Social Psychology and Pickup: The Overjustification Effect and Intrinsic Motivation

Taken from an old folk tale:
"An old man lived alone on a street where boys played noisily every afternoon. The din annoyed him, so one day he called the boys to his door. He told them he loved the cheerful sound of the children's voices and promised them each 50 cents if they would return the next day. Next afternoon, the youngsters raced back and played more lustily than ever. The old man paid them and promised another reward the next day. Again they returned, whooping it up, and the man paid them; this time 25 cents. The following day they only got 15 cents, and the man explained that his meager resources were being exhausted. "Please, though, would you come to play for 10 cents tomorrow?" The disappointed boys told the man they would not be back. It wasn't worth the effort, they said, to play all afternoon at his house for only 10 cents."

There are many elements in psychology that can explain the behavioral responses of women to AFCs and PUAs. Social psychology offers the theory of the overjustification effect as one underlying reason as to why AFCs fail to elicit desired responses from women.

The overjustification effect - The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.

Intrinsic motivation - Motivation to do something out of genuine internal preference and liking.

From his study and development of Inner Game, a PUA comes to fully understand and believe, with every fiber of his being, that women love sex. The act of sex is intrinsically motivated within both men and women. The AFC, on the other hand, fails to truly recognize women's genuine liking of sex. Therefore, he, in a way, feels compelled to instill an external motivation within her to do the dirty with him.

In the mind of an AFC, women don't like sex. He comes to this conclusion through his faulty interpretation of social scripts.

Social scripts - Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations.

Women, from being sexually oppressed by a patriarchal society that has used sex as a competitive resource for too many generations, developed the social script of responding negatively to sexual topics when presented in public situations. Examples of this behavior can be seen whenever a woman responds to a sexual joke in disgust or when she says anything along the lines of, "I'm not a slut" and "I don't do that on the first date."

The AFC interprets the social script as "women don't like sex." Logically, if you want someone to do something that they don't like doing, you must compensate them with external rewards. The AFC takes this logical path and compensates women with external rewards such as drinks, dinners, gifts, and an overall attitude of supplication, during the process of courtship. In doing so, the AFC triggers the overjustification effect. When a person is rewarded with external factors to do something he or she already likes, he or she loses sight of his or her intrinsic motivation and justifies his or her actions as "I did it because I was paid to do so."

Proof of the reality of this effect can be observed in experiments by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (1991, 1997) at the University of Rochester, by Mark Lepper and David Greene (1979) at Stanford, and by Ann Boggiano and her colleagues (1985, 1987) at the University of Colorado:
"Pay people for playing with puzzles, and they will later play with the puzzles less than those who play for no pay. Promise children a reward for doing what they intrinsically enjoy (for example, playing with Magic Markers), and you will turn their play into work."

It is implied that intrinsic motivation is an undeniably more powerful and consistent of a driving force in motivation than any mode of external compensation. In failing to recognize women's innate desire to have sex, the AFC forces his targets to replace her intrinsic motivations with his inconsistent, incongruent, and desperate offerings of resources.

Social Psychology, ninth edition, by David G. Myers:
"When people do something they enjoy, without reward or coercion, they attribute their behavior to their love of the activity. External rewards undermine intrinsic motivation by leading people to attribute their behavior to the incentive."

Myers also points out that "the overjustification effect occurs when someone offers an unnecessary reward beforehand in an obvious effort to control behavior."

Rosenfeld & others, 1980; Sansone, 1986:
"Rewards that seek to control people and lead them to believe it was the reward that caused their effort - 'I did it for the money' - diminish the intrinsic appeal of an enjoyable task."

In terms of pickup, this evidence is a clear explanation as to why women feel unappreciative toward AFCs who supplicate to them as a strategy of bedding her. The supplication makes the woman feel less intrinsic motivation, and therefore more jaded, bitchy, and less able to revel in the beauty of pure human desires.

