Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • Forthcoming
  • Article
  • Management Science

Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization

By: John Beshears, Hae Nim Lee, Katherine L. Milkman, Robert Mislavsky and Jessica Wisdom
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Habits involve regular, cue-triggered routines. In a field experiment, we tested whether incentivizing exercise routines—paying participants each time they visit the gym within a planned, daily two-hour window—leads to more persistent exercise than offering flexible incentives—paying participants each day they visit the gym, regardless of timing. Routine incentives generated fewer gym visits than flexible incentives, both during our intervention and after incentives were removed. Even among subgroups that were experimentally induced to exercise at similar rates during our intervention, recipients of routine incentives exhibited a larger decrease in exercise after the intervention than recipients of flexible incentives.

Keywords

Behavior And Behavioral Decision Making; Healthcare; Exercise; Habit; Routine; Health; Behavior; Decision Making

Citation

Beshears, John, Hae Nim Lee, Katherine L. Milkman, Robert Mislavsky, and Jessica Wisdom. "Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization." Management Science (forthcoming).
  • Find it at Harvard

About The Author

John Beshears

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • November 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Social Salary Setting at Spiber

    By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    Going It Alone: Competition Increases the Attractiveness of Minority Status

    By: Erika L. Kirgios, Edward H. Chang and Katherine L. Milkman
    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions

    By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky
More from the Authors
  • Social Salary Setting at Spiber By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
  • Going It Alone: Competition Increases the Attractiveness of Minority Status By: Erika L. Kirgios, Edward H. Chang and Katherine L. Milkman
  • Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College