Creating Exercise Habits Through Incentives for Routines

NCT02346799 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 821291
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 2,702
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine whether healthy habits can be formed more effectively when people are rewarded for repeated engagement in a given healthy behavior at a specific, routinized time each day rather than at any time.

Conditions

Body Weight

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Average weekly number of 30+ minute visits to company gym

  Number of times per week participants enter the company gym and exit at least 30 minutes later

  Up to one year

• Duration of habit

  Length of time that weekly gym visits takes to return to baseline level

  Up to one year

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Activity level as measured by Fitbit pedometers

  Up to one year

Study Arms (5)

Control

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants in the control group will not receive any additional treatment, apart from receiving daily emails 15 minutes before the start of their self-reported workout window. This is to control for reminder effects that may be present in the other treatment conditions. Participants in this condition will also receive a lump payment upon completion of an exit survey at the end of the intervention to equalize overall compensation.

Behavioral: Workout Window Reminders; Behavioral: Lump Incentive Payments

Flexible Incentive

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants in the flexible incentive condition will be paid $3 or $7 for each workout they complete during the treatment period (with a limit of one incentivized workout per day, and twelve incentivized workouts during the four-week treatment period). These participants will receive daily emails 15 minutes before the start of their self-reported workout window, but they can work out anytime of the day and still receive their incentive payment.

Behavioral: Workout Window Reminders; Behavioral: Individual Workout Incentive Payment

Routine Incentive

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants assigned to the routine incentive condition will receive the same treatment as those in the flexible incentive condition except that, in order to receive their incentive payment, they must begin their workout within their two-hour workout window. For instance, if an employee chooses a 2pm to 4pm workout window, she will receive a reminder to exercise at 1:45 pm and must swipe into the gym between 2pm and 4pm in order to receive the $3 or $7 incentive payment.

Behavioral: Workout Window Reminders; Behavioral: Individual Workout Incentive Payment

Social Routine Incentive

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants assigned to this condition will have an identical experience to those in the routine incentive except that both partners who sign up for the study will be required to coordinate and select a common workout window. Thus, both partners will receive their daily reminders at the same time (and will be incentivized for working out at the same time). The incentive payment, however, will not be linked to whether or not a participant's partner completes a workout - only to the participant's own exercise decision.

Behavioral: Workout Window Reminders; Behavioral: Individual Workout Incentive Payment; Behavioral: Partner Assignment

Holdout Control

NO INTERVENTION

If experimental enrollment exceeds target, exercise data will be collected for these additional participants, but they will receive no intervention of any kind.

Interventions

Workout Window Reminders BEHAVIORAL

Participants will receive emails at prespecified times reminding them to exercise, either during a specific two hour window or at any time during the day.

Control; Flexible Incentive; Routine Incentive; Social Routine Incentive

Individual Workout Incentive Payment BEHAVIORAL

Participants will be paid $3 or $7 for each workout completed during the appropriate times.

Flexible Incentive; Routine Incentive; Social Routine Incentive

Lump Incentive Payments BEHAVIORAL

Participants will receive $20 payments for completing post treatment survey.

Control

Partner Assignment BEHAVIORAL

Participants will be required to have same "workout window" as partners.

Social Routine Incentive

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Participants must be full-time employees of partner company

You may not qualify if:

• N/A

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Pennsylvania: lead
• Harvard University: collaborator
• National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Body Weight

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Katherine L Milkman, PhD

  University of Pennsylvania

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: January 5, 2015
• First Posted: January 27, 2015
• Study Start: January 1, 2015
• Primary Completion: February 1, 2016
• Study Completion: February 1, 2016
• Last Updated: August 22, 2016

Record last verified: 2016-08

Locations

US (1)