This is crowdsourced motivation and behavioural change, plus optional electric shock :
Willpower isn't enough. Habit change requires accountability.
You won't have to make the journey alone - Pavlok helps you find a partner
or join a team of your friends.
Social support and pressure will keep you on track. When you hit a bump in
the road, they'll motivate you to keep going. Or, they'll punish you.
Choose your level of commitment. Pavlok can reward you when you achieve
your goals. Earn prizes and even money when you complete your daily task.
But be warned: if you fail, you’ll face penalties. Pay a fine, lose access
to your phone, or even suffer an electric shock…at the hands of your friends.
I strongly disagree with the electric shock in particular. The group pressure tactic strikes me as particularly counter-productive as, I assume, these changes have been set so as you would be improving your life; not be threatened into changing by embarrassment and peer pressure.
Changes in habit are what counselors, life coaches and motivational instructors are for. The impersonal app-based, "hyper-reminder-motivator", seems threatening to me and thoroughly de-motivational and ultimately inhumane.
The name seems wrong: Pavlov is famous for the development of classical conditioning; that is, you train one stimulus to trigger another. As far as I know, classical conditioning is about involuntary behaviours.
Instead, the startup seems to follow the old law of effect from Thorndike: "Behaviours associated with pleasure and comfort are more likely to be repeated, whereas those associated with displeasure are less likely to be repeated".
Combining extrinsic motivation and punishment doesn't seem a winning strategy.
"Pink warns against contingent or 'if-then' rewards: if you perform, then you get paid, or if you do your homework, then you get cake. He shows how contingent rewards lead to a very short-term motivation, a higher likelyhood of unethical or risky behaviour (cheating), and poorer performance. Therefore, he recommends that extrinsic rewards be given only after the fact as a bonus, not as a carrot." – Dorian Peters, Interface Design
My guess is that the Pavlok would help for short term accomplishments, but it's not going "to create the conditions for people to motivate themselves (Edward Deci)".
I'm not an expert; It would be interesting to read an actual psychologist's take on the Pavlok product.
Being automatically paired up (groups of two, maybe more) with another user and getting shocked if the buddy does not complete his/her goal could be an interesting way to help learn how to motivate others, and perhaps then yourself. This then adds an element of randomness to the shocks (if the deadline for a buddy's task is unknown) which may not be present for the non-paired-user scenario.
I love this idea, but I can't help but wonder if the very first habit it will instill will be an aversion to wearing the wristband. That would be a negative result, I think.
"suffer an electric shock…at the hands of your friends"
This seems to be confusing masochism with self improvement. There are ways to reinforce a routine without putting on a twitter-enabled shock collar, and I'm not sure being Pavlov's dog is a psychological ideal many people aspire to attain.
Ever get the feeling you're in one of those movies set in the future where they're showing commercials of the weird disturbing products?