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21. Should We Pay People to Be Healthier?

Freakonomics, M.D.

CHAPTER

Paying People to Quit Smoking Isn't Working in the Real World

Instead of using financial incentives, matech and his team used social incentives. They had people together or against each other to see if that got people moving. This worked just as well as paying people, except we weren't paying people at all. And what was even more impressive is when we turned these programmes off, we said, ok, the game's done. We want you to keep using your wearable device to walk a certain number of steps. People kept up the habit. It's possible you've seen these types of interventions to improve physical activity.

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