A Unique Way of Rewarding in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

In the video, the player travels to an underground lava cave in order to fight a terrifying secret boss called Iwajira. It’s not the boss fight that is important but the way the game rewards the player after the boss is defeated. Instead of giving a big piece of reward, the game spreads lots of small rewards (glowing things on the ground) all over the cave. Cleaning them up takes as much time as killing the boss itself. The effect of a little extra work increases the subjective value of the rewards being given. In other words, it feels very satisfying to collect all of them.

If you want to reward someone for her hard work, don’t just give her the entire prize. Scatter the pieces in easy locations so she can collect them at her leisure. Don’t give her too much extra work though. By that I mean, don’t hide the rewards in secret locations so she would have to put too much effort to find them. That would be insulting to her hard work earlier. 

Or if you are the person responsible for delivering good news to your boss, divide the good news in small chunks and deliver them to her little by little throughout the day. She will be very delighted by the end of it.

The human brain responds more sensitively to receiving positive rewards in bits and pieces compare to getting them as a big package.