Small sustainable monetary incentives versus charitable donations to promote exercise: Rationale, design, and baseline data from a randomized pilot study.

PubMed

Williams, David M; Lee, Harold H; Connell, Lauren; Boyle, Holly; Emerson, Jessica; Strohacker, Kelley; Galárraga, Omar

2018-03-01

Regular physical activity (PA) enhances weight-loss and reduces risk of chronic disease. However, as few as 10% of U.S. adults engage in regular PA. Incentive programs to promote PA have shown some promise, but have typically used incentives that are too large to sustain over time and have not demonstrated habit formation or been tested in community settings. This report presents the rationale and design of a randomized pilot study testing the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of small monetary incentives for PA (n=25) versus charitable donations in the same amount (n=25) versus control (n=25) over 12months among 75 low-active but otherwise healthy adults at a local YMCA. Incentives are based on YMCA attendance, which is verified by electronic swipe card data and is the primary study outcome, with self-reported minutes/week of PA assessed as a secondary outcome. Incentives are intentionally small enough-$1/session, maximum of $5/week-such that they could be indefinitely sustained by community organizations, privately-owned health clubs, healthcare organizations, or employers (e.g., employer fitness facilities). Costs of the incentive program for the sponsoring organization may be partially offset by increases in membership resulting from the appeal of the program. Moreover, if efficacious, the charitable donation incentive program may have the added benefit of building social capital for the sponsoring organization and potentially serving as a tax write-off, thus further offsetting the cost of the incentives. Findings will also have implications for the use of financially sustainable community-based incentive programs for other health-related behaviors (e.g., weight loss, smoking). Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Monetary Incentives in Speeded Perceptual Decision: Effects of Penalizing Errors Versus Slow Responses

PubMed Central

Dambacher, Michael; Hübner, Ronald; Schlösser, Jan

2011-01-01

The influence of monetary incentives on performance has been widely investigated among various disciplines. While the results reveal positive incentive effects only under specific conditions, the exact nature, and the contribution of mediating factors are largely unexplored. The present study examined influences of payoff schemes as one of these factors. In particular, we manipulated penalties for errors and slow responses in a speeded categorization task. The data show improved performance for monetary over symbolic incentives when (a) penalties are higher for slow responses than for errors, and (b) neither slow responses nor errors are punished. Conversely, payoff schemes with stronger punishment for errors than for slow responses resulted in worse performance under monetary incentives. The findings suggest that an emphasis of speed is favorable for positive influences of monetary incentives, whereas an emphasis of accuracy under time pressure has the opposite effect. PMID:21980316

Self-Reported Interest to Participate in a Health Survey if Different Amounts of Cash or Non-Monetary Incentive Types Were Offered.

PubMed

Zheng, Guili; Oksuzyan, Sona; Hsu, Shelly; Cloud, Jennifer; Jewell, Mirna Ponce; Shah, Nirvi; Smith, Lisa V; Frye, Douglas; Kuo, Tony

2018-04-13

The objective of this study was to assess monetary and non-monetary factors that can influence the decision to participate in a future health survey. A questionnaire was administered to eligible, low-income participants (n = 1502) of the 2012 Los Angeles County Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (LAHANES-II). Multivariable regression analyses were performed to describe factors potentially associated with future intent to participate in similar survey designs. The results of the survey suggest that, overall, female participants had a greater interest in participating under a variety of incentive scenarios. Compared to the 25-34 age group, older participants (35-44, 45-84) reported more interest to participate if $10 cash [prepaid gift/debit card], a coupon for product/travel, or a small item [e.g., granola bar, t-shirt, pen] was offered, whereas younger participants (18-24) reported greater interest for $25 cash or a coupon for product/travel. Non-Whites, when compared to Whites/Non-Hispanics, reported greater interest to participate if any of the incentives was offered. High school graduates, when compared to those with some college education, reported greater interest to participate if $10 cash, a small item, or a lottery ticket was offered. Presence of two or more chronic conditions increased interest while concerns about participation in LAHANES-II was associated with reduced interest to participate in future health-related surveys. The results suggest that both incentives and non-monetary considerations (e.g., personal concerns about participating and individual level characteristics) can influence the decision to participate in health-related surveys and offer insights into strategies that can improve response rates for these assessments that are often used to inform community planning.

The Impact of Social Pressure and Monetary Incentive on Cognitive Control.

PubMed

Ličen, Mina; Hartmann, Frank; Repovš, Grega; Slapničar, Sergeja

2016-01-01

We compare the effects of two prominent organizational control mechanisms-social pressure and monetary incentive-on cognitive control. Cognitive control underlies the human ability to regulate thoughts and actions in the pursuit of behavioral goals. Previous studies show that monetary incentives can contribute to goal-oriented behavior by activating proactive control. There is, however, much less evidence of how social pressure affects cognitive control and task performance. In a within-subject experimental design, we tested 47 subjects performing the AX-CPT task to compare the activation of cognitive control modes under social pressure and monetary incentive beyond mere instructions to perform better. Our results indicate that instructing participants to improve their performance on its own leads to a significant shift from a reactive to a proactive control mode and that both social pressure and monetary incentive further enhance performance.

Personal financial incentives in health promotion: where do they fit in an ethic of autonomy?

PubMed Central

Ashcroft, Richard E.

2011-01-01

Abstract Aim  This paper reviews the ethical controversy concerning the use of monetary incentives in health promotion, focussing specifically on the arguments relating to the impact on personal autonomy of such incentives. Background  Offering people small amounts of money in the context of health promotion and medical care has been attempted in a number of settings in recent years. This use of personal financial incentives has attracted a degree of ethical controversy. One form of criticism is that such schemes interfere with the autonomy of the patient or citizen in an illegitimate way. Methods  This paper presents a thematic analysis of the main arguments concerning personal autonomy and the use of monetary incentives in behaviour change. Results  The main moral objections to the uses of incentives are that they may be in general or in specific instances paternalistic, coercive, involve bribery, or undermine the agency of the person. Conclusion  While incentive schemes may engage these problems on occasion, there is no good reason to think that they do so inherently and of necessity. We need better behavioural science evidence to understand how incentives work, in order to evaluate their moral effects in practice. PMID:21348904

Personal financial incentives in health promotion: where do they fit in an ethic of autonomy?

PubMed

Ashcroft, Richard E

2011-06-01

This paper reviews the ethical controversy concerning the use of monetary incentives in health promotion, focussing specifically on the arguments relating to the impact on personal autonomy of such incentives. Offering people small amounts of money in the context of health promotion and medical care has been attempted in a number of settings in recent years. This use of personal financial incentives has attracted a degree of ethical controversy. One form of criticism is that such schemes interfere with the autonomy of the patient or citizen in an illegitimate way. This paper presents a thematic analysis of the main arguments concerning personal autonomy and the use of monetary incentives in behaviour change. The main moral objections to the uses of incentives are that they may be in general or in specific instances paternalistic, coercive, involve bribery, or undermine the agency of the person. While incentive schemes may engage these problems on occasion, there is no good reason to think that they do so inherently and of necessity. We need better behavioural science evidence to understand how incentives work, in order to evaluate their moral effects in practice. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

What impact do questionnaire length and monetary incentives have on mailed health psychology survey response?

PubMed

Robb, Kathryn A; Gatting, Lauren; Wardle, Jane

2017-11-01

Response rates to health-related surveys are declining. This study tested two strategies to improve the response rate to a health psychology survey mailed through English general practices: (1) sending a shortened questionnaire and (2) offering a monetary incentive to return a completed questionnaire. Randomized controlled trial. Adults (n = 4,241) aged 45-59 years, from four General Practices in South-East England, were mailed a survey on attitudes towards bowel cancer screening. Using a 2 × 4 factorial design, participants were randomized to receive a 'short' (four A4 pages) or a 'long' (seven A4 pages) questionnaire, and one of four monetary incentives to return a completed questionnaire - (1) no monetary incentive, (2) £2.50 shop voucher, (3) £5.00 shop voucher, and (4) inclusion in a £250 shop voucher prize draw. Age, gender, and area-level deprivation were obtained from the General Practices. The overall response rate was 41% (n = 1,589). Response to the 'short' questionnaire (42%) was not significantly different from the 'long' questionnaire (40%). The £2.50 incentive (43%) significantly improved response rates in univariate analyses, and remained significant after controlling for age, gender, area-level deprivation, and questionnaire length. The £5.00 (42%) and £250 prize draw (41%) incentives had no significant impact on response rates compared to no incentive (38%). A small monetary incentive (£2.50) may slightly increase response to a mailed health psychology survey. The length of the questionnaire (four pages vs. seven pages) did not influence response. Although frequently used, entry into a prize draw did not increase response. Achieving representative samples remains a challenge for health psychology. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject Response rates to mailed questionnaires continue to decline, threatening the representativeness of data. Prize draw incentives are frequently used but there is little evidence to support their efficacy. Research on interactions between incentives, questionnaire length, and demographics is lacking. What does this study add Contrary to previous findings, questionnaire length did not influence response rate. A £2.50 incentive increased response, while incentives of £5.00 and a £250 prize draw did not. Achieving representative samples to questionnaires remains a challenge for health psychology. © 2017 The Authors. British Journal of Health Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.

Humans Integrate Monetary and Liquid Incentives to Motivate Cognitive Task Performance

PubMed Central

Yee, Debbie M.; Krug, Marie K.; Allen, Ariel Z.; Braver, Todd S.

2016-01-01

It is unequivocal that a wide variety of incentives can motivate behavior. However, few studies have explicitly examined whether and how different incentives are integrated in terms of their motivational influence. The current study examines the combined effects of monetary and liquid incentives on cognitive processing, and whether appetitive and aversive incentives have distinct influences. We introduce a novel task paradigm, in which participants perform cued task-switching for monetary rewards that vary parametrically across trials, with liquid incentives serving as post-trial performance feedback. Critically, the symbolic meaning of the liquid was held constant (indicating successful reward attainment), while liquid valence was blocked. In the first experiment, monetary rewards combined additively with appetitive liquid feedback to improve subject task performance. Aversive liquid feedback counteracted monetary reward effects in low monetary reward trials, particularly in a subset of participants who tended to avoid responding under these conditions. Self-report motivation ratings predicted behavioral performance above and beyond experimental effects. A follow-up experiment replicated the predictive power of motivation ratings even when only appetitive liquids were used, suggesting that ratings reflect idiosyncratic subjective values of, rather than categorical differences between, the liquid incentives. Together, the findings indicate an integrative relationship between primary and secondary incentives and potentially dissociable influences in modulating motivational value, while informing hypotheses regarding candidate neural mechanisms. PMID:26834668

The Impact of Social Pressure and Monetary Incentive on Cognitive Control

PubMed Central

Ličen, Mina; Hartmann, Frank; Repovš, Grega; Slapničar, Sergeja

2016-01-01

We compare the effects of two prominent organizational control mechanisms—social pressure and monