Think Like a Freak

by Steven D. Levitt

The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it.

The fact is that moral incentives don’t work nearly as well as most people might imagine. “Very often,” Cialdini says, “public-service messages are designed to move people in societally desirable directions by telling them how many people are behaving in undesirable directions.

“[T]he best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in Australia, and snakes in India is to pay a bounty on their scalps. Then every patriot goes to raising them.”