Why Don't We Sleep Enough? A Field Experiment among College Students

Abstract

This study investigates the mechanisms affecting sleep choice and explores whether commitment devices and monetary incentives can be used to promote healthier sleep habits. To this end, we conducted a field experiment with college students, providing them incentives to sleep and collecting data from wearable activity trackers, surveys, and time-use diaries. Monetary incentives were effective in increasing sleep duration with some evidence of persistence after the incentive was removed. We uncover evidence of demand for commitment. Our results are consistent with partially sophisticated time-inconsistent preferences and overconfidence, and have implications for the effectiveness of information interventions on sleep choice.

Policy makers believe money motivates more than it does

“…Particularly for contributions to public goods, one should be cautious when considering employing financial incentives. If, however, the behavior in question involves a mostly personal decision (e.g., whether to lose weight 87 , go to the gym 88 , sleep more 89 , or to be screened for cancer 90 ) then there are fewer concerns with using financial incentives. This is because non-financial motivations such as reputation are particularly important in motivating contributions to public goods [91][92][93] , and these can be 'crowded out' by financial incentives [27][28][29] .…”