Why People Respond More to Incentives Than Intentions.

[Ucy]

Both (incentive & intention) can be good or evil. You can always use good incentive to prevent or minimize evil intention.
This is basically why the words like incentivizing good behavior exist.

So, if you want more good behaviors in a market for example, you could use good incentive such as rewards for good customer services

[RGBTC]

This indicates that people still value their time. But I'm confused about the comparison, someone can also have the intention to get these incentives. The only difference is when and in what way they hope they will receive the incentive. Helping an elderly person want to cross the street and defending a corrupt politician in court provide incentives in different ways and at different times.

[Rruchi man]

Well, i don't know about you guys but i believe that incentives shape decisions more than good intentions, you are free to share your own believe on this, because most of us believe that decisions are based on logic and value, but in reality, systems of incentives usually have more influence when we check and balance it.

On the order of ranking of influence, incentives rank higher than logic and value, and most times people turn to logic and value when incentives are absent. This is why you can notice that incentives can influence decision-making, either the positive incentives or even the negative ones. There are individuals who will not be motivated by positive incentives, but negative incentives will tend to trigger them into wanting to make decisions that can be influenced because they're trying to protect something, unlike those who will be influenced by positive incentives because of what they are trying to gain. Just my opinion.

[DiMarxist]

Human beings are moved by what they hear and see, and it's in the nature of humans to feel special and appropriated . Hence the reason why most people put in more effort just to receive something, at the end of the day. We see these types of things happening in the office every one something tries to impress the Bose just to be noticed and get some incentives.
But the bad thing about this is that, in an environment where employees or people do something just to get incentives from the top. Hypocrisy is the order of the day mostly. This is because put don't do things with a true , every move that they are taking is tied to something in such spaces you don't get the best of results.
It expected that we should do things with intentions because, that is what changes things in our working space. A man that do things with intentions is a man that is conscious about making real change rather than just looking for ways to be noticed and get rewarded.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

In the practical form, incentive validates intention. If you keep telling someone you'll reward them for their hard work but never give them a raise or even a bonus for a long time, you've good intentions, but there is no corresponding incentive to validate it. People can be motivated to do better because of the incentives put in place for excellent work, even a very dull staff can up the game simply because he/she wants to get the incentive at stake and in such a scenario, the incentive helps to shapes positive intention.

Intention is stagnant without incentive. Intention can be the boat, but incentive is the engine that drives the boat forward, even pets and animals are motivated by incentives to behave well. I believe better efficiency can be achieved and maintained where proper incentives are put in place.

[hafiztalha]

It is human behaviour to think about incentives. Still, they are not greater than intention. If incentives were all that people wanted then we would never see them donating anonimously or returning peoples lost money and doing all of these things. These things show that principle values are more important than incentive but it does not completely determine it; it encourages good decisions. At the same time, poorly design one can unintentionally reward harmful behaviour,  that is the reason that governments and organisations should align incentives with ethical conduct rather than just lying on them alone. It explains why people behave in a particular way, but moral values and intentions explain why people make difficult choices even if there is no obvious reward for doing things.