The Effects of Joint Efforts on Health Promoting Financial Incentive Systems

Abstract

Health Promoting Financial Incentives (HPFIs) have proven effective in stimulating exercising behaviour. However these systems are not always implemented optimally. There are other sources of external motivation that can crowd out the external motivation provided by HPFIs, meaning a company is effectively throwing money away. Through better targeting, HPFIs can become cheaper to implement whilst remaining as effective if not more so. This follow-up study investigates the role of joint exercise in HPFIs by re-analysing the characteristics of the participants of the lottery reward experiment by SamenGezond, providing a real-world setting to joint exercise theory. This study concludes that joint exercise has a significant effect on the amount that people exercise. It also shows that men with a fixed mindset complete more weekly goals when exercising alone, but men with a growth mindset complete more weekly goals when exercising with a partner. This relationship does not hold for women. Analysing the characteristics of the participants in a HPFI proves vital for the efficiency of the HPFI system.