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Temptation bundling

type: technique · origin: study · evidence: supported · themes: habits and self-control

Claim assessed: Allowing yourself a pleasure only while doing something you put off makes you do it more often.

Published · how we work

In short

Temptation bundling means tying a pleasure to a useful thing you keep putting off. For example, you only listen to your favourite novel at the gym. The idea and the name come from Katherine Milkman and her colleagues. Their first study, with 226 participants, found a large effect in the first week that faded after a few weeks. A study of almost 7,000 people, also by her team, found a smaller effect that lasted for months.

What it says

Two problems solved at once. Milkman, Minson and Volpp (2014) start from an observation: some activities are pleasant now but give nothing later (a TV series, an airport novel). Others are unpleasant now but useful later (exercise, a postponed task). If you tie them together, the pleasure pulls you towards the useful activity, and the time spent on the pleasure no longer feels wasted. The authors link this to the tendency to prefer immediate rewards over delayed ones.

The first study. The participants were 226 students and staff at a US university, in the autumn of 2011, randomly split into three groups:

The researchers counted gym entries from the access cards.

Gym visits in the first study. In the first 7 weeks, the group with the novels kept at the gym averaged 7.8 visits, the group with the novels at home and the advice to listen only at the gym 6.5, and the control group 6.1. In weeks 8 and 9, after the Thanksgiving break, the figures were 1.2, 1.3 and 1.7. Gym visits in the first study average per participant, in each period Weeks 1–7 novels only at the gym, in a locker 7.8 novels at home, advised to listen only at the gym 6.5 control: a gift card 6.1 Weeks 8–9, after the autumn break novels only at the gym, in a locker 1.2 novels at home, advised to listen only at the gym 1.3 control: a gift card 1.7 226 participants, 75–76 in each group
Data from Milkman, Minson and Volpp (2014), Table 2: simple means, unadjusted. The gym was closed for part of the Thanksgiving break.

What came out. In the first week, the group with the novels kept at the gym went 51% more often than the control group: 0.48 extra visits against 0.94 a week, after the authors’ adjustments. The group that only got the advice went 29% more often, but the difference was only marginally significant (p = 0.09). The effect then shrank week by week. After the Thanksgiving break, when the gym was closed, it disappeared entirely. The authors noted that the people who gained most were those who enjoyed their first workout with a novel, and the busiest ones.

People want to be bound. At the end, participants were offered the chance to pay for another month with the iPod locked at the gym, even though they could otherwise take it home. 64% said they liked the idea, and 61% offered more than zero (almost $7 on average).

The large study. Kirgios et al. (2020) tested the version without the locker, in a four-week online programme run with the 24 Hour Fitness gym chain. Participants earned points for each visit, planned their workouts and got reminder messages. Some also got a code for a free audiobook, and some of those also got an explanation of the technique, with the advice to enjoy their favourite shows, audiobooks or podcasts only while exercising.

The authors think the explanation mattered little because the audiobook from the gym already “said” what it was for: in a separate survey, 80% of 75 people guessed that the audiobook was meant for the gym.

A related idea. Woolley and Fishbach (2016) found, across several studies, that people persist longer in a useful activity when they focus on its immediate enjoyment rather than its later benefit. For example, music in a high school classroom increased students’ persistence.

Example

You have a podcast you can’t wait to hear and a pile of dishes you keep putting off. You make a rule: you only listen to the new episode with your hands in the sink. The example is an illustration, not a study cited here.

How to apply it

The steps below are a practical way of applying it that we propose, based on the cited studies.

  1. Pick a pleasure that pulls you back. In the first study, the novels were chosen as hard to put down. Something that ends on a cliffhanger, such as a series or a novel in episodes, makes you want to come back.
  2. Tie it to an activity it fits with. An audiobook goes with running or housework, not with studying for an exam.
  3. Make your rule hard to break, if you can. In the first study, the effect was larger when the novels stayed at the gym than when participants only resolved to listen there.
  4. Expect the effect to drop after a break. After the holiday, the effect disappeared. The authors suggest renewing your appetite after breaks, for example by listening to a small part outside the gym, so that you want the rest again.

Limits and nuances

Sources

See also: Delayed gratification, Ego depletion, Habit formation