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John Tan
"If big
rewards do not create passion, what does? Challenges do,
according to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who studied
scores of high achievers, including Nobel laureates. People are
addicted to challenges, and we are often far happier while
working toward a goal that stretches us to the limits of our
abilities."
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Vantage
Ministerial
pay hike: A social psychological perspective
18
Apr 07
One of the arguments forwarded by the government to
justify their recent incredible pay hike is that such humongous
salaries are necessary to attract and maintain quality people in
the leadership. What I find lacking in their defense is the lack
of a definition for the word "quality."
Quality
can be construed to mean different things by different people. If
by "quality people," the government meant people who
care deeply for the nation and who would serve it with passion
and devotion, then their formula is absolutely wrong.
For
about three-and-a-half decades, psychologists have observed a
phenomenon called the overjustification effect. In an
experiment at the Stanford University, three groups of children
were given magic markers to draw as they please. One group was
told they would be given an reward if they drew some pictures for
the experimenters. The second group was not given any
instructions beforehand but was rewarded unexpectedly after they
drew. The third group was not promised a reward and none was
given.
After more than a week, behavioral measures found
that children in the second (unexpected reward) and third (no
reward) groups continued to show interest in drawing, whereas
children in the expected reward group displayed a striking
reduction in their interest in the activity.
The reason
behind these observations is that the children who expected a
reward interpreted their engagement in the activity as be
extrinsically (or externally) motivated and not intrinsically (or
internally) motivated. In other words, external reward has
undermined internal interest—hence the overjustification
effect.
The same phenomenon has been observed in many
situations and among professionals such as highly paid
footballers and collegiate athletes.
Are political and
corporate leaders exempted from the rules? I think not. If we
compared an entrepreneur's level of passion for his business and
that of a highly paid corporate COE, whom do you think is more
passionate about the business? Many people would pick the former,
and correctly so.
If big rewards do not create passion,
what does? Challenges do, according to psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, who studied scores of high achievers, including
Nobel laureates. People are addicted to challenges, and we are
often far happier while working toward a goal that stretches us
to the limits of our abilities.
If our ministers have the
quality of high achievers, what they need as motivators are
challenges, not money, which they already have aplenty. (In a
speech, during the last election, PM Lee indicated that having
more opposition MPs in parliament would provide him and his
colleagues with immense challenges. Perhaps we should do them
that favor.)
To be sure, I am not suggesting that
ministers should not be paid, and paid handsomely. Of course, the
question that follows is: What is a reasonable amount? Allow me
to digress a little before I answer that question.
Now
that the ministers have their pay increased, do you think they
are happier than they were before the raise? My guess is not
much, if any, and my prediction is pretty soon they will be back
for more.
Research shows that we have a tendency to
overestimate how much satisfaction we will derive from having
more. Have you ever thought you would be happier if you had a
little more, only to find that you were not that much happier
when you got there?
In fact, after a certain level, the
more money you have, the less effective it is in bringing you
happiness. Data in the US shows that as incomes rise from $20,000
to $50,000 (per annum), people's level of happiness doubled.
However, beyond $90,000, increase in happiness becomes
negligible.
Dan Gilbert, a psychology professor at
Harvard University and the author of Stumbling on Happiness,
remarked, "Once you get basic human needs met, a lot more
money doesn't make a lot more happiness."
So back to
the question: What is a reasonable amount of salary for our
ministers? What income can buy a person's basic needs?
In
the Singapore context, I would argue that the median income level
ought to be a reasonable benchmark for that. And to ensure that
our leaders are more than comfortably compensated, let's multiply
it by 4 or 5 times. Would that not be reasonable enough? I
believe so, both from a psychological and a practical
standpoint.
From a psychological standpoint, ministers
should be happy knowing that they are earning quite a few times
more than most others in the country. Practically, they would be
challenged to work to bring up the median income of the country
if they so wish to raise they own salaries.
The current
practice of pegging their salaries to two-third of the median of
the top earners of the country is unhealthy. Ministers are then
inclined to engage in upward comparison, which will make them
feel relatively deprived since they will always be at the
two-third level and never at the top.
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