A New Work Out Motivation: Losing Money

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a great new motivator to help people lose weight: tell them they will lose money if they don’t. A Penn news release reports that researchers challenged 281 participants, all 18 years old or older and with a BMI of 27, to take at least 7,000 steps per day. The experiment tested three financial incentive designs for 13 weeks. One group, the gain-incentive group, received a fixed amount of money—$1.40—each day the step goal was achieved, which totaled $42 per month. Another group, the loss-incentive group, had $1.40 taken away from a monthly incentive ($42 allocated up front) each time the daily goal was not met. A third group, the control group, received no payment and paid no penalties. There also was a daily lottery incentive that equaled about $42 per month. Ready? The envelope please…The researchers found that paying people $1.40 per day for being active produced basically the same outcome as the control group of people, who didn’t get paid at all. Both groups achieved the step goal 30 to 35 percent of the time. (The lottery produced a similar result to the control group, too.) But when people received $42 up front and got it taken away if they didn’t meet their step goal, they achieved it 45 percent of the time.