I’m more likely to wash my hands — an activity so essential for safe medical care<br />that it’s arguably malpractice not to do so — if a poster outside your room prompts me to think of your health instead of mine.<br />At four months, both incentive groups had lost more than three times as much weight as the control group (about 14 pounds versus four pounds),<br />but the deposit group lost slightly more than the lottery group.<br />Nearly 80 percent of patients in the comfort default group chose comfort, while only 43 percent in the aggressive care default group did.<br />People overwhelmingly tend to stick with default options when given a choice (organ donation rates are over 90 percent in countries where citizens need to override a default<br />and opt out of donation compared with 4 to 27 percent where they much choose to opt in).<br />A similar study found that patients were more likely to walk 7,000 steps a day if they were given an upfront payment — part of which had to be returned each day<br />that they didn’t meet their exercise goal — compared with lotteries, rewards or old-fashioned encouragement.
