If you want to understand why people do what they do, start by looking at the incentives around them.
In families, workplaces, and everyday life, people tend to repeat what is rewarded and avoid what is ignored or punished. The reward doesn’t always have to be money. Sometimes it’s recognition, convenience, attention, status, or simply the feeling of making progress.
Dogs do it too. 😉
What gets celebrated gets repeated. What gets tolerated becomes the norm.
Want more collaboration on your team? Reward collaboration. Want customers to stay loyal? Incentivize trust and consistency. Want better personal habits? Make the positive behavior easier and more satisfying than the alternative.
And hence the problem with social media, fake news, and AI garbage.
Want to get paid more for sharing on Twitter? Throw out lies that people believe are real. The more controversial the topic — truth or lie — the more attention you garner.
People move toward what benefits them — emotionally, financially, or practically. Change the incentives, and you often change the behavior.
Now you know: Sleeping Beauty (1959) is known as one of Disney’s most influential features, yet it was a box office bomb when it was released. It lost $900,000 (equivalent to $9,940,068 in 2025) for the distributor and many employees from the animation studio were laid off.