The Last Word On Nothing

Introduction

I hate flossing. My mouth is small, my teeth crowded, the spaces between them difficult to reach. Twice a year, my dental hygienist entreats me to floss more frequently. Sometimes I assent, and mean it, and actually manage to make it work for a few months until I invariably get sick or injured or burned out and jettison all nonessential tasks. Sometimes, especially during hard times, I just tell her no.

I left my last visit determined to try again. At home, I got out markers and paper and drew a shaky grid (see Fig. 1), then affixed the chart to the back of the bathroom mirror. I told myself that I would start small, flossing two days a week, and reward myself by adding a little heart sticker to the chart each time I actually did it.

It’s been months now. I haven’t missed a flossing day since.

The heart stickers are identical and plain, yet I derive tremendous satisfaction from affixing one to its messy square on the chart. The package of 1,810 stickers cost $4.99, or about $0.002 per heart. For less than two cents a month, I’d tricked my brain into actually wanting to do something uncomfortable, boring, and gross.

(You know where this is going, right?)

I wanted to find out why.

Background

As it turns out, scientific literature is brimming with studies on stickers and the brain’s reward circuit—but only in small children. I searched and searched and did not turn up a single paper focused on stickers and motivation in adults. If anyone was going to get to the bottom of this, it was going to have to be me.

Methods

I created a qualitative study: a short survey, distributed via a link in my newsletter and on social media. My sample size (N=20) was meager* and selection bias was significant: all participants are part of my extended network and, more importantly, the kind of people who would volunteer to take a survey about stickers.

Results

Of this self-selected pool, 73.7% of respondents were sticker people. Within that group, 40% reported using stickers to motivate themselves. Sticker-linked tasks included eating vegetables, exercising, drinking water, eating mindfully, and making the bed.

Here’s what else I found out.

QUESTION: Do you think stickers actually work to motivate you?

QUESTION: Why stickers? Why not something else?

“Good question,” one person said. “I don’t get it.” Another: “Absolutely no idea.”

Some respondents theorized that stickers work because they are immediate, small, and ephemeral (“You can affix them as part of the face you’re showing to the world…today”), while others suggested the opposite. “It’s physical evidence that lasts for others to see and as a reminder. A high five is gone after the slap.”

“I never was a student who teachers gave those gold stars to,” one person said. “I’m making up for lost time.”

QUESTION: How do you feel when you get a sticker?

“Childish and childlike,” one respondent wrote. “Good,” said another. “Shiny.” “I don’t do this a lot but I think it would bring a lot of childlike joy.” “Like I’ve achieved closure.”

Then there was the response that made me tear up.

“Like the kid I wanted to be,” they wrote. “Happy.”

Conclusions

I came away with few answers and new questions:

• Do children whose parents use sticker charts grow up to be sticker chart users?
• Are sticker charts an American thing?
• Is it generational? Cultural?
• Do sticker people stick together?
• Are neurodivergent adults, who are often quite skilled at adapting and hacking their own executive function, more likely than others to enjoy and use stickers for expression, motivation, and reward?

(As a neurodivergent adult myself, I have a pretty solid guess on that last one.)

Major themes included pride, nostalgia, creativity, silliness, and caring for one’s adult self by nurturing an inner child. Reading the responses, I felt washed in warmth and tenderness toward these dear humans doing what they can to treat themselves lovingly in this raging, painful world.

My questionnaire did not (could not) answer my question. It was the wrong tool for the job, and I am the wrong person. I am no closer to understanding the cognitive mechanisms that transform a loathsome task into the prelude to a $0.002 thrill.

My brain continues questing. But my heart is full.

Postscript

The final “question” of the survey offered participants a menu of virtual stickers and invited them to select as many as they wanted. The list included two types of gold star, a sparkly heart, a rainbow, a lobster, a cool skateboard, and a worm. Most respondents (82.4%) wanted the lobster. Very few selected the worm.

I don’t know what to do with this information.

*

Figures by me.

*An N of 20 is pitiful, and it is still larger than the sample sizes of many overhyped studies on human health, especially those involving food or weight. Trust no headline.