Incentives drive positive (hopefully) behavior, while anti-incentives prevent negative behavior. This funny little tale from travel-guy, chef and all around interesting fellow Anthony Bourdain explains the concept in greater detail.

When developing a product, it’s always a good idea to not just look at elements you are adding that will drive behavior you want, but what are you doing to keep people from doing things that you don’t.

I was rail-thin, shaky, and the first thing I did was ask my old pal Bigfoot if he could lend me twenty-five bucks until payday. Without hesitation, he reached into his pocket and let me two hundred…Looking at me, and hearing the edited-for-television version of what I’d be up to in recent years, he must have had every reason to believe I’d disappear with the two bills, spend it on crack and never show up for my first shift. And if he’d given me the twenty-five instead of two hundred, that might well have happened…

I was so shaken by his baseless trust in me-that such a cynical bastard as Bigfoot would make such a gesture-that I determined I’d sooner gnaw my own fingers off, gouge my eyes out with a shellfish fork and run naked down Seventh Avenue than ever betray that trust.

Read Anthony Bourdain and anti-incentives (Via Nudges) (Images)

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