It feels to me like the meaning element makes an excellent third side of a triangle. Contrasting the content between cases where the results are meaningful to us versus where they are not would be pretty useful information.
I am reminded of a presentation I saw (YouTube? TED?) where a researcher was talking about a series of experiments they had done where the task was to assemble as many toy robots or legos or something as possible. The point was that it was trivial, and any functional adult could do it, and probably efficiently if they were motivated. The key was that in the control group they just put the completed toys away in a bin under the table, but in the experimental group they pulled them back apart right in front of their eyes, and then dumped the pieces in the bin under the table. The group with their work being undone before their eyes consistently produced less in the allotted time, even though everyone in both groups knew that the task was strictly meaningless.
I feel like the same sort of mechanism will affect the content elements of this idea, and that the same mechanism should work in reverse as the perceived meaning of the work increases. Probably worth noting that false meaning that is easy to perceive will also be effective under this model, which explains a lot about some of startup culture’s picadillos.
Terminologically, I like topic/content/purpose. Where ‘purpose’ includes potential results from the job (including pay) and how much you care about and are motivated by them. It could be difficult to split content and purpose, though. E.g. being able to see and talk with the people you’re helping could be very motivating, but it doesn’t fit purely into either content or purpose.
It feels to me like the meaning element makes an excellent third side of a triangle. Contrasting the content between cases where the results are meaningful to us versus where they are not would be pretty useful information.
I am reminded of a presentation I saw (YouTube? TED?) where a researcher was talking about a series of experiments they had done where the task was to assemble as many toy robots or legos or something as possible. The point was that it was trivial, and any functional adult could do it, and probably efficiently if they were motivated. The key was that in the control group they just put the completed toys away in a bin under the table, but in the experimental group they pulled them back apart right in front of their eyes, and then dumped the pieces in the bin under the table. The group with their work being undone before their eyes consistently produced less in the allotted time, even though everyone in both groups knew that the task was strictly meaningless.
I feel like the same sort of mechanism will affect the content elements of this idea, and that the same mechanism should work in reverse as the perceived meaning of the work increases. Probably worth noting that false meaning that is easy to perceive will also be effective under this model, which explains a lot about some of startup culture’s picadillos.
Terminologically, I like topic/content/purpose. Where ‘purpose’ includes potential results from the job (including pay) and how much you care about and are motivated by them. It could be difficult to split content and purpose, though. E.g. being able to see and talk with the people you’re helping could be very motivating, but it doesn’t fit purely into either content or purpose.