Analyzing the Honor system in the "League of Legends" MMORPG:

"The Honor feature was inspired by research on feedback loops and the psychology of learning,” Jeffrey Lin, Lead Designer of Social Systems at Riot, told me when I asked him about the psychological roots of the system. “One pillar of this research suggests that speed and clarity of feedback are catalysts that can really shape behaviors.”

Indeed, learning (which in psychology is often synonymous with “lasting behavior change”) via reinforcement or punishment dates back to research in the early 20th century by pioneers like Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner. In brief, they found that animals could be trained most effectively by pairing rewards or punishments with desired or undesired behaviors. Give a rat a pile of cocaine each time it presses a lever and it will jam on that thing like a maniac. But give the rat a pile of cats and it will stop pressing the lever. Or something like that; I’ll leave the specifics to the Wikipedia article on Reinforcement if you want them.

Research on this kind of learning developed and expanded, including its use in modifying human behavior and understanding the best ways to schedule and present the rewards and punishments. It turns out that positive reinforcement (adding something the subject likes, like Honor points) is super effective, but even more effective when presented unambiguously, meaningfully, and quickly after the desired behavior."