Work-to-Unlock Rewards: Leveraging Goals in Reward Systems to Increase Consumer Persistence

Eight studies (N = 5,025) demonstrate that consumers persist more when they must complete a target number of goal-related actions before receiving continuous rewards (i.e., what we term work-to-unlock rewards) than when they receive continuous rewards for their effort right away (i.e., what we term work-to-receive rewards). The authors suggest that the motivating power of work-to-unlock rewards arises because these rewards (1) naturally encourage consumers to set an attainable goal to start earning rewards, motivating consumers initially through goal setting and (2) keep consumers engaged after reaching this goal due to low perceived progress in earning rewards. A work-to-unlock reward structure increases persistence relative to standard continuous rewards across a variety of consumer relevant domains (e.g., exercising, flossing, evaluating products), and even when work-to-unlock rewards offer rewards of a lower magnitude. Further, a work-to-unlock reward structure outperforms other reward structures that encourage goal setting. Lastly, the authors identify a theoretically consistent boundary condition of this effect: the length of the unlocking period.