What gets you up for work in the morning?

That’s because pretty much everyone loves pizza, and its shows with the way offices use pizza as a perk or a way to lure you to that meeting for a club you had no interest in.

According to a study led by Dan Ariely in his forthcoming book Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations, the prospect of tucking into a pizza as reward for hard work trumps even the promise of receiving a cash bonus.

“In a 2013 interview aired on PBS, Ariely explained the context of the rewards-positing that since the pizza would be delivered to the workers” homes, it would make them seem “like heroes in the eyes of their families”.

One group was promised a bonus of around $30; another, a ‘Well done!’ text message from the boss at the end of the week; a third group was offered a voucher for pizza; and the fourth set received no message or offer at all. “I’m not working very hard”. The group that received compliments was right behind with a 6.6% increase in output, which is a statistic we should just accept without questioning why these people are down with getting personal text messages from their boss.

So the next time your boss says you’re not doing enough work, as him to order you a pizza.

Then the participants were told to get to work.

Over the course of the week, while the cash incentive gradually decreased productivity by 6.5 percent, pizza and compliments made workers stay above the productivity baseline set by the control group. Money finished behind no extra motivation.

Free pizza was the top motivator and increased productivity by 6.7 percent for employees, versus a group that had to eat their own boring food.

“But the sense that other people appreciate what you do sticks with you”.