Incentives vs. Scare Tactics

Something incredibly ironic happened to me last night. While having a conversation with my father he informed me he was switching our insurance to another company, and that he was willing to make me an offer. The new insurance company was willing to strike $400 a year off of our insurance if I was able to maintain a “B” average in college, and that I would receive half of this should I be able to meet the requirements. Essentially, after watching the Freakonomics piece regarding offering children incentives to do well in school, I too was offered an incentive. I found the entire situation incredibly ironic, but accepted anyway. The thing is, even after this is offered, however, I don’t feel any differently or more motivated about doing substantially well in school. That is when my father joked about adding a second part to the deal, which was that should I not be able to acquire this discount, I would have to repay the $400 that I would save. Though I know he was only kidding, I immediately felt more terrified and motivated to do well in school through the usage of a fear tactic rather than an incentive. What I understood from this was that incentives and scare tactics cannot be used separately, but can be used together effectively. The whole point of an exercise such as this is to create a spark of motivation that will get a person to do what is asked of them, and through the letdown of the experiment by the University of Chicago as seen in the movie in addition to my own experience, I now see that.