But when the operators use red envelopes or small gifts to increase the number of people in the group, the taste of the group begins to change. Everyone is waiting for you to send red envelopes to liven up the atmosphere. After grabbing the red envelopes, they immediately withdraw. There is no more positivity that started the discussion.
The desi effect
This phenomenon has a proper name in psychology "Desi effect", which was discovered and proposed by American psychologist Edward Desi.
Why do I not advocate the use of red envelopes for group promotion?
Edward Desi
This theory holds that when people give extrinsic rewards, such as money and rewards, to behaviors that have already earned them intrinsic rewards, they become less intrinsically motivated to engage in those activities in the future.
In order to verify this phenomenon, Desi conducted a special experiment in 1971: he asked college students to be the subjects and answered interesting intellectual problems in the laboratory. The experiment was divided into three stages:
Why do I not advocate the use of red envelopes for group promotion?
The first stage: no matter whether they can solve it or not, all students are not rewarded;
The second stage: Divide the students into two groups, the students in the experimental group will be paid $1 for solving a problem, while the students in the control group will be paid the same as in the first stage, without any pay;
The third stage: During the free break time, students do what they want to do. The researchers observe whether the students are still solving problems, which is used as an indicator to judge the students' interest in solving problems.
The result of the experiment is that the students in the rewarded group did work very hard in the second stage, but the number of these students who continued to solve the problem in the third stage was very small, indicating that their interest declined rapidly. Students in this group who were not rewarded showed that more of them took more breaks to continue solving problems, indicating that their interest was still growing.
Finally, Desi came to the conclusion that when people rely on intrinsic motivations such as interest and curiosity to carry out a pleasant activity, if they provide external material rewards, they will reduce their enthusiasm for participating in this activity.
This law is known as the Desi effect in psychology.
Why do I not advocate the use of red envelopes for group promotion?
To give you a better understanding of this effect, let’s look at another story.
In front of an old man's house, a group of children often played loudly and screamed, making the old man unbearable. In order to solve this problem, the old man thought of a way.
He first gave each child 25 cents and said to them, "You make this place very lively, I feel a lot younger, and this money is a little thank you."
The kids were happy and came running again the next day, frolicking as always. The old man continued to give them money, but this time only 15 cents per country email list child, explaining, "I don't have any income, so I can only give a little less."
15 cents was okay too, the kid was satisfied and walked away gleefully.
On the third day, the children came to fight again, and this time the old man only gave each child 5 cents. The children were unhappy: "It's only 5 cents a day, so boring, and I'll never come again." After saying this, they left without looking back.
In this story, the old man actually used the motives of the children. He turned the children's internal motive of "playing for their own happiness" into an external motive of "playing for their own cents", and finally changed the children's playfulness. this behavior.