Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling
通过现场实验检验“诱惑捆绑”方法，将即时满足的“想要”体验（听有声小说）与有价值的“应该”行为（锻炼）捆绑，发现能短期增加锻炼频率，且多数人愿意付费获得这种限制性捆绑。
We introduce and evaluate the effectiveness of temptation bundling—a method for simultaneously tackling two types of self-control problems by harnessing consumption complementarities. We describe a field experiment measuring the impact of bundling instantly gratifying but guilt-inducing “want” experiences (enjoying page-turner audiobooks) with valuable “should” behaviors providing delayed rewards (exercising). We explore whether such bundles increase should behaviors and whether people would pay to create these restrictive bundles. 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. Initially, full and intermediate treatment participants visited the gym 51% and 29% more frequently, respectively, than control participants, but treatment effects declined over time (particularly following Thanksgiving). After the study, 61% of participants opted to pay to have gym-only access to iPods containing tempting audiobooks, suggesting demand for this commitment device. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.