Making Good Citizenship Fun
GOVERNMENTS typically use two tools to encourage citizens to engage in civic behavior like paying their taxes, driving safely or recycling their garbage: exhortation and fines. These efforts are often ineffective. So it might be a good time to expand the government’s repertory to include positive reinforcement. Rewarding good behavior can work.
As every successful parent learns, one way to encourage good behavior, from room-cleaning to tooth-brushing, is to make it fun. Not surprisingly, the same principle applies to adults. Adults like to have fun, too.
In this spirit, the Swedish division of Volkswagen has sponsored an initiative they call The Fun Theory. Their first project is documented in a highly popular (and fun) YouTube video. The idea was to get people to use a set of stairs rather than the escalator that ran alongside it. By transforming the stairs into a piano-style keyboard such that walking on the steps produced notes, they made using the stairs fun, and they found that stair use increased by 66 percent.
The musical stairs idea is more amusing than practical, so The Fun Theory sponsored a contest to generate other ideas. The winning entry suggested offering both positive and negative reinforcement to encourage safe driving. Specifically, a camera would measure the speed of passing cars. Speeders would be issued fines but some of the fine revenues would be distributed via lottery to drivers who were observed obeying the speed limit. A short test of the idea offered promising results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/making-good-citizenship-fun.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212