Health Wearables, Gamification, and Healthful Activity: Heterogeneous Effect of Leaderboards

Table of Links

Abstract and 1 Introduction

2. Background and 2.1. Leaderboards

3. Effect of Leaderboards on Healthful Physical Activity and 3.1. Competition

3.2. Social Influence

3.3. Moderating Effects of Prior Activity Levels and Leaderboard Size

4. Data and Model

4.1. Data

4.2. Model

5. Estimation and Robustness of the Main Effects of Leaderboards

5.2. Robustness Check for Leaderboard Initiation

5.3. Fitbit Compliance

5.4. Fitbit Attrition, Leaderboard De-Adoption, and Additional Robustness Checks

6. Heterogeneous Effect of Leaderboards

6.1. Heterogeneity by Prior Activity Levels

6.2. Interaction of Leaderboard Size, Rank, and Prior Activity Levels

6.3. Summary of Findings from Heterogeneous Effect Analysis

7. Conclusions and Discussion, Endnotes, and References

6. Heterogeneous Effect of Leaderboards

In this section, we evaluate the potential for heterogeneous effects of leaderboards on physical activity focusing on leaderboard rank, leaderboard size, and prior activity level. The evaluation of heterogeneous effects of leaderboards is useful because it can offer additional insights into the role of competition and social influence in generating leaderboard value.

6.0.2. Implications of Findings. The positive impact of prior rank and the increased impact of ranking first on larger leaderboards point to an important role of competitive dynamics in generating leaderboard value. In addition, the impact of leaderboard size above and beyond the impact of rank suggests that social influence mechanisms also play an important role in observed leaderboard benefits. However, an insignificant effect of small leaderboard when the individual is not ranked first and diminishing marginal benefit of increasing leaderboard size suggest some nuance around how social influence mechanisms drive leaderboard benefits. We explore this nuance further by evaluating how prior activity levels (which have implications for how other users on leaderboards exert social influence) moderate leaderboard impact.