Waynesboro Church Of Christ

Welcomes You!

A pasted message from Matthew!

Past Message From Matthew

Posted Date: August 16, 2006

Incentives come in all forms, from positive to negative. Incentives are the motivations for behavior in life. Incentives are the reward or punishment for behavior. If you bring home an “A” from school you get a new bike, but if you break curfew you are grounded. The three basic forms of incentives are economic, social, and moral. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack “sin tax” is a strong economic incentive again buying cigarettes. The banning of cigarettes in restaurants is a powerful social incentive. Also, when the U.S. government asserts that terrorists raise money by selling black-market cigarettes, that acts as a rather powerful moral incentive.

The problem arises when the incentive is not painful or rewarding enough. A day care center was having problems with late parents. So the day-care started a fine for the tardy parents. The fine was $3. The fine ended up not fixing the problem but adding to the amount of tardiness. Instead of the amount of tardy guardians decreasing, it increased. In fact the amount of tardiness went from 10 per week to 20 per week. Why did this incentive not work? The reason is that the incentive was not painful enough. If the tardy tax was $100 for every ten minutes, then the number of tardiness would have declined.

Christianity provides the two greatest opposites of incentives, on the on hand, the ultimate glory and joy in heaven, and on the other hand the ultimate pain and suffering in hell. One would think that these two incentives, both a positive and negative one, would entice people towards faithful living.