title: The impact of incentives on intrinsic and extrinsic motives for fitness-center attendance in college first-year students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A criticism of incentives for health behaviors is that incentives undermine intrinsic motivation. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of monetary incentive provision on participation motives for exercise in first-year college students at a northeastern public university.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomized-controlled trial.
  
  
  METHODS
  Public university in the Northeastern United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred seventeen first-year college students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were randomized to one of three conditions: a control condition receiving no incentives for meeting fitness-center attendance goals; a discontinued-incentive condition receiving weekly incentives during fall semester 2011, and no incentives during spring semester 2012; or a continued-incentive condition receiving weekly incentives during fall semester, and incentives on a variable-interval schedule during spring semester.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Exercise Motivation Inventory 2 measured exercise participation motives at baseline, end of fall semester, and end of spring semester. Fitness-center attendance was monitored by using ID-card check-in/check-out records.
  
  
  METHODS
  Repeated-measures analyses using linear mixed models with first-order autoregressive covariance structures were run to compare motive changes in the three conditions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participation motives of Enjoyment and Revitalization associated with intrinsic motivation did not decrease significantly over time in any of the conditions, F(4, 218) = 2.25, p = .065 and F(4, 220) = 1.67, p = .16, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Intrinsically associated participation motives for exercise did not decrease with incentive provision. Therefore, incentives may encourage fitness-center attendance without negatively impacting participation motives for exercise.
authors.forename: Lizzy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pope
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Harvey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D020446:Fitness Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescents; Exercise; Health focus: fitness/physical activity; Incentives; Intrinsic Motives; Manuscript format: research; Outcome measure: cognitive; Prevention Research; Research purpose: intervention testing; Setting: school; Strategy: incentives; Study design: randomized trial; Target population age: young adults; Target population circumstances: college students, northeastern United States