经济学家教你如何坚持去健身房_BEC初级作文

经济学家教你如何坚持去健身房

这个办法一度奏效：得到了iPod的本科生去健身房的频率，比只拿到了巴诺书店(Barnes & Noble)礼品卡且可以自行决定其用途的学生高出了大约50%。（还有一个小组的学生也得到了有声读物。研究人员让他们把有声读物存在自己家里的iPod上，但鼓励他们只在健身房听。这组学生去健身房的频率介于另外两组之间。）但这种情况只持续了大约七周。感恩节假期结束后，返校的学生已经不再受到有声读物的诱惑，锻炼的频率也不再高于控制组的成员。

“It was a bummer from the perspective that we’d like to design interventions that work forever,” said Ms. Milkman. But she also noted that there are lots of opportunities to try again. Gym visits don’t just pick up at New Year’s but at the start of each week, each semester, after holidays, and even after birthdays (though not 21st birthdays). The key is getting one of the fresh starts to stick.

“从我们希望设计永久有效的干预这个角度来说，这种结果令人失望，”米尔克曼说。不过她也指出，有很多重新尝试的机会。去健身房的人次增加不仅出现在新年伊始，也出现在每周和每学期开始的时候，以及节假日甚至生日（但并不包括达到合法饮酒年龄的那个生日）过后。关键是让其中一种坚持下去。

Heather Royer, an economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, thinks she has hit on a way. In partnership with a Fortune 500 company, she and her research partners ran an experiment that combined two interventions: One to get people to start going to the gym, and another to keep them there. For four weeks, the company paid its employees to work out, $10 per visit up to three times a week. After those four weeks, there were no more payments, but some workers were offered a “commitment contract”: They could set aside their own money that would be released to them only if they worked out over the next two months; otherwise, it would be given away to charity.