A bargain is not always a bargain

How can we get students more invested in their education?  What factors are involved in incentivizing study habits?  Why are students paying for higher education and then cheating their way to a degree?  When are students rewarded for their efforts?  Who has the answers to these questions?

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This story has been burning around in my brain like a California wildfire.  This morning I tried to get it contained.  Sometimes the answers to the questions in my brain can only be found in a wide variety of interdisciplinary journals.

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The main idea was this: do humans have a hard-wired mechanism for bargain-hunting?  If so, is that pathway activated in an educational context when students make a decision as to whether to actually study for a test or to try to get by doing the least amount of work?  It made sense to me from a caveman or cavewoman's perspective, when food is scarce then a caveperson should put forth the least amount of effort to obtain the food.  In a modern context, at least in Western culture, it seems that we are information and food-rich, so the idea of scarcity doesn't really apply.

However, we are also innundated with "bargains" and our culture loves shopping at malls.  I walked all over my city yesterday and the streets were empty while the mall was super-crowded.  There was no difference in the weather between the inside and outside.  What draws people to the mall?  Getting something for nothing!  Many candy shops and food vendors offer free samples.  There was a big MAC cosmetics display where people were giving free make-overs and cheering on those who were willing to receive them.  There are countless displays of cremes, hair irons, and aromatherapy offering free trials.  This is my psychological question in full demonstration, people love getting something for nothing.  And if not for nothing, then at a huge discount.

I'm not saying that I scoured the literature in an exhaustive search, but I did try to select papers from a range of fields around this general question.  Transaction utility theory says that satisfaction increases as a function of the amount of money saved as well as the perceived merits of the deal itself (e.g. it was a "real bargain").  Darke, et al. found that this was true for low-cost items ($100) but not for higher cost items ($300).  I also found this to be true as the main mall area had a buzzy-busy feel to it while Bloomingdale's had a distinctly different feel.  Shoppers self-selected into groups who were bargain-hunting as opposed to those who were willing to pay more for perceived higher quality merchandise.

I've written previously about dopamine and norepinephrine in the context of exercise.  Salamone and Correa delineate "liking" from "wanting" where the former is an "appetite to consume" and the latter is an "activation to obtain."  Wanting food involves effort in working for food.  Low doses of dopamine antagonists (amphetamine or fenfluoramine) do not impair the appetite to consume food, but disrupt the tenancy to work for food.  These authors argue that it is an oversimplification to consider dopamine as a 'reward' molecule, and that drugs of abuse merely turn on the brain's natural 'reward system.'  The paper concludes saying dopamine could be involved in the tendency of individuals to be willing to work for what they want, and not in the simply liking it.  For example, a student may like to obtain a college degree, but wanting it involves doing the work.

Smoyak writes about willpower and whether an outcome is considered "hot" or "cold."  If an outcome is considered "hot," a person may be more willing to wait for a long-term reward.  Conversely, if an outcome of a short-term reward is "hot" or highly pleasurable, then a long-term reward may not provide a person with enough incentive to choose against it, even if the hot short-term reward has negative long-term consequences.  An example is given in the context of weight loss.  Improved motivation for regular exercise is observed if the subject can visualize a hot, sweet, gooey treat at the end (e.g. a sexy body).  Maybe college students have a hard time motivating themselves to study because a college diploma is a "cold" outcome (e.g. a piece of paper).

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Cohen, et al. compare exploration versus exploitation in decision-making.  There is a cost for exploration (and a high uncertainty), for example "Star Trek: seeking out new life and new civilizations." There is also a cost for exploitation, for example how we are using fracking to obtain oil from deep within the earth rather than using other more easily obtainable hydrocarbons because our economy is already reliant on oil but most of the oil near the earth's surface has already been used up.  In the case of students, it would mean exploiting a single major and getting it done in 4 years.  Conversely, a student may explore a variety of majors and stay in school for 9 years without ever finishing a degree.  There may be an enticement towards exploration in the face of competition from others for resources, which may be why we have so few science majors: the waitlists are too long for our courses.  Acetylcholine and norepinephrine may signal uncertainty, which may regulate the trade-off between exploration and exploitation.  If a student is operating at a high level of exploitation, they will find low short-term utility but high long-term utility, and stimuli will fall more into the chronic stress waveform, called "phasic" in the work of Cohen, et al.  If a student is engaged in exploration, the stimuli will be more of a classic stress response, called "tonic," making each new experience unique.  Exploration may have low or high short-term utility, but resides at the minima of long-term utility.

Speaking to the issue of cheating in collegiate academics, perhaps the work of Mary Rigdon can shed some light.  Her work presented explicit rewards and punishments in a contract between a principal (the student) and an agent (a professor, or the university at large).  The agent is trusted by the principal (at some cost) and there are potential joint gains (the student obtains a degree and thereby a good paying job, the university gains an alumni and thereby donations to its foundation).  However, the two parties may not consider each other's best interests without incentives (punishment or reward).  She found that neither incentives nor rewards had a detrimental effect on cooperation.  Low level incentives have no behavioral effect, while high level incentives enhance efficiency and cooperation.  Both high reward and high punish bring the desired payback in line with the actual payback.  The demand for reward (I want an A) exceeds the demand for punishment (I am willing to act within the guidelines of academic integrity).

Walton, et al. summarize research in birds, rats, and monkeys thus: animals do weigh work versus reward.  The amount of time a task takes may be assessed separately from the amount of effort needed.  Also working consistently over a period of time is qualitatively different from applying extra force to a single event.  Starlings, when choosing whether to walk or fly to rewards, the birds optimized the net rate of gain over time.  Dopamine may be involved in a feed-forward loop in decisions where putting in extra work obtain a greater reward; signals would cause additional dopamine to be released.  Interestingly, Auer, et al. describe something like this in their machine learning work.  Studies in humans have noted that we have a difficult time accurately reporting the prices they pay for goods (Darke, 1995) so perhaps they also are not skilled at reporting the time or effort invested in completion of a task, such as getting through a single course, or completing all the necessary coursework to obtain a college diploma.

Arkes, et al. define "inaction inerta" which may be responsible for students "burning out." Inaction inertia occurs when bypassing an initial opportunity decreases the likelihood that a subsequent similar action will be taken. For example, if a person misses out on a sale in the past, they will be less likely to take advantage of another sale in the future. 

Conversely, there is the "sunk cost" effect where an investment of time, effort or money leads to future increased willingness to spend. 

There is also a "foot-in-the-door" effect, where a low-cost behavior heightens the likelihood of a subsequent request to perform a high-cost one. 

The distinction with inaction inertia is that it leads to inaction rather than action.  A reason for "inaction inertia" may be denigration of the target, for example: a student does not get a passing grade in a class.  To make themselves feel better they say: I hated that class anyway (and I would rather change my major than take that class again).  Therefore, students would be unwilling to retake the class when offered a second opportunity.  Two factors which play a significant role in "inaction inertia" are regret and valuation. Regret is induced by antipathy to wastefulness.  Perhaps students are feeling like failing classes is a waste of their time, rather than focusing on what they were able to learn.  A potential trouble at the community college and state university is the relatively low price: product offered at a bargain is often devalued.  Perhaps our mantra of "just take [the class] again" is contributing to a devaluing of the classroom experience and demoralizing our students.

In closing, I will leave you with a paper about delayed gratification.  Simon, et al. studied ability to forgo immediate reward in favor of delayed (and more often beneficial) rewards.  This ability in older populations is often attributed to "life experiences" or "wisdom," however the authors present evidence that there are neurobiological factors in the mature brain that play a role in the ability to delay gratification.  The authors point out that although delayed gratification in aged rats was clearly an advantage in their study, it could be maladaptive in other situations, particularly when behavorial flexibility provides superior advantage.  I believe that I've noticed this in older students.  They have more appreciation for the "big picture" of their educational journey, and are willing to work hard for a long-term reward, but do not as easily adapt to a short-term, new and stressful learning environment.

I titled this blog "A bargain is not always a bargain" because I wanted to discuss the idea that an education is worth what you put into it.  An affordable education may provide you with great experience, an expensive education may be merely decorative; and vice versa.  It's impossible to get a great deal of value unless you invest yourself in the task.  A human instinct, "to get something for nothing" or bargain-hunting, does not apply to higher education.  Cheating your way through classes will leave you only knowing how to cheat.  Also, it will be necessary to "weather the storm" of hard classes and local failures, if you are committed to the task of completing the degree.  By cutting corners, you may experience short-term rewards, but your long-term exploitation mechanism (to fully pursue all the knowledge available in your field of study at your particular university) has been short-circuited.  As a teacher, I will do my best to invoke both BIG CARROTS and BIG STICKS.

Works Cited

Arkes, H. R.; Kung, Y.-H.; Hutzel, L. "Regret, Valuation, and Inaction Inertia" Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2002) Vol 87, No 2, pp 371-385.

Auer, P.; Cesa-Bianchi, N.; Fischer, P. "Finite-time Analysis of the Multiarmed Bandit Problem" Machine Learning (2002) Vol 47, pp 235-256.

Cohen, J.; McClure, S. M.; Yu, A. J. "Should I Stay or Should I Go? How the Human Brain Manages the Trade-off between Exploitation and Exploration" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2007) Vol 362, No 1481, pp 933-942.

Darke, P. R.; Freedman, J. L.; Chaiken, S. "Percentage Discounts, Initial Price, and Bargain Hunting: A Heuristic-Systematic Approach to Price Search Behavior" Journal of Applied Psychology (1995) Vol 80, No 5, pp 580-586.

Rigdon, M. "Trust and Reciprocity in Incentive Contracting" Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2009) Vol 70, pp 93-105.

Salamone, J. D. Correa, M. "Motivational Views of Reinforcement: Implications for Understanding the Behavioral Functions of Nucleus Accumbens Dopamine" Behavioral Brain Research (2002) Vol 137, pp 3-25.

Simon, N. W.; LaSarge, C. L.; Montgomery, K. S.; Williams, M. T.; Mendez, I. A.; Setlow, B.; Bizon, J. L. "Good Things Come To Those Who Wait: Attenuated Discounting of Delayed Rewards in Aged Fischer 344 Rats" Neurobiology of Aging (2010) Vol 31, pp 853-862.

Smoyak, S. A. "The Science of Marshmallows: What's Going On with Willpower?" Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services (2009) Vol 47, No 4, pp. 8-9.

Walton, M. E.; Kennerley, S. W.; Bannerman, D. M.; Phillips, P. E. M.; Rushworth, M. F. S. "Weighing up the Benefits of Work: Behavioral and Neural Analysis of Effort-Related Decision Making" Neural Networks (2006) Vol 19, No 8, pp 1302-1314.