Date of Award

8-2013

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Heather M. McGee

Second Advisor

Dr. Douglas Johnson

Third Advisor

Dr. Alyce Dickinson

Keywords

incentives, social norms, normative, influence, lottery, behavior management

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

While social norms have been a popular area of study among social psychologists, they have yet to receive much consideration from an Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) standpoint. Much of OBM research has focused on consequences and the utilization of incentives to improve organizational performance. Such research has shown incentive systems to have sustaining, long-term effects on behaviors. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the impact of normative messages and lottery incentives on organizational performance. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: a) Standard Message with Lottery Incentive, b) Standard Message without Lottery Incentive, c) Normative Message with Lottery Incentive, and d) Normative Message without Lottery Incentive. The covariate was the number of correctly completed checks during the baseline session. The present study did not obtain any statistically significant differences on productivity between the four conditions. However, additional research on normative messages in conjunction with lottery incentives is needed in order to better understand the potential of these variables on workplace performance. Suggestions to enhance methodology in future research are outlined.

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