Incentives Lecture

Previous to viewing the lecture on Incentives, I have read a lot about positive and negative reinforcers as well as punishers, but I have never compared these techniques to that of incentives. It was interesting to look at the relationship between the subjective and objective values of incentives. Also, the slide on “Losses Loom Larger Than Gains,” pointed out how losing something sometimes affects us more than gaining the same thing which I find to be very true. With that being the case this makes me think about how the threat of losing something could be more of an incentive than the promise of obtaining something of the same value. Other factors of incentive value such as the amount, rate, or contrast of incentives did not come as much of a surprise in how they affect the value of an incentive. There was also a video in this lecture that I enjoyed the most which was the TED talk that explored the paradox of choice, which is not as simple as some may assume.