本文在受控的实验室实验中研究了激励对员工自我选择的影响。第一步，我们试探受试者的工作效率水平。然后受试者面临固定或可变支付方案之间的选择。根据不同的待遇，可变的报酬可以是计件、比赛或收入分享计划。我们引出了额外的个体特征，如受试者的风险态度、自我评估和过度自信的衡量标准、社会偏好、性别和个性。此外，我们还要求学生自我报告工作努力、压力和疲惫程度。我们的主要发现如下。首先，与固定薪酬方案相比，可变薪酬方案(计件工资、锦标赛和收入分成)的产出要高得多。其次，这种差异很大程度上是由生产率排序引起的。平均而言，一个工人的生产力越高，他就越有可能自行选择可变工资制度。 Third, relative self-assessment and overconfidence affect worker self-selection, in particular into tournaments. Fourth, risk averse workers prefer fixed payments and are less likely to sort into variable pay schemes. Fifth, people endowed with social preferences are less likely to sort into tournaments. Sixth, variable pay schemes attract men more than women, a difference that is partly explained by gender-specific risk attitudes. Seventh, self-selection is also affected by personality differences. Finally, reported effort is significantly higher in all variable pay conditions than in the fixed wage condition. In sum, our findings underline the importance of multi-dimensional sorting, i.e., the tendency for different incentive schemes to systematically attract people with different abilities, preferences, self-assessments, gender and personalities.