Paying people to exercise or show other desirable behavior is a popular idea. Governments, insurers, employers, and parents have all tried it — hoping money will get people moving. But does it actually work? Research shows that financial incentives can boost short-term activity — but long-term habits need more than money.
Paying people to exercise gets them started…
Two behavioral studies suggest that paying people to exercise works, but only in the short term. Long-term behavior requires more than cash. It needs habits.
In a large randomized trial, Bachireddy et al. (2019) tested people who participated in an online platform and got paid to be active (i.e., $0.10 for every 10k steps per day). In their study, the researchers tested three additional ways to structure the incentives for people on the platform. In each of these, they paid people substantially more to exercise: an average of $2.00 per every 10k steps rather than $0.10. This was a twentyfold (!) increase compared to the baseline condition where participants already got paid a small amount to be active.
Three different payment schemes over a two-week period:
(a) a constant reward per step
$2.00 for every 10k steps per day
(b) an increasing reward per day per step
starting from $0.50 per 10k steps on Day 1, ending with $3.50 per 10k steps on the last day
(c) a decreasing reward per day per step
starting with $3.50 per 10k steps on Day 1, ending with $0.50 per 10k steps on the last day
Paying people the constant high incentive per step per day had the most positive effect during the study: people in incentive scheme (a) logged >300 additional steps per day, compared to the control group who received a smaller but also constant bonus ($0.10 per every 10k steps).
…but does not keep them going (after you stop paying)
But: the moment the incentives stopped (after two weeks), the behavior dropped off. Within three weeks after the payments stopped, the best-performing group did not log any more steps than other groups, including the control group. In other words: Paying people a constant high bonus per day to exercise was effective, but only while the money lasted.
Another study by Beshears et al (2020) also explored the effect of a financial incentive on exercise behavior. They paid people either $0, $3 of $7 to go to the gym and work out for at least 30 minutes. They found that during the study–which lasted 4 consecutive weeks–people exercised more when they received an incentive than when they received nothing, and most when they received a higher incentive.
They also found that after the study ended (and they stopped paying) the effects decreased sharply.
Long lasting behavior change needs strong habits
So here’s the key lesson: Paying people to exercise works to activate behavior. But it doesn’t always sustain it. Thus, long-term change apparently needs something else — not just rewards.
Want people to go to the gym, eat better, or reduce screen time? Paying them might get them started. But if you want the change to last, help them build the habit.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because many behavioral interventions focus on the wrong things — while overlooking the power of habits. For more on that, see our post on Stop Throwing Information at People, which dives into what actually changes behavior (and what doesn’t).
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📚 References:
Bachireddy, C., Jawitz, M., Batchelder, H., Laiteerapong, N., & Volpp, K. (2019). Effect of Different Financial Incentive Structures on Promoting Physical Activity Among Adults. JAMA Internal Medicine, 179(12), 1624–1632. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2748659
Beshears, J., Lee, H. N., Milkman, K. L., Mislavsky, R., & Wisdom, J. (2020). Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization. Management Science, 66(5), 1897–1910. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3706
