The power of having unpredictable rewards

Motivation was always a hot issue in business literature and a well-researched phenomenon amongst social psychologists. There is no single way that is applicable in all situation and that works with everybody. I tend to believe that motivation has to be unique and personalized. However ​there are a few patterns that will work better than others. One of these is the power of having unpredictable yet frequent rewards. This is how gambling machines and video games can be so addictive. If everything you receive is predictable, you will form expectations and rewarding value of whatever you get will decrease quite drastically. Just imagine that you do something well and you get 20 dollars for it. The next time you do the same thing, you will already expect the reward, so the same 20 dollars will not be that motivating as they were for the first time. Gamification deals with making a game out of an activity that was not a game before. Many times, it operates with giving all sorts of bonuses and scores - these are all different types of rewards.

I have found a video explaining variable reinforcement and gamification: