Over at Passionate Discourse, Q reports how Legal Research professors use peer pressure to motivate students as they work on their latest assignment. By second semester everyone has figured out that the marginal benefit of work in a pass/fail class is pretty close to zero, so it takes something special to get us motivated. That law and econ stuff is really biting them in the ass. So they make eceryone work in pairs, and get the students to stress each other out. Q admits to falling for it.
I have an appelate brief due Tuesday that uses the same system, but I've experienced a different dynamic. Instead of spurring each other on, my partner and I are engaged in a game of slacker chicken, with each of us procrastinating for as long as possible and hoping the other will take the initiative. We each know that the first person to blink will wind up doing more work. It's a classic collective action problem.
And it may be even more complicated than that. Maybe we're both putting off studying to show what cool people we are. Maybe we're countersignaling.
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