cheating can be justified? To answer this question one must define what cheating really is. Cheating at its root is dishonesty and with moral relativism swiftly becoming the norm in our society, dishonesty has fallen into a rather grey are of life. Something that one would find to be dishonest on all accounts another would find to be acceptable under the right circumstances. For each individual there must be a baseline from which their morals are established and from which they define the difference between right or wrong. One area of life we can look to for clarity is the world of sports. In sports, there are rules which govern a players conduct
Freakonomics has been an incredibly interesting read and opens up with, what appears to the reader to be, a writing style that somehow personifies the text in a way that only the book itself can articulate. The authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, do an amazing job describing basic economic concepts and rules using intriguing and nontypical examples all while entertaining facts and figures that leave the reader with a dropped jaw. The economist, Levitt, received his bachelors degree in economics from Harvard University, his Ph.D. from M.I.T., and has been a professor of economics at the Chicago School of Law since 1997. On the opposite side of the cover, the award-winning writer, journalist, TV and radio personality, Dubner, has
Cheating is wrong and avoidable, but it still occurs. It may not be evil, but even as a lesser good, it still does not make it better. That’s why a world without ‘evil’ would not be the best of all, it wouldn’t be achievable. A world that comprises of less evil and more good is an attempt for which individuals should strive. A lesser good may be momentary but it seems as though it is always present.
Hypothesis 2: Anticipatory regret about passing up a last opportunity for enrichment will make people more willing to cheat when they think that no more cheating opportunities remain.
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
A number one bestseller many say is grasping in amazement: Freakonomics is said to unravel the untold stories of life. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner break common misconceptions of economics by revealing its true science. Freakonomics shatters the view of economics being an arid study of finance and markets. They pull in information to make inferences on past occurrences subtly influence on the present. Freakonomics packs punches with its countless number of tables and figures, serving as concrete data to make their assumptions. Levitt & Dubner in the beginning identify the fundamental Latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc in the sentence, “…just because two things are correlated does not mean that one causes the other”, due to their entire novel being based on correlation. Freakonomics’ explicit exploration of the hidden side of everything captivate economist with unmentioned inferences backed up with reasoned correlation, linking compelling topics to shatter misconceptions about controversial stories, ending with a brief consensus of economic pattern limitations.
"Anybody living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin... The culprit was crime. It had been rising relentlessly - a graph plotting the crime rate in any American city over recent decades looked like a ski slope in profile... Death by gunfire, intentional and otherwise, had become commonplace, So too had carjacking and crack dealing, robbery, and rape. Violent crime was a gruesome and constant companion...
Wageman, R., & Baker, G. (1997). Incentives and cooperation: The joint effects of task and