Micro-Incentives

BEHAVIOR CHANGE TACTIC

Micro-Incentives

Micro-incentives refers to small rewards, typically frequent and cash-based, given out on a per-behavior basis. A prominent example is Wellth, a program for people with chronic illness delivered via app. Some participants are given around $2 each time they take a medication or measure their blood pressure and submit a photo. In related studies, e.g. Petry et al. (2015), participants' compliance with these behaviors was significantly higher than those who did not receive the incentives, and the behaviors persisted several months after incentives were removed. Micro-incentives can be layered with other reward approaches such as lotteries and non-financial incentives.

Studies involving Micro-Incentives

PAPERS

Financial incentives for home-based health monitoring: a randomized controlled trial.

AUTHORS

AP Sen, TB Sewell, EB Riley, B Stearman, SL Bellamy, MF Hu, Y Tao, J Zhu, JD Park, George Loewenstein, David Asch, Kevin Volpp

BEHAVIOR

Disease Management

TACTICS

Micro-Incentives, Lotteries

PAPERS

Reminders, Raffles and Rent Payments

TACTICS

Micro-Incentives, Lotteries, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers

PAPERS

Multicentre RCT and economic evaluation of a psychological intervention together with a leaflet to reduce risk behaviour amongst men who have sex with men (MSM) prescribed post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV following sexual exposure (PEPSE): a protocol.

BEHAVIOR

Sexual Health Behaviors

TACTICS

Education or Information

PAPERS

Design and Methods of a Synchronous Online Motivational Interviewing Intervention for Weight Management.

BEHAVIOR

Other

TACTICS

Motivational Interviewing

PAPERS

Getting More Work for Nothing? Symbolic Awards and Worker Performance

AUTHORS

S Neckermann, M Kosfeld

BEHAVIOR

Other

TACTICS

Micro-Incentives

PAPERS

Attention, intentions, and follow-through in preventive health behavior: Field experimental evidence on flu vaccination

AUTHORS

ET Bronchetti

BEHAVIOR

Vaccination

TACTICS

Micro-Incentives

PAPERS

Nudging study habits: A field experiment on peer tutoring in higher education

AUTHORS

N Wilson, T Pugatch

TACTICS

Micro-Incentives, Framing Effects

PAPERS

Emails About Course Selection Increase Financial Aid.

BEHAVIOR

Financial Aid

TACTICS

Checklists, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers

PAPERS

The Cameroon Mobile Phone SMS (CAMPS) trial: A randomized trial of text messaging versus usual care for adherence to antiretroviral therapy.

BEHAVIOR

Medication Adherence

TACTICS

Social Support

Related behavior change tactics

AI or Chatbot

TACTICS

AI or Chatbot

Using a chatbot or simulated conversational interaction.‍

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

TACTICS

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT is a therapeutic approach originalled developed by Steven Hayes. It borrows from previous concepts like cognitive behavioral therapy and Morita therapy. The principles of ACT are fairly systematic and lend themselves well to program design, finding empirical support in adaptations like 2morrow's smoking cessation and pain management interventions.‍

Active Choice

TACTICS

Active Choice

Active choice, sometimes referred to as enhanced active choice or forced choice, refers to removing default options and often increasing the salience of potential decisions through emphasizing the consequences of one or more of the options. Coined by Punam Anand Keller and colleagues in 2011, it was originally intended to address concerns around paternalistic nudging for use in situations where forcing the default option may be considered unethical. In one of the original studies, CVS customers were given the choice to enroll in automatic refills of medications via delivery. The choices they were presented were ""Enroll in refills at home"" vs “I Prefer to Order my Own Refills.”‍

Automation

TACTICS

Automation

Automation refers to having another person, group, or technology system perform part or all of the intended behavior. A prominent example is Thaler & Bernartzi's Save More Tomorrow intervention, which invested a portion of employees' earnings into retirement funds automatically and even increased the contribution level to scale with pay raises. Other examples include automatically scheduling medical appointments so the patient needn't do it themselves and mailing healthy recipe ingredients to the person's home to reduce the burden of shopping.‍

Behavior Substitution

TACTICS

Behavior Substitution

Behavior substitution refers to attempting to eliminate a problematic behavior by replacing it with another one. Often, the substituted behaviors are intended to have similar sensory qualities (e.g. drink flavored sparkling water instead of soda). The goal is typically to disassociate the original behavior from its cue, enabling the more positive behavior to be triggered automatically.‍

Behavioral Activation (BA)

TACTICS

Behavioral Activation (BA)

Behavioral activation is a therapeutic approach that typically pairs activity scheduling with either monitoring tools or goal-setting. For example, someone might aim to balance activities they "should" do but underperform, like self-care behaviors, with activities they enjoy. Users of this technique may also track which activities cause certain cognitions or affective states, like those associated with depression.‍