Payoff. The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations

We work hard to motivate ourselves. And we spend much of our time trying to motivate others : our employees, our families, our customers, and our clients. Famed behavioral psychologist Dan Ariely believes that much of what we all do can be defined as being "motivators". The standard assumption is that motivation is based on a simple trade-off : We need and want things, and we work to get these things.
The assumption is that we behave just like rats in a maze. But what if our understanding of the way motivation works is all wrong ? In this moving, funny, and insightful investigation into an essential human behavior, Ariely argues that motivation operates in far more complex ways than we understand. Delving deep into the true nature of motivation, and our partial blindness to the way it works, Ariely takes us on a journey to try to bridge this gap.
From the boardroom to the family dinner table, Ariely gets at the heart of motivation—how it works and how we can use this knowledge to successfully shape our lives.