An incentive is a reward, penalty, or motivating condition that encourages an action. An incentive structure combines incentives across people or groups, shaping outcomes that may be intended, unintended, beneficial, or harmful. section 10.17
Incentive structures can influence:
- Markets, media headlines, workplaces, published studies, and public beliefs. section 10.17
- The data itself, by creating bias or confounding variables that distort apparent relationships. section 10.17
- The choice and treatment of metrics, especially when targets encourage people to game the measure rather than improve the underlying outcome. section 10.1
When evidence threatens the sponsor
A cereal company commissions research into whether its product raises diabetes risk. If the findings are unfavorable, it might pressure the researcher to reconsider, search for alternative explanations, bury the study, or highlight only studies supporting its preferred narrative. The pressure does not prove the findings wrong; it reveals why following incentives matters alongside following the data. section 1.4
