| Autor: |
van der Swaluw, Koen, Lambooij, Mattijs S, Mathijssen, Jolanda J P, Schipper, Maarten, Zeelenberg, Marcel, Berkhout, Stef, Polder, Johan J, Prast, Henriëtte M |
| Předmět: |
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| Zdroj: |
Annals of Behavioral Medicine; Apr2018, Vol. 52 Issue 4, p342-351, 10p |
| Abstrakt: |
Background: The World Health Organization has identified physical inactivity as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. People often intend to engage in physical activity on a regular basis, but have trouble doing so. To realize their health goals, people can voluntarily accept deadlines with consequences that restrict undesired future behaviors (i.e., commitment devices).Purpose: We examined if lottery-based deadlines that leverage regret aversion would help overweight individuals in attaining their goal of attending their gym twice per week. At each deadline a lottery winner was drawn from all participants. The winners were only eligible for their prize if they attained their gym-attendance goals. Importantly, nonattending lottery winners were informed about their forgone prize. The promise of this counterfactual feedback was designed to evoke anticipated regret and emphasize the deadlines.Methods: Six corporate gyms with a total of 163 overweight participants were randomized to one of three arms. We compared (i) weekly short-term lotteries for 13 weeks; (ii) the same short-term lotteries in combination with an additional long-term lottery after 26 weeks; and (iii) a control arm without lotteries.Results: After 13 weeks, participants in the lottery arms attained their attendance goals more often than participants in the control arm. After 26 weeks, we observe a decline in goal attainment in the short-term lottery arm and the highest goal attainment in the long-term lottery arm.Conclusions: With novel applications, the current research adds to a growing body of research that demonstrates the effectiveness of commitment devices in closing the gap between health goals and behavior.Clinical Trial information: This trial is registered in the Dutch Trial Register. Identifier: NTR5559. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Complementary Index |
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