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  • November 2012
  • Article
  • Preventive Medicine

Empirical Observations on Longer-term Use of Incentives for Weight Loss

By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Kevin Volpp
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Abstract

Behavioral economic-based interventions are emerging as powerful tools to help individuals accomplish their own goals, including weight loss. Deposit contract incentive systems give participants the opportunity to put their money down toward losing weight, which they forfeit if they fail to lose weight; lottery incentive systems enable participants to win money if they attain weight loss goals. In this paper, we pool data from two prior studies to examine a variety of issues that unpublished data from those studies allow us to address. First, examining data from the deposit contract treatments in greater depth, we investigate factors affecting deposit frequency and size and discuss possible ways of increasing deposits. Next, we compare the effectiveness of both deposit contract and lottery interventions as a function of participant demographic characteristics. These observations may help to guide the design of future, longer-term, behavioral economic-based interventions.

Keywords

Weight Loss; Obesity; Behavioral Economics; Intervention; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

Citation

John, Leslie K., George Loewenstein, and Kevin Volpp. "Empirical Observations on Longer-term Use of Incentives for Weight Loss." Preventive Medicine 55, Supplement 1 (November 2012): S68–S74.
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About The Author

Leslie K. John

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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    When Less Is More: Consumers Prefer Brands that Donate More in Relative versus Absolute Terms

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    Sugar-sweetened Beverage Purchases and Intake at Event Arenas with and without a Portion Size Cap

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    Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science

    By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley Whillans, Jonathan Zinman and Angela L. Duckworth
More from the Authors
  • When Less Is More: Consumers Prefer Brands that Donate More in Relative versus Absolute Terms By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Anne V. Wilson and Leslie K. John
  • Sugar-sweetened Beverage Purchases and Intake at Event Arenas with and without a Portion Size Cap By: Sheri Volger, James Scott Parrott, Brian Elbel, Leslie K. John, Jason P. Block, Pamela Rothpletz-Puglia and Christina A. Roberto
  • Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley Whillans, Jonathan Zinman and Angela L. Duckworth
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