seems like doubtful advice from a life coach and a terrible flaw in the discipline of
mainstream economics.
Kasser, however, went beyond individual happiness and also addressed the
question of what exactly social processes and institutions created with a Homo
economicus in mind do to the development of society. The results show that
materialistic people are possessive in the sense that they prefer to own and keep
things rather than borrow and rent, are less generous or more unwilling to share
their possessions, and envious of other people’s wealth. They also feel unhappy
when others have things they want.
Furthermore—and highly relevant to sustainability strategies—materialistic
values and pro-social values operate like a seesaw: people with high extrinsic value
sets are likely to show lower levels of intrinsic values like self-realization, psychological growth or contributions to society that involve empathy for others or
concern for the environment (Kasser 2002: 18–19). Thus, materialistic values not
only reduce individual well-being and perpetuate feelings of insecurity and being
constrained, but they also hamper relationships with other people and the natural
environment. This effect is particularly strong when people have money on their
mind during decision-making.
Psychologists like James Heyman and Dan Ariely from Harvard University, for
example, demonstrated the difference between money markets in which financial
compensation motivates action or effort, and social markets with no rewards, gifts
or other tokens. In three experiments they show that using “monetary payments
causes participants to invoke monetary-marketplace frames and norms” whereas
people are actually willing to expend more effort in exchange for no payment
(Heyman and Ariely 2004: 787).
Unlike mainstream economists, they use relational theory that distinguishes four
basic types of social relationships, of which only one is ‘market pricing,’ in which
cost–benefit calculations dominate. The others are ‘communal sharing’ with a
dominant culture of ‘we-ness’; ‘authority ranking,’ which avoids the question of
who is ordering whom about and who is delivering; and ‘equality matching,’ in
which everyone gets the same rewards and reciprocity is monitored.
Heyman and Ariely found that, as long as people are not explicitly told that they
are paid, they consider themselves to be in one of the three non-money market
settings and their outlook on what they should do is different. Experiments with
students show that not offering a payment often results in greater efforts than when
money is proffered, especially when it concerns tasks like ‘helping out’ such as
carrying a sofa upstairs. When money is offered, cost–benefit thinking is used as
people seek to match their effort to the rate of pay. High pay means more effort in
solving simple tasks but low or even medium rates of pay mean less effort than no
pay. Experiment results suggest that monetary incentives can have significant
effects on how tasks are framed and therefore the motivation with which we engage
in them. When no payment is mentioned, or when it is offered in the form of gifts,
effort seems to stem from altruistic motives and the exchange is viewed as a social
one (Heyman/Ariely 2004: 792).
3.1 How Mainstream Economics Views Human Needs and Their Satisfaction
75
mainstream economics.
Kasser, however, went beyond individual happiness and also addressed the
question of what exactly social processes and institutions created with a Homo
economicus in mind do to the development of society. The results show that
materialistic people are possessive in the sense that they prefer to own and keep
things rather than borrow and rent, are less generous or more unwilling to share
their possessions, and envious of other people’s wealth. They also feel unhappy
when others have things they want.
Furthermore—and highly relevant to sustainability strategies—materialistic
values and pro-social values operate like a seesaw: people with high extrinsic value
sets are likely to show lower levels of intrinsic values like self-realization, psychological growth or contributions to society that involve empathy for others or
concern for the environment (Kasser 2002: 18–19). Thus, materialistic values not
only reduce individual well-being and perpetuate feelings of insecurity and being
constrained, but they also hamper relationships with other people and the natural
environment. This effect is particularly strong when people have money on their
mind during decision-making.
Psychologists like James Heyman and Dan Ariely from Harvard University, for
example, demonstrated the difference between money markets in which financial
compensation motivates action or effort, and social markets with no rewards, gifts
or other tokens. In three experiments they show that using “monetary payments
causes participants to invoke monetary-marketplace frames and norms” whereas
people are actually willing to expend more effort in exchange for no payment
(Heyman and Ariely 2004: 787).
Unlike mainstream economists, they use relational theory that distinguishes four
basic types of social relationships, of which only one is ‘market pricing,’ in which
cost–benefit calculations dominate. The others are ‘communal sharing’ with a
dominant culture of ‘we-ness’; ‘authority ranking,’ which avoids the question of
who is ordering whom about and who is delivering; and ‘equality matching,’ in
which everyone gets the same rewards and reciprocity is monitored.
Heyman and Ariely found that, as long as people are not explicitly told that they
are paid, they consider themselves to be in one of the three non-money market
settings and their outlook on what they should do is different. Experiments with
students show that not offering a payment often results in greater efforts than when
money is proffered, especially when it concerns tasks like ‘helping out’ such as
carrying a sofa upstairs. When money is offered, cost–benefit thinking is used as
people seek to match their effort to the rate of pay. High pay means more effort in
solving simple tasks but low or even medium rates of pay mean less effort than no
pay. Experiment results suggest that monetary incentives can have significant
effects on how tasks are framed and therefore the motivation with which we engage
in them. When no payment is mentioned, or when it is offered in the form of gifts,
effort seems to stem from altruistic motives and the exchange is viewed as a social
one (Heyman/Ariely 2004: 792).
3.1 How Mainstream Economics Views Human Needs and Their Satisfaction
75