Friday, June 16, 2006
Meanopoke Theory
This is the sign i have created in office today. Its actually meant to be worn by the meanest person of the day in office. Yep, another on of those days, where i draw weirdo pics using paint.
Apparently, the idea wasn't well received, and honestly I am kinda upset with the poor response. Though i have put the idea across casually, I did analyse the situation and feel that there is enough evidence to show that it works. Even then, we can look at it from another perspective, in the name of fun, people should just be sporting and endorse this idea.
Here's the theory part ( i have decided to make it more easily understood by the masses for this one as i feel this is a good idea that everyone should start practicing).
The underlying assumption to the development of the meanopok theory is that human are irrational. ie to say, a $10 loss with be remembered more vividly than a $10 gain. It also extend to says why human would rather buy a $40 pair of shoe sold at 50% off price tag will bring about higher sales than a $20 normal looking price tag. Human perceive loss more strongly than gain in a phenomenon of what we call is the assymmetric value function of utility. (economics student, you better know what i am saying so far... else... go find it out... alternatively, if you leave a comment, i can provide the relevant information).
If we were to extrapolate, we can easily extend the theory to say that we will put in extra effort to avert a loss than to have an extra gain (there's abit of diminishing utility in this, but i shan't go into that). so that's when the ingenious part come in. we all know pay it forward is about passing on good deeds or act of kindness from one person to another person. but frankly, who on earth would really go the extra mile to earn a "Pay It forward" badge or tag? but if we were to reverse it and give out punishment to those people who does something bad, they will TRY to avoid wearing that tag. after all, now there is negative utility in the form of "shame" and stuff.
So what we have now is reverse "pay it forward", instead of rewarding, we punish, instead of having people having good deeds done, we are putting a stop to bad deeds. however, right at this stage, i think its more important to reduce the amount of "bad deeds" and once we have substantial acheivement in this area, we can extend to the "good deeds" concept of pay it forward.
Am i making sense?
posted @ 12:28 AM ||
