The goal-gradient hypothesis resurrected: purchase acceleration, illusionary goal progress, and customer retention
café reward programme; illusionary progress experiment with 108 customers, 12-stamp card with 2 bonus stamps against 10-stamp card, ten purchases completed in 12.7 against 15.6 days on average; music-rating site with 148 members and a voucher for rating 51 songs; post-reward resetting.
café reward programme; illusionary progress experiment with 108 customers, 12-stamp card with 2 bonus stamps against 10-stamp card, ten purchases completed in 12.7 against 15.6 days on average; music-rating site with 148 members and a voucher for rating 51 songs; post-reward resetting.
Written from the full text read 2026-10-14.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
doi:10.1509/jmkr.43.1.39. Full text read: café reward programme; illusionary progress experiment with 108 customers, 12-stamp card with 2 bonus stamps against 10-stamp card, ten purchases completed in 12.7 against 15.6 days on average; music-rating site with 148 members and a voucher for rating 51 songs; post-reward resetting.