> Best way to get people to do the right thing: pay them to do it.

This is strictly not the best way because it both requires the extra cost of reinforcement to be administered, and tragically fails for anything we haven’t installed that mechanism for. It is practically impossible to install reinforcement points for every single agent and for every single thing they do.

Intrinsic motivation is simply much cheaper, making people want to do the right thing by their internalized codes, by reinforcing the frame in which they see themselves as moral people, reinforcing the benefits of reciprocity and gift economy.

This is why purity codes are much stronger in rural communities where most of the transactions are not through money but good moral standing. Granted, those codes themselves can easily get outdated, and distributed moral standing calculations basically limit the practical group size to a function of Dunbar number, but the alternative of codifying desired behavior in monetary or legal terms is just too blunt and easily gameable.

There has been numerous research showing that money rewards led to worse outcome. That was especially true do it creative tasks. Eg curiosity, fun, purpose, development was much better motivation. Of course in real life job situation good money has to be on the table. But once they are are there, international motivators make all.the difference. I recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_...

The most effective way is for them not to consciously realise there's any alternative. Making the right thing the default or far easier option next. Reward/punishment are quite low on the motivation/incentive scale.

Or, make them pay for not doing the right thing?