The role of incentives in the maintenance of behavior and in the prediction of well-being for the example of exercise behavior
Zusammenfassung
Present research examined the role of incentives in the maintenance of behavior and wellbeing by a systematical and precise analysis of incentives. The systematization included two sources of incentives that are activity-specific incentives and incentives from future events. According to research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation we assumed activity-specific incentives to be stronger predictors for our outcome variables than incentives from future events. Proceeding on the assumption that in situation several incentives are meaningful and that the two sources complete each other we combined incentive patterns. Combining the two sources of incentives and the amount (low or high) of incentives, four incentive patterns occurred. We assumed different effects of these patterns on well-being and the maintenance of behavior. Three studies within the sport context were conducted to test our assumption. Study 1 found that both sources of incentives were important predictors for the maintenance of exercising and for well-being and supported our assumption that activity-specific incentives were stronger predictors for the depended variables. Study 2 confirmed the hypothesized direction of influence of incentives on behavior and well-being by an experimental design. The correlative field Study 3 replicated the results of Study 1 and 2 and additionally demonstrated that the four incentive patterns have different effects on maintenance and wellbeing.