Consciously armed with this knowledge of the overjustification effect, a PUA can keep himself in check to make sure that he isn't preemptively rewarding a woman with external factors such as IOIs and SOIs for following him in the progressive route toward the mutually pleasurable experience of sex. By acknowledging and reinforcing the woman's intrinsic motivation (not just for sex, but for all areas of life), the PUA can "leave her better than he found her," letting her fully enjoy an internal cultivation of her enthusiasm for life.

-Chief

Mainstream

There's a keg at the house tonight and I'm going, but I'd like to take a minute to talk about how this underground pickup community is surfacing into the mainstream.

If you didn't already know, ever since Neil Strauss (Style) released his best-selling novel The Game back in 2005 and Erik Von Markovik (Mystery) had that show "The Pickup Artist" on VH1 just last year or something, more and more people have become aware of this community. It isn't so "underground" anymore.

Sure, I kinda miss the days when all this stuff was more secretive and all I knew was the C&F and Inner Game shit that David Deangelo preached, but these mainstream additions to the community have actually opened my eyes to more and different schools of pickup, and gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons.

I think Mystery and Style have done very good things for the world by letting more people know about this stuff. However, there have been unfortunate consequences.

A lot of PUAs complain that more girls or HBs call them out on canned material. "OMG you got that from that VH1 show!" ...but that's not what I'm talking about. That is NOT a bad thing. If a PUA hasn't reached the level where he's using his OWN authentic material, he's just being a copy cat and isn't really learning the real lessons. It's a good thing that more people are recognizing this.

The unfortunate consequence that I think has taken place, however, is that the Mystery Method is currently the reigning "mainstream" method for pickup. Sure, I think the Mystery Method is a fun and legit Outer Game method to follow, but it really isn't the best way to go about learning pickup... and it's unfortunate to see so many newbies flocking to Mystery's school of thought.

Why do I say this? I think the Mystery Method somewhat promotes being fake. I have nothing against Indirect Game, but to me the Mystery Method is mostly about acting like something that you're not. It's the method that involves mostly canned material and the idea of "fake it til you make it." It's useful as hell to learn, but not so great when you've fixated on learning ONLY the Mystery Method. There's almost zero Inner Game development involved.

I think people should turn to the Mystery Method once they have already gotten their Inner Game and confidence honed from other schools such as David Deangelo, Carlos Xuma, Inner Game specific programs from Ross Jeffries, and even RSD. This whole "fake it til you make it" crap is going to mess up a lot of heads.

It IS a good thing, however, that the mainstream form of pickup has shifted to being a social development centered discipline rather than a hypnosis/NLP centered discipline. That Speed Seduction stuff is tricky shit, man. I'm learning from that school of thought because the psychology behind it is really interesting to me, but it really isn't worth learning just for the sake of pickup.

I am personally planning on moving completely away from Mystery Method and taking up Gunwitch Method. It's seems a lot more authentic and honest to me, and there's almost no canned material involved.

Jeffy Freedom Tour

As some of you may know, RSD has been giving free workshops with Jlaix (aka Jeffy) and Ciaran. They were in New Orleans yesterday so of course I HAD to attend.

I was completely stoked, man! I finally had the chance to meet some of the BEST masters in the field.

I walked into the room and was starstruck. I see Jlaix on the other side and Ciaran approaches me and we shake hands. Holy shit, dude. I am shaking the hand of the man who created the concept of Shock and Awe and the currently popular Apocalypse Opener. I pronounce his name wrong. He AMOGs me. After I shake Jlaix's hand, I make a light joke making fun of the fact that he was using a Mac. He AMOGs me. It was great. =P

The presentation was awesome. Jlaix is definitely a man who lives up to his reputation. The entire time, I was thinking, "Wow, these guys have been through it all over years and years and years of this pickup artistry. I can really feel a strong difference in their energy because of that."

Apparently Jlaix picked up one of the chicks working at the Crepe place while he was here. I probably know her.

Now, onward to shake the hands of all the other mPUAs!