Parents and managers often have a common trait: they want to encourage — and even nudge — specific or so-called “good” behaviours. And the most common way they go about it is to use rewards.

It follows a simple and deeply ingrained physiological pattern. As we learn that a given behaviour will grant us a reward, our body integrates it. Then it will, even unconsciously, through the release of chemicals such as dopamine, push us to repeat this behaviour to get more of the reward.

So parents may use the tempting “carrot” of additional video game time to motivate their child to earn good grades. Similarly, a sales manager may provide monetary incentives to encourage their team to sign more clients.

Rewards are used to foster behaviours that hopefully lead to beneficial outcomes. But, unfortunately, they don’t always work and increase positive results. Even worse, they can have the opposite effect.

For instance, under British rule, the government faced a daunting problem in Delhi: the proliferation of venomous cobras. To tackle the issue, the authorities offered a bounty for every dead cobra brought to them.

If initially, the plan seemed to work, some cunning individuals saw an opportunity to make a profit and began breeding cobras in captivity. They even built snake farms! Eventually, the British authorities discovered this scheme and shut down their reward system…