Does Real Age Feedback Really Motivate Us to Change our Lifestyle? Results from an Online Experiment

ABSTRACT

We set out to research the causal impact of Real Age feedback, a popular tool on health and lifestyle platforms, on health behaviors. We ran an online experiment where participants were randomly assigned a Real Age that differed in both direction (older or younger) and magnitude (much or slightly) from their passport age, or to a control condition where they received no Real Age feedback. We measured the impact of Real Age feedback on motivation to begin a healthier lifestyle, interest in taking a Real Age test, and percentage click-rate on an optional health link. We found that younger Real Age feedback was associated with higher interest. In addition, participants who received a slightly older Real Age were significantly less motivated to begin a healthier lifestyle compared to not only those who received a much younger or much older Real Age, but also to those in the control condition, suggesting a backfire effect. This effect remained even after accounting for participant health, demographics, and other psychological correlates to motivation. Real Age tests may backfire and demotivate people, and the positive effects they may have on psychological states may not outweigh the negative effects. Though promising, we caution using Real Age tests in their current form as stand-alone interventions to get people motivated.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jeroen Kemperman, Roel van der Heijden, and Ellen van Wezel. Remaining errors are ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data, code, and appendices that support the findings of this study are openly available on OSF at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9MS2G.

Notes

1. No statistically significant interaction between the effects of RA feedback direction and magnitude on either motivation or interest were found.

2. Pre-registered OLS regression analysis assessing differences in motivation and interest between participants who received RA Feedback and those who didn’t receive RA Feedback can be found in Appendix E5.

3. Stepwise regression results should be treated as exploratory given the biasing effect of selection on p-values.

4. The same holds true when RA feedback expectation is treated as a factor instead of a continuous variable. See Appendix E6 for details.

5. The same holds true when RA feedback magnitude and RA feedback direction are interacted with the binary matched-expectations that is collapsed across magnitude. When RA feedback expectation is treated as a factor instead of a continuous variable in the three-way interaction, coefficients change slightly, yet conclusions remain the same. See table in Appendix E6.2 for details.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Zilveren Kruis Zorgverzekeringen N.V.