Research Studies

Exercising with Axelroad is fun, and research shows that gamification works!

2024

A field experiment on gamification of physical activity – Effects on motivation and steps

Elaine Marie Grech, Marie Briguglio, Emanuel Said

The use of gamification resulted in stronger behavioral outcomes relative to the control group despite the lack of psychological effects.

2023

Positive and Negative Impacts of Gamification on the Fitness Industry

Fezile Ozdamli and Fulbert Milrich

Results have indicated that gamification strategy is a supporting factor to overcome the difficulties of executing exercises. Also, to improve the willingness towards fitness regimens.

2023

On or Off Track: How (Broken) Streaks Affect Consumer Decisions

Jackie Silverman, Alixandra Barasch

New technologies increasingly enable consumers to track their behaviors over time, making them more aware of their “streaks”—behaviors performed consecutively three or more times—than ever before.

2023

What can machine learning teach us about habit formation? Evidence from exercise and hygiene

Anastasia Buyalskaya, Hung Ho, Katherine L. Milkman, Xiaomin li, Angela L. Dusckworth, and Colin Camerer

Gymgoers who are more predictable are less responsive to an intervention designed to promote more gym attendance, consistent with past experiments showing that habit formation generates insensitivity to reward devaluation.

2021

Combining a lottery incentive with protection against losing the lottery improves exercise adherence

Daniella Meeker, Tara Knight, Patra Childress, Elmar R. Aliyev, & Jason N. Doctor

The loss-protection framing resulted in greater exercise class attendance, suggesting that the approach could enhance the outcomes of reward-based programs without increasing program costs.

2019

Gamification Use and Design in Popular Health and Fitness Mobile Applications

Victor Cotton, Mitesh S. Patel

Gamification was commonly used by popular health and fitness mobile applications, but none used the specified behavioral economic principles to design rewards or points. Mobile applications could potentially improve their use if their design better leveraged principles from behavioral economics.

2017

Can financial incentives help people trying to establish new habits? Experimental evidence with new gym members

Mariana Carrera, Heather Royer, Mark Stehr, Justin Sydnor

We document substantial overconfidence among new members about their likely visit rates and discuss how overconfidence may undermine the effectiveness of a modest incentive program.

2014

The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior

Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis

We propose that temporal landmarks demarcate the passage of time, creating many new mental accounting periods each year, which relegate past imperfections to a previous period, induce people to take a big-picture view of their lives, and thus motivate aspirational behaviors.

2012

Making health habitual: the psychology of ‘habit-formation’ and general practice

Benjamin Gardner, Phillippa Lally, Jane Wardle

Habit-formation advice can be delivered briefly, and it has realistic potential for long-term impact. A sample tool for health professionals to use with patients to encourage habit formation is provided

2011

Promoting habit formation

Phillippa Lally, Benjamin Gardner

This review aims to provide intervention developers with tools to help establish target behaviours as habits, based on theoretical and empirical insights. We discuss evidence-based techniques for forming new healthy habits and breaking existing unhealthy habits.

2024

A field experiment on gamification of physical activity – Effects on motivation and steps

Elaine Marie Grech, Marie Briguglio, Emanuel Said

The use of gamification resulted in stronger behavioral outcomes relative to the control group despite the lack of psychological effects.

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