IS in Healthcare

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Paper Type

Complete

Paper Number

2387

Description

Financial incentives are widely used to promote health behavior. Among others, egoistic and philanthropic incentives are the two most representative types of financial incentives: While the former is directly given to individuals performing health behavior, the latter ties such behavior to charitable contributions. Despite their prevalence, an understanding of the optimal incentive design for health behavior is limited. In this study, we conducted a randomized field experiment in collaboration with a leading mobile health app provider in order to identify (1) the relative effectiveness of egoistic and philanthropic incentives in promoting health behavior, and (2) how they are moderated by the two common design factors: incentive easiness and incentive value. We found that egoistic incentives usually outperform philanthropic incentives unless incentives have high easiness and low value. In addition, while incentive easiness is a major driver of effective philanthropic incentives, incentive value is a key driver of effective egoistic incentives.

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Dec 14th, 12:00 AM

Walk for Whom? The Effectiveness of Egoistic and Philanthropic Incentive Designs for Mobile Health Interventions

Financial incentives are widely used to promote health behavior. Among others, egoistic and philanthropic incentives are the two most representative types of financial incentives: While the former is directly given to individuals performing health behavior, the latter ties such behavior to charitable contributions. Despite their prevalence, an understanding of the optimal incentive design for health behavior is limited. In this study, we conducted a randomized field experiment in collaboration with a leading mobile health app provider in order to identify (1) the relative effectiveness of egoistic and philanthropic incentives in promoting health behavior, and (2) how they are moderated by the two common design factors: incentive easiness and incentive value. We found that egoistic incentives usually outperform philanthropic incentives unless incentives have high easiness and low value. In addition, while incentive easiness is a major driver of effective philanthropic incentives, incentive value is a key driver of effective egoistic incentives.

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