An experimental application of a social reinforcement approach to the problem of job-finding.
A small reward in a public request can multiply helpful responses from strangers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers placed two kinds of newspaper ads. One ad just asked for job leads. The other offered a $5 reward for each lead that turned into a hire.
They ran the ads over the study period and counted how many leads and actual jobs came from each type.
What they found
The reward ad pulled in 10 times more job leads. Eight times more people actually got hired.
A tiny $5 reward moved strangers to share hidden job openings they normally kept quiet.
How this fits with other research
Wolchik et al. (1982) and McGarty et al. (2018) ran the same trick. They paid parents 50 cents or entered them in a lottery. Child language and literacy shot up just like the job leads did.
Turk et al. (2010) shows the idea still works today. They used iPhone cues to help adults with autism land mascot jobs. Same social-reinforcement engine, newer tools.
Bennett et al. (1973) and Ferreri et al. (2011) prove you can shape total strangers. One team used rewards to spark job tips; the other used hand signals to make drivers stop. Different targets, same low-cost lever.
Why it matters
You already teach clients to ask for help. Now you can also teach them to sweeten the ask. A $5 gift card, a coffee coupon, or a small lottery ticket can unlock whole networks of hidden jobs. Try it in your next parent training or vocational session.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The current conception of the employment process is that positions become available, are publicized, and are filled by the most qualified job seekers. An alternative conception is proposed that social factors play a major role in the process and that job finding can be analyzed as an exchange of social reinforcers in which the first behavioral step is to locate job openings. A questionnaire survey of 120 jobs found that two-thirds of the job leads came from friends or relatives who: (1) usually knew of a specific opening (63%); (2) were themselves employed by the hiring firm (71%); and (3) actively influenced the hiring process (53%). An experimental evaluation was made of an "Information-Reward" advertisement procedure for motivating community residents to report unpublicized openings. It was found that the Information-Reward procedure produced 10 times as many job leads and eight times as many placements as a noreward control advertisement. These findings represent a first step toward a much needed technology of job finding that is based on experimental evidence and support the notion that the employment process depends on factors unrelated to work skills.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1973 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1973.6-345