Peer Motivation

Do people exhibit stronger performance in daily tasks when their progress is posted publicly? According to the article “The Additive Impact of Group and Individual Publicly Displayed Feedback: Examining Individual Response Patterns and Response Generalization in a Safe-Driving Occupational Intervention” in the journal Behavior Modification, people will be more successful in accomplishing tasks and routines when their performance statistics are put on public display. By monitoring turn signal use of pizza deliverers, the experiment examined how pizza drivers would respond to feedback about the amount that they used their turn signal. In this particular scenario, feedback was first posted for the group as a whole and then for individual drivers to see what difference would be made. Unsurprisingly, this experiment resulted in an increase in turn signal use for the pizza delivery drivers, showing that critical feedback increases performance.

In this Behavior Modification experiment, five pizza delivery stores were used to monitor the drivers’ turn signal usage The first two stores, called A and B did receive feedback but were not told of their being monitored from buildings and other outposts for data collectors. The other three pizza restaurants, called C, D, and E, were used as controls, where the drivers did not receive any feedback about their turn signal use but were monitored as well for the experiment. The control group was used to monitor any change in the driving habits of the drivers due to local safe driving campaigns or company policies.

To begin the experiment, a brief lecture was given on the safe driving benefits of using turn signals and then the delivery group voted on a goal to achieve for turn signal use over the following weeks. For the next four weeks, the driver group’s mean turn signal use was openly posted on a graph. For group A, the participants’ turn signal use increased by at least 12% over the time when the group’s progress was monitored and an additional 18% when individual progress was monitored. For group B, the participants’ turn signal use increased by at least 21% over the time when the group’s progress was monitored and an additional 27% when individual progress was monitored. These values suggest that individuals will positively respond to feedback about their performance in trying to reach a goal, reacting well to group feedback but most strongly to individual feedback.

Though the results from this experiment are not necessarily surprising, its results are useful and applicable in everyday activities such as jobs, school, or sports. Being in classes where class averages for tests or even for the semester is helpful to me without question because it helps me to be able to see how I’m doing in comparison to those around me. If I am doing much better, than I know the work is paying off and it helps me stick with it. On the other hand, If I am behind everyone, my motivation to step it up increases and I am able to perform better. As high school students, it will be easier for you to tell how others in your class are faring since you know many and the class sizes are smaller. I would highly encourage you to use this to your advantage and observe both the successes and failures of others to motivate yourself to achieve the highest degree of scholarship or athletic achievement you can.

Photo: kevinzhengli on flickr.com

Timothy D. Ludwig, E. Scott Geller and Steven W. Clarke. "The Additive Impact of Group and Individual Publicly Displayed Feedback: Examining Individual Response Patterns and Response Generalization in a Safe-Driving Occupational Intervention”. Behavior Modification, September 2010. 34.5, http://bmo.sagepub.com/search/results?fulltext=The+Additive+Impact+of+Group+and+Individual+Publicly&x=0&y=0&submit=yes&journal_set=spbmo&src=selected&andorexactfulltext=and