Although most people know that exercise is good for their health, more than 50 per cent of adults in the United States don’t do enough of it.
With this in mind, Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania school of Medicine, set out to test the effectiveness of financial incentives.
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, discovered that people are more likely to exercise if they think they’ll incur a fine if they don’t.
During the study, 281 participants were given the goal of reaching 7,000 steps per day for 26 weeks.
The participants were assigned to four groups for the first 13 weeks.
One control group had no financial incentive, while the gain group received $1.40 for every day the goal was achieved which equates to $42 per month.
There was also a lottery group – where people were entered into a daily lottery with a prize that averaged $1.40 each day.
Finally, there was a loss incentive group, where the participants started with $42 each month, and the researchers took $1.40 away for each day the goal wasn’t achieved.
For the final 13 weeks of the study, participants received feedback on their performance – but weren’t offered any financial incentives.
The results were tracked via an app on the participant’s smart phones.
Results from the first half of the study showed that offering a daily reward or lottery was no more effective than offering no reward at all. Participants in those groups only achieved the goal 30 to 35 per cent of the time.
However, the participants that risked losing the reward they’d already been given achieved the goal nearly 45 per cent of the time.
That equates to almost 50 per cent more than the control group.
The scientists therefore concluded that the way financial incentives are framed is very important.
The lead reseacher told the Daily Mail that more research is needed to compare the effectiveness of financial incentives when combined with other motivators, such as peer support and accountability.
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