How to encourage consumers' ongoing participation in physical exercise via feedback: Evidence from a longitudinal field experiment

Abstract

Improving consumers' ongoing participation in physical activity is crucial to enhance consumer well-being. While many consumers may begin an exercise program, sustaining their continued participation often presents a significant challenge. This study tests the effectiveness of providing different ex post feedback reminders to motivate consumers' ongoing exercise. We developed feedback reminders across two dimensions. One dimension varied the feedback messages according to whether the messages attributed performance to participants' own efforts, and the other dimension used different personal pronouns to examine whether the deictic relational framing of the feedback mattered. We developed an exercise recording application embedded in WeChat to conduct an 8-week longitudinal field experiment in China. We find that when feedback messages were provided, participants in the “I/We” frame and “You frame + effort emphasized” treatment groups achieved their weekly exercise goals more frequently, especially for subjects with low self-regulation. However, when feedback was no longer provided, the influence of the “You frame + effort emphasized” treatment was even reversed.