A new research has suggested that narrow misses can propel us toward other rewards and goals.
Whether it's being outbid at the last second in an online auction or missing the winning lottery number by one digit, people often come so close to something they can "almost taste it" only to lose out in the end and these "near wins" may actually boost their motivation to achieve other wins, leading them to pursue totally unrelated rewards, as per the research.
Lead researcher Monica Wadhwa of INSEAD said that the research suggests that at least in some cases, losing has positive power. While people often think of motivation as being targeted to a specific reward or goal, these findings support the notion that motivation is like energy and reward is like direction, once this motivational energy is activated, it leads an individual to seek out a broad range of goals and rewards," sas.
While it may seem like losing might put a damper on motivation, Wadhwa and co-author JeeHye Christine Kim hypothesized that losing out by only a narrow margin might have the opposite effect. A near win, they speculated, intensifies but doesn't satisfy people's motivational state, and so the drive to win is extended to the next task or goal we encounter.
Wadhwa explained that the current research suggests that managers who want to motivate their salespeople to perform better should think about giving feedback that highlights the individual's performance compared to someone only slightly better.
Wadhwa noted that it also impacts marketers who want to design effective promotions, adding that their field study shows that nearly winning a lottery is better than clearly losing or winning.
The researchers plan to delve deeper into the near-win effect, exploring its potential negative side and how it relates to brain's dopamine system, which is thought to underlie reward processing.
The study appears in Journal Psychological Science.