For a period of time when I was younger, my parents had this great discipline system.*
When my brother or I did something bad, we received a "down arrow." When one of us did something good, we received an "up arrow." You needed two up arrows to counteract one down arrow. The beauty of the system was this: the up arrows and down arrows didn't actually mean anything. There were no rewards for getting many up arrows or punishments for many down arrows. For the first week or so of the system, up arrows and down arrows were kept track of, but after that they were just abstract ideas that were good or bad. They still worked for a shockingly long amount of time.
Incentives
There are three types of incentives: economic, social, and moral. Economic is the simplest: you gain or lose something. For example, paying a $50 fine for parking in the wrong spot, or earning a lollipop for sitting through a haircut. Economic incentives don't even have to be material: a time out is an economic incentive because you're losing your time. In general, an economic incentive is one where you get something for yourself or lose something you had. Social incentives and moral incentives aren't super important to what I'm talking about, so I'm putting my explanation of them in this footnote.** The TL;DR is that social incentives are about what other people think and moral incentives are about the "right" thing to do.
In our society, there are actually many examples of abstract economic incentives that aren't good or bad per se, but our society places value on them nevertheless. For example, in the Super Bowl, the most-watched TV program of the year, both teams strive to earn points. What do you get from the points? You win.*** It's purely psychological in nature.
Many more economic incentives are relatively abstract, when you think about it. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I think of $50, I don't think of the goods I can buy with the money. I think of the money itself. Our society has placed value on money, so I've just conceptualized it as a "good thing." That's what up arrows and down arrows are; just a "good thing."
Taking Advantage of This Principle
First of all, the up arrows and down arrows are a brilliant parenting technique, but there is another way to use this in normal life, that I use. I give myself 1 point each day for simply going through the day. However, I can threaten myself (blackmail is a better incentive than bribery in my opinion) to take that point away if I don't complete each of tasks X, Y, and Z. You can even threaten to remove 5 points, or even all of your points, for a very important to-do item. It turns out this is a really effective motivator, since I've built up points in my head as a "good thing."
You can apply this technique for yourself. It's easiest if you have a whiteboard near your bed, but a piece of paper will do. Start a tally of your points, and give yourself 1 per day. You did a good job!****
Thanks for reading what I wrote. As a bonus for finishing this article, you get 5 points, plus 2 bonus points if you read each of the footnotes.
–beautifulthorns
Next: Addenda
*This system was brought to my family's attention by my aunt, but I don't actually know who created it.
**Social incentives have to do with social treatment. To demonstrate, the reason I don't walk around naked is because of the social incentive that people would think I was weird. (It's true that there are laws against public nudity in many places, but that's by no means universal. In Vermont, for instance, laws only prohibit "gross lewdness and lascivious behavior." It's also not the primary reason people avoid nudity, as it's still a rare sight in Vermont, where it's legal.) Social incentives are the primary reason most people have relatively similar lives: people want to blend in. To summarize, a social incentive is one where the opinions of other people around you influence your choices.
Moral incentives are the most abstract. They're about the "right thing to do." Moral incentives are essentially the reason people don't commit crimes at every opportunity. Most people have many times they can commit crimes essentially without fear of getting caught or getting shamed. However, many people believe it's the wrong thing to do, so there's relatively little crime. (Not to say there isn't any, just comparatively less than what people could do.)
***To be more accurate, in the case of the Super Bowl, you get a lot of fame, prestige, sports contracts, etc. But the sport of football in and of itself doesn't have any real consequences; imagine a friendly pickup game instead. People try hard and get fired up to win even though it doesn't matter.
****If you did a really bad job, you wouldn't have deserved that point.