Recent research has highlighted the possibility that public policy interventions built on an understanding of the psychology surrounding the challenges associated with increasing physical activity may be particularly effective.
Despite the many benefits that exercise provides, including promoting weight loss ( Andersen 2010), only 50% of Americans exercise sufficiently, a percentage that has been steadily declining ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2007). Further, in light of skyrocketing healthcare costs caused in part by obesity, programs designed to encourage weight loss are of tremendous interest to most organizations ( Finkelstein et al. 2007), promoting weight loss is an urgent public health priority. 2010) and 112,000 deaths in the United States per year attributable to obesity ( Flegal et al. With 68% of adult Americans overweight or obese as of 2008 ( Flegal et al. After the study, 61% of participants opted to pay to have gym-only access to iPods containing tempting audiobooks, suggesting demand for this commitment device. Initially, full and intermediate treatment participants visited the gym 51% and 29% more frequently, respectively, than control participants, but treatment effects declined over time (particularly following Thanksgiving).
Participants were randomly assigned to a full treatment condition with gym-only access to tempting audio novels, an intermediate treatment involving encouragement to restrict audiobook enjoyment to the gym, or a control condition. We explore whether such bundles increase should behaviors and whether people would pay to create these restrictive bundles. We describe a field experiment measuring the impact of bundling instantly gratifying but guilt-inducing “want” experiences (enjoying page-turner audiobooks) with valuable “should” behaviors providing delayed rewards (exercising). We introduce and evaluate the effectiveness of temptation bundling-a method for simultaneously tackling two types of self-control problems by harnessing consumption complementarities.
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