IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30375.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Mallory L. Avery
  • Osea Giuntella
  • Peiran Jiao

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Mallory L. Avery & Osea Giuntella & Peiran Jiao, 2022. "Why Don't We Sleep Enough? A Field Experiment Among College Students," NBER Working Papers 30375, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30375
    Note: CH EH LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30375.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dan Acland & Matthew R. Levy, 2015. "Naiveté, Projection Bias, and Habit Formation in Gym Attendance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 146-160, January.
    2. Acland, Dan & Levy, Matthew R., 2015. "Naiveté, projection bias, and habit formation in gym attendance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joan Costa‐Font & Sarah Fleche & Ricardo Pagan, 2024. "The welfare effects of time reallocation: evidence from Daylight Saving Time," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(362), pages 547-568, April.
    2. Bigler, Patrick & Janzen, Benedikt, 2024. "Too hot to sleep," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    3. Jin, Lawrence & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2020. "Sleep, health, and human capital: Evidence from daylight saving time," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 174-192.
    4. Jonathan James, 2023. "Let there be light: Daylight saving time and road traffic collisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 523-545, July.
    5. Jara, Cristián & Pérez, Francisca & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2025. "Sleep hours fall as income rises: Macro and micro evidence on sleep inequality around the world," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. Zachary Breig & Matthew Gibson & Jeffrey Shrader, 2019. "Why Do We Procrastinate? Present Bias and Optimism," Department of Economics Working Papers 2019-15, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    7. Giuntella, Osea & Lonsky, Jakub & Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Stella, Luca, 2021. "Immigration policy and immigrants’ sleep. Evidence from DACA," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 1-12.
    8. Joan Costa-Font, 2022. "Incentivizing sleep?," World of Labour, LISER, pages 502-502, November.
    9. Almond, Douglas & Du, Xinming, 2020. "Later bedtimes predict President Trump’s performance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nan Yang & Yong Long Lim, 2018. "Temporary Incentives Change Daily Routines: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Singapore’s Subways," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3365-3379, July.
    2. Homonoff, Tatiana & Willage, Barton & Willén, Alexander, 2020. "Rebates as incentives: The effects of a gym membership reimbursement program," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    3. Zachary Breig & Matthew Gibson & Jeffrey Shrader, 2019. "Why Do We Procrastinate? Present Bias and Optimism," Department of Economics Working Papers 2019-15, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    4. Nafziger, Julia & Kaiser, Jonas P. & Koch, Alexander K, 2021. "Self-Set Goals Are Effective Self-Regulation Tools -- Despite Goal Revision," CEPR Discussion Papers 15716, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    5. Xu, Yonghao & Meng, Juanjuan & Zhang, Yu & Koo, Jeffrey, 2025. "Present bias, mental budget constraint, and the payday consumption cycle," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Timothy Gubler & Ian Larkin & Lamar Pierce, 2016. "Motivational Spillovers from Awards: Crowding Out in a Multitasking Environment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 286-303, April.
    7. Frank J. Chaloupka IV & Matthew R. Levy & Justin S. White, 2019. "Estimating Biases in Smoking Cessation: Evidence from a Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26522, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    9. Carrera, Mariana & Royer, Heather & Stehr, Mark & Sydnor, Justin, 2018. "Can financial incentives help people trying to establish new habits? Experimental evidence with new gym members," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 202-214.
    10. Haggag, Kareem & Patterson, Richard W. & Pope, Nolan G. & Feudo, Aaron, 2021. "Attribution bias in major decisions: Evidence from the United States Military Academy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    11. Bonan, Jacopo & Cattaneo, Cristina & d’Adda, Giovanna & Tavoni, Massimo, 2024. "Heat of the Moment: How Temperature Influences the Search and Purchase of Energy-Using Appliances," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    12. Abhishek Deshmane & Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz, 2025. "Play it Again, Sam? Reference-Point Formation and Product Differentiation in the Music Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(10), pages 8304-8318, October.
    13. John Beshears & Hae Nim Lee & Katherine L. Milkman & Robert Mislavsky & Jessica Wisdom, 2021. "Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4139-4171, July.
    14. Uttara Balakrishnan & Johannes Haushofer & Pamela Jakiela, 2020. "How soon is now? Evidence of present bias from convex time budget experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 294-321, June.
    15. Erin T. Bronchetti & Judd B. Kessler & Ellen B. Magenheim & Dmitry Taubinsky & Eric Zwick, 2023. "Is Attention Produced Optimally? Theory and Evidence From Experiments With Bandwidth Enhancements," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 669-707, March.
    16. Biroli, Pietro & Boneva, Teodora & Raja, Akash & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Parental beliefs about returns to child health investments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 33-57.
    17. Lechner, Michael & Fricke, Hans & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2017. "The Effect of Physical Activity on Student Performance in College: An Experimental Evaluation," CEPR Discussion Papers 12052, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Fricke, Hans & Lechner, Michael & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2018. "The effects of incentives to exercise on student performance in college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 14-39.
    19. Ozturk, Orgul D. & Frongillo, Edward A. & Blake, Christine E. & McInnes, Melayne M. & Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle, 2020. "Before the lunch line: Effectiveness of behavioral economic interventions for pre-commitment on elementary school children's food choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 597-618.
    20. Condliffe, Simon & Işgın, Ebru & Fitzgerald, Brynne, 2017. "Get thee to the gym! A field experiment on improving exercise habits," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-32.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B49 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Other
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30375. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.