IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v44y2015icp286-299.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing the effectiveness of individualistic, altruistic, and competitive incentives in motivating completion of mental exercises

Author

Listed:
  • Schofield, Heather
  • Loewenstein, George
  • Kopsic, Jessica
  • Volpp, Kevin G.

Abstract

This study examines the impact of individually oriented, purely altruistic, and a hybrid of competitive and cooperative monetary reward incentives on older adults’ completion of cognitive exercises and cognitive function. We find that all three incentive structures approximately double the number of exercises completed during the six-week active experimental period relative to a no incentive control condition. However, the altruistic and cooperative/competitive incentives led to different patterns of participation, with significantly higher inter-partner correlations in utilization of the software, as well as greater persistence once incentives were removed. Provision of all incentives significantly improved performance on the incentivized exercises. However, results of an independent cognitive testing battery suggest no generalizable gains in cognitive function resulted from the training.

Suggested Citation

  • Schofield, Heather & Loewenstein, George & Kopsic, Jessica & Volpp, Kevin G., 2015. "Comparing the effectiveness of individualistic, altruistic, and competitive incentives in motivating completion of mental exercises," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 286-299.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:44:y:2015:i:c:p:286-299
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.09.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629615001083
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.09.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. John Cawley & Joshua A. Price, 2011. "Outcomes in a Program that Offers Financial Rewards for Weight Loss," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Obesity, pages 91-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    4. Dan Acland & Matthew R. Levy, 2015. "Naiveté, Projection Bias, and Habit Formation in Gym Attendance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 146-160, January.
    5. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    6. Acland, Dan & Levy, Matthew R., 2015. "Naiveté, projection bias, and habit formation in gym attendance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Gary Charness & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Incentives to Exercise," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 909-931, May.
    8. Philip Babcock & Kelly Bedard & Gary Charness & John Hartman & Heather Royer, 2015. "Letting Down The Team? Social Effects Of Team Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 841-870, October.
    9. Grossman, Michael & Mocan, Naci (ed.), 2011. "Economic Aspects of Obesity," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226310091, August.
    10. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    11. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    12. Nalbantian, Haig R & Schotter, Andrew, 1997. "Productivity under Group Incentives: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 314-341, June.
    13. Supreet Kaur & Michael Kremer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2010. "Self-Control and the Development of Work Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 624-628, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Loewenstein, George & Price, Joseph & Volpp, Kevin, 2016. "Habit formation in children: Evidence from incentives for healthy eating," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 47-54.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manuela Angelucci & Silvia Prina & Heather Royer & Anya Samek, 2015. "When Incentives Backfire: Spillover Effects in Food Choice," NBER Working Papers 21481, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Augurzky, Boris & Bauer, Thomas K. & Reichert, Arndt R. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Tauchmann, Harald, 2018. "Habit formation, obesity, and cash rewards," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 06/2018, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    3. Allais, Olivier & Bazoche, Pascale & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2017. "Getting more people on the stairs: The impact of point-of-decision prompts," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 18-27.
    4. Kirgios, Erika L. & Mandel, Graelin H. & Park, Yeji & Milkman, Katherine L. & Gromet, Dena M. & Kay, Joseph S. & Duckworth, Angela L., 2020. "Teaching temptation bundling to boost exercise: A field experiment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(S), pages 20-35.
    5. Marco Fabbri & Paolo Nicola Barbieri & Maria Bigoni, 2019. "Ride Your Luck! A Field Experiment on Lottery-Based Incentives for Compliance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4336-4348, September.
    6. Carrera, Mariana & Royer, Heather & Stehr, Mark & Sydnor, Justin, 2018. "Can financial incentives help people trying to establish new habits? Experimental evidence with new gym members," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 202-214.
    7. Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2022. "Sign me up! Promoting volunteering with a compound task mechanism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 897-913.
    8. Daniel Mochon & Janet Schwartz & Josiase Maroba & Deepak Patel & Dan Ariely, 2017. "Gain Without Pain: The Extended Effects of a Behavioral Health Intervention," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 58-72, January.
    9. Condliffe, Simon & Işgın, Ebru & Fitzgerald, Brynne, 2017. "Get thee to the gym! A field experiment on improving exercise habits," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-32.
    10. Itzik Fadlon & Torben Heien Nielsen, 2019. "Family Health Behaviors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3162-3191, September.
    11. Cappelen, Alexander W & Charness, Gary & Ekström, Mathias & Gneezy, Uri & Tungodden, Bertil, 2017. "Exercise Improves Academic Performance," Working Paper Series 1180, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    12. Rohde, Kirsten I.M. & Verbeke, Willem, 2017. "We like to see you in the gym—A field experiment on financial incentives for short and long term gym attendance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 388-407.
    13. Simone Haeckl & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "Work Motivation and Teams," Discussion Papers 18-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Mariana Carrera & Heather Royer & Mark Stehr & Justin Sydnor, 2020. "The Structure of Health Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1890-1908, May.
    15. Giacomo Calzolari & Mattia Nardotto, 2017. "Effective Reminders," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2915-2932, September.
    16. Harris, Matthew C. & Kessler, Lawrence M., 2019. "Habit formation and activity persistence: Evidence from gym equipment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 688-708.
    17. Nan Yang & Yong Long Lim, 2018. "Temporary Incentives Change Daily Routines: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Singapore’s Subways," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3365-3379, July.
    18. List, John A. & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2015. "The behavioralist as nutritionist: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 135-146.
    19. Patrizia Lattarulo & Marco Mariani & Laura Razzolini, 2017. "Nudging museums attendance: a field experiment with high school teens," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(3), pages 259-277, August.
    20. Lindeboom, Maarten & van der Klaauw, Bas & Vriend, Sandra, 2015. "The effect of audit regimes on applications for long-term care," CEPR Discussion Papers 10572, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cognitive exercises; Incentives; Social incentives; Behavioral economics; Health behaviors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:44:y:2015:i:c:p:286-299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.