The Motivating Power of Streaks: Incentivizing Streaks Increases Engagement in Effortful Tasks

In five incentive-compatible, pre-registered experiments, we show that streak-rewarding payments (i.e., incentives which reward the completion of three or more consecutive effortful tasks) increase persistence in completing effortful tasks, compared to higher paying flat incentives. This effect occurs because consumers are motivated by consecutive, “game-like” payments.



Citation:

Katie Mehr, Jackie Silverman, Marissa Sharif, Alixandra Barasch, and Katherine Milkman (2020) ,"The Motivating Power of Streaks: Incentivizing Streaks Increases Engagement in Effortful Tasks", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 48, eds. Jennifer Argo, Tina M. Lowrey, and Hope Jensen Schau, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 994-999.

Authors

Katie Mehr, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Jackie Silverman, University of Delaware, USA
Marissa Sharif, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Alixandra Barasch, New York University, USA
Katherine Milkman, University of Pennsylvania, USA



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 48 | 2020



Share Proceeding

Featured papers

See More

Featured

Don’t Tell Me Who I Am! When and How Assigning Consumers an Identity Backfires

Noah Castelo, Columbia University, USA
Kirk Kristofferson, Ivey Business School
Kelley Main, University of Manitoba, Canada
Katherine White, University of British Columbia, Canada

Read More

Featured

H5. Being Looked Up or Being Looked Down? The Divergent Effects of Camera Angle on Nonanthropomorphized and Anthropomorphized Product in Ads

Changchun Xuan, Xiamen University
Rui Chen, Xiamen University
Jing Jiang, Suzhou Broadcasting System
Bin Yu, Tsingtao Brewery Company Limited
Jingjia Peng, Icartoon Culture & Media Corporation ltd
Shengdong Lin, Xiamen University

Read More

Featured

Do Altruistic Individuals "Share" More Contents on Social Media?

Travis Tae Oh, Columbia University, USA
Keith Wilcox, Columbia University, USA

Read More

Engage with Us

Becoming an Association for Consumer Research member is simple. Membership in ACR is relatively inexpensive, but brings significant benefits to its members.