Incentives, commitments, and habit formation in exercise: Evidence from a field experiment with workers at a Fortune-500 company
Royer, Stehr and Sydnor, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7(3), 2015, 51-84. Field experiment with workers at a large company: a financial incentive for gym visits worked strongly while it lasted; participants offered a self-funded commitment contract at the end of the programme showed demand for it and lasting changes in behaviour after the incentive ended. No figures used in the article.
Royer, Stehr and Sydnor, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7(3), 2015, 51-84. Field experiment with workers at a large company: a financial incentive for gym visits worked strongly while it lasted; participants offered a self-funded commitment contract at the end of the programme showed demand for it and lasting changes in behaviour after the incentive ended. No figures used in the article.
Written from the abstract (OpenAlex, Crossref bibliographic data), 2026-11-07.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Royer, H., Stehr, M., & Sydnor, J. (2015). Incentives, commitments, and habit formation in exercise: Evidence from a field experiment with workers at a Fortune-500 company. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 7(3), 51-84. doi:10.1257/app.20130327 https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20130327