Nicholas Hune-Brown reviews a study that allowed test subjects to “earn” chocolate by listening to a harsh noise (representing “work,” as compared to the option of listening to pleasant music, representing “leisure”). Researchers divided participants into two categories: “high-earners, who got a chocolate every 20 times they listened to the noise, and low-earners who had to hear the noise 120 to earn their reward.” The results:
[R]esearchers found their test subjects earning far more chocolate than anyone would ever hope to consume. High-earners earned an average of 10.74 chocolates but only ate 4.26. They needlessly exposed themselves to unpleasant noises, then left the majority of their earnings on the table. Low-earners, meanwhile, earned slightly less chocolate than they could eat, but listened to about the same number of sounds. This suggests that both groups weren’t considering the optimal results, but rather how much work they could bear. Instead of trying to create the most enjoyable experience, they unthinkingly worked as much as possible, stockpiling useless treasure.
The researchers call this behaviour “mindless accumulation”—the tendency for people to forgo leisure to work towards rewards they’ll never be able to use. They argue that it’s a distinctly modern problem. For much of human history, earning rates were low and people needed to work as much as possible just to survive. The idea that you could “overearn” simply wasn’t realistic. If you’re one of today’s highly paid office workers, however, earning comes comparatively easily, yet the drive to hoard as much as possible remains. The researchers compare overearning to overeating, another distinctly modern problem caused by a life of surprising abundance.
The Dish 