Can Financial Incentives Help People Trying to Establish New Habits? Experimental Evidence with New Gym Members

Mariana Carrera (), Heather Royer, Mark Stehr and Justin Syndor ()
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Mariana Carrera: Case Western Reserve University
Justin Syndor: University of Wisconsin-Madison

No 10874, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We conducted a randomized controlled trial testing the effect of modest incentives to attend the gym among new members of a fitness facility, a population that is already engaged in trying to change a health behavior. Our experiment randomized 836 new members of a private gym into a control group, receiving a $30 payment unconditionally, or one of 3 incentive groups, receiving a payment if they attended the gym at least 9 times over their first 6 weeks as members. The incentives were a $30 payment, a $60 payment, and an item costing $30 that leveraged the endowment effect. These incentives had only moderate impacts on attendance during members' first 6 weeks and no effect on their subsequent visit trajectories. We document substantial overconfidence among new members about their likely visit rates and discuss how overconfidence may undermine the effectiveness of a modest incentive program.

Keywords: exercise; incentives; endowment effect; overconfidence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D3 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2018, 58, 202 -214

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Related works:
Journal Article: Can financial incentives help people trying to establish new habits? Experimental evidence with new gym members (2018)
Working Paper: Can Financial Incentives Help People Trying to Establish New Habits? Experimental Evidence with New Gym Members (2017)
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