A new study finds that financial incentives are not enough to motivate people to exercise, even when those people really want to develop good habits. The findings were reported in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
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To find out if paying people to hit the gym pays off, researchers recruited 836 new gym members: that is, people who already had a financial stake in working out more frequently. The experts divided the participants into four groups. The first group, the control group, was paid $30 no matter what they did. The other groups were told that they’d be rewarded for attending the gym just 1.5 times per week during their first six weeks of membership. The rewards were either a $30 or $60 Amazon gift card or a $30 item of the participant’s choosing.
The researchers tracked how many times each participant swiped in at the gym. To ensure that people weren’t just showing up, swiping in, then leaving, they enacted a 10-minute minimum halfway through the study. The new policy didn’t make much difference; people still showed up with the same frequency.
Or, more accurately, they didn’t show up.
Before the study began, participants said they planned to visit the gym an average of three times each week. Reality looked a bit different. People in the control group started out fine, going 1.5 times per week, but by the end of the study they were down to once a week. The folks in the incentive groups didn’t fare much better. They averaged 1.73 weekly visits during their second week, but tapered to a single weekly workout by the end of the study period. After the six weeks ended, all four groups’ attendance declined even further.
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