Abstract

Individuals are highly sensitive to rare events in their planning decisions, but their implementation decisions reflect a bias to the opposite: the underweighting of rare events indicates a dependence on only a few past observations, so even a few failures in the attempt to achieve their goal lead to non-implementation. To overcome this bias, we designed a commitment device based on micro-incentive repeated bets in order to help them adhere to their plans during ongoing decisions. We assume that repeated betting is more cost-efficient and more effective (in the short and long run) than other monetary bonus systems. We test this device in a field experiment with individuals who want to be more physically active. We quantify their objectives in that we define individual goals based on their previous performance. Afterwards, we study goal attainment in a setting without incentives in a pre-intervention phase and goal attainment in a setting where we systematically vary the type of support. We do so by offering different monetary incentives to clarify under which conditions the participants will overcome the mentioned planning-ongoing gap.

Keywords

commitment device, betting, healthy behavior, micro-incentives