Should Individuals Choose Their Own Incentives? Evidence from a Mindfulness Meditation Intervention
Management Science · 2025 · Andrej Woerner、Giorgia Romagnoli、Birgit M. Probst、Nina Bartmann、Jonathan N. Cloughesy、Jan Willem Lindemans
中文摘要
传统上，促进行为改变的激励是外部指定的，而非由个体自行选择。本文从理论与实证两方面考察另一种做法，即让个体从一组难度与回报递增的选项中自行选择激励方案。当个体具有异质性且对其成本与收益拥有私人信息时，我们从理论上表明，让其自行选择激励可以同时改善依从性与福利。我们在基于每日冥想课程的一项田野实验中检验理论预测。我们随机将部分参与者分配到两种激励方案之一，并允许其他参与者在两种方案之间选择。正如预测的那样，参与者分选进入不同方案，与政策制定者的目标（部分）一致。然而，与我们的预测相反，可以自行选择的参与者完成的课程数显著少于被随机分配的参与者。由于这一结果并非由选择不当所驱动，我们推断，让人们在激励方案之间进行选择可能带来抑制依从性的心理效应。
Abstract
Traditionally, incentives to promote behavioral change are assigned rather than chosen. In this paper, we theoretically and empirically investigate the alternative approach of letting people choose their own incentives from a menu of increasingly challenging and rewarding options. When individuals are heterogeneous and have private information about their costs and benefits, we theoretically show that leaving them the choice of incentives can improve both adherence and welfare. We test the theoretical predictions in a field experiment based on daily meditation sessions. We randomly assign some participants to one of two incentive schemes and allow others to choose between the two schemes. As predicted, participants sort into schemes in (partial) agreement with the objectives of the policymaker. However, in contrast to our prediction, participants who could choose complete significantly fewer sessions than participants that were randomly assigned. Because the results are not driven by poor selection, we infer that letting people choose between incentive schemes may bring in psychological effects that discourage adherence.