Incentives & Motivation for Behavior Change:

Summary

In a series of controlled, randomized experiments, we will systematically manipulate exposure to health-related messages and/or survey methods to examine the effects on behavioral intention.

There are various strategies used to influence health-related decision making and the effects of health behavior have had mixed results. In particular, incentive-based interventions have often failed to increase healthy behavior. We will examine 1) the role of behavioral motivation to increase sleep or exercise and 2) current levels of sleep or exercise when predicting who is interested in a mock RCT invitation to increase each behavior using financial or social incentives.

In addition to the above focus on sleep and exercise, we will also examine another important health behavior: vaccination. Embedded within experiments studying effects of incentives on vaccination decisions, will conduct methodological tests. In particular, we will estimate the effects of using different methods of measuring the study outcome (vaccine intention).

Conditions

• Behavior
• Intention

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

mandate public

mandate by airlines, bars, restaurants

BEHAVIORAL

employer mandate

your employer requires vaccination

BEHAVIORAL

incentive reward

$1,000 tax credit

BEHAVIORAL

penalty

$1000 tax penalty

BEHAVIORAL

incentive lottery small

100,000 smaller monetary amount

BEHAVIORAL

incentive lottery medium

200,000 mid monetary amount

BEHAVIORAL

incentive lottery large

1 million dollar lottery

BEHAVIORAL

cash small

smaller guaranteed cash amount

BEHAVIORAL

cash medium

mid sized quarenteed cash amount

BEHAVIORAL

cash large

large quarenteed cash amount

BEHAVIORAL

invitation for exercise financial incentive study

financial incentives earned when increasing exercise behaviors

BEHAVIORAL

invitation for exercise social incentive study

social incentives earned when increasing exercise behaviors

BEHAVIORAL

invitation for sleep social incentive study

social incentives earned when increasing sleep

BEHAVIORAL

invitation for sleep financial incentive

Financial incentives earned when increasing sleep

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Pennsylvania

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jessica Fishman, PhD · University of Pennsylvania

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-02-07

Primary Completion

2023-12-30

Completion

2023-12-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations