Page 211 - The Power to Change Anything
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200 INFLUENCER


             paper can outweigh the powerful urge to use cocaine, but it
             makes sense in terms of what we know about why people use
             drugs.”
                 Obviously, vouchers alone wouldn’t be enough to keep
             cocaine addicts clean. However, when used with subjects who
             are already morally and socially invested in giving up cocaine,
             and when they’re combined with traditional methods, those
             who were given incentives benefited from the motivational
             boost. Of the patients who were given vouchers, 90 percent fin-
             ished the 12-week treatment program, whereas only 65 percent
             of non-voucher subjects completed the program. The long-
             term effects were similarly impressive.
                 To show how small incentives can be powerful motivators
             for almost anyone, take a look at your luggage. If you’re like
             millions of other travelers around the world, you’re sporting a
             plastic tag that touts your status in your favorite frequent-flier
             program. It’s almost embarrassing to acknowledge the way
             these programs have reshaped our behavior.
                 For example, a friend of ours recently took a trip from Salt
             Lake City to Singapore. If you were to take out a globe and
             draw a route from Salt Lake to Singapore, you’d pass through
             places such as San Francisco and Hawaii. But neither destina-
             tion appeared on our friend’s itinerary. Instead he first flew
             two hours east to Minneapolis, Minnesota, before flying back
             west to Anchorage, Alaska, and Seoul, Korea, on his way to
             Singapore.
                 Our friend added hours to his flight because it maximized
             his frequent-flier miles. This enormous inconvenience proba-
             bly earned him a whopping $30 worth of benefits. But he
             wanted those miles. He needed those miles. In fact, flyers have
             become so obsessed with maximizing their miles that the dol-
             lar value of unused frequent-flier miles on the planet now
             exceeds all the cash circulating in the U.S. economy.
                 If you’re still not convinced that small rewards can affect
             behavior, consider the following example. In a group home for
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