Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling.
Level 2 - randomized trial
Randomized controlled field experiment
PubMed 25843979 · doi:10.1287/mnsc.2013.1784
What was done
A randomized field experiment evaluated temptation bundling by pairing an immediately gratifying activity (listening to audiobooks) with a beneficial health behavior (exercising at the gym). 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. Post-intervention willingness to pay for continued gym-only access was also measured.
What was found
Initially, full and intermediate treatment participants visited the gym 51% and 29% more frequently, respectively, than control participants. These treatment effects declined over time, particularly following Thanksgiving. After the study, 61% of participants opted to pay to retain gym-only access to iPods containing tempting audiobooks.
Why it matters
This study provides evidence that temptation bundling can serve as a behavioral commitment device to temporarily increase exercise frequency, with participants demonstrating demand to pay for self-imposed restrictions.
Limits
The abstract does not report the sample size, participant demographics, study duration, or statistical uncertainty measures (such as p-values or confidence intervals). The intervention effect decayed over time and following routine disruptions, and long-term behavioral maintenance was not established.