David de Buisonger found out what motivates people best to exercise. To do this, he developed an app to count steps and, during the experiment, persuaded 97 volunteers to deposit money (stick) or win 10 euros (carrot). To receive the reward, participants had to take 20% more steps than their average day and reach a specific goal to get the money back.
It turned out that only 62% of paying participants participated in the counting steps (compared to 100% among those who were able to receive rewards). It turns out that deposit agreements are no more effective than rewards.
The second experiment was conducted with 137 people. This time, the carrot and stick are combined: Volunteers can double their costs if they don’t meet their goals. They also had to decide for themselves how much money to invest. As a result, people completed an average of 60% of their steps.
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Source: Ferra
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