Exercise promises plenty of future benefits. Unfortunately, those benefits can feel boringly far away when we’re deciding whether to go to the gym after work - or binge our show with some Ben n Jerry’s.
One experiment tested a way to make the visit more appealing immediately: give people an audiobook they wanted to hear, but restrict access to the gym.
Researchers provided participants with entertaining audiobooks. One group could listen only at the gym. Another received the audiobooks and was encouraged to limit listening to workouts themselves. A comparison group received a cash payment equivalent to the audiobook loan.
Over the intervention period, the group with gym-only access to their book visited 27% more often than the comparison group. Getting hooked into a story really has a benefit it seems.
The researchers called this approach to change temptation bundling: pairing something you want to do with something you want to get yourself to do.
There’s a useful question here for return to office mandates: what makes coming to the office enjoyable? If the answer is, nothing — then you have your answer as to why attendance is low.
There’s an obvious application for learning too. If you want managers to practise difficult conversations, try a session where they rehearse real situations with colleagues they enjoy working with. Time with people we enjoy the company of is the cheapest and easiest way to boost engagement I’ve seen.
How else could you apply temptation bundling in your team? Book a chat with me to explore - 30 minutes, no charge! I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Reference: Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. (2014). Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management Science, 60(2), 283–299. Original study.