I recently read Narrative Economics by Robert J. Shiller, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. In that book, he talks abut how viral narratives can change people’s behavior–which changes the markets and economy. He suggests that economists should really be paying more attention to common narratives.
I’ve also been researching and thinking about motivation lately. In Drive by Daniel H. Pink, there are three types of motivation: Type 1 is getting what you need (you cold think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or just that when you feel hungry, you want to eat). Type 2 is incentives, or rewards and punishments. Type 3 is intrinsic motivation, which is basically doing things that we just like to do, and working towards flow and mastery.
But that seems incomplete. For example, suppose that I clean my home well right before I go on vacation. I’m not doing it because I need anything. I’m not doing it because of some sort of reward–I’m going to be gone, so I don’t get to enjoy the clean home. I’m not doing it because I am intrinsically motivated to clean, as I don’t like cleaning. So why do I clean my home?
Because I believe in a simple narrative that I learned growing up: you leave your home clean. I saw my mom clean our house before vacation. So I do the same things. That’s just what you do.
I think a lot of what we do is not about what we need (a lot of those needs are already met), and not about incentives (while there are natural consequences to our actions, we do a lot of things without considering consequences), and not about intrinsic motivation (because I am constantly doing things I don’t really like to do). We do things because we believe narratives. Narratives like:
- Parents play with their children.
- Moms are in charge of keeping the house clean.
- Grass is green.
- Good people help others.
- Every meal needs a protein, grain, and vegetable.
- People in my family get good grades.
- Successful adults buy houses.
- To do lists need to get done.
These aren’t long stories, but short things that we’ve picked up from society. We’ve learned from parents, friends, family, neighbors, communities, social media, articles, books, movies, TV, etc., etc. We are all building the stories of our lives from these short narratives about what is normal or what you should do actually direct a lot of our behavior.
We can’t always change the narratives we believe in. But we can change what we pay attention to. We can build our values. We can spend time with different people. We can have transformative experiences. And all those experiences build our story, and the narrative that we believe in.
What are your narratives that motivate you?
Also: this idea is new and I think it might be a good idea, but I’m still working on developing it! Please share all your thoughts you have: questions, confusions, disagreements, agreement, etc.
Heather Hoyt 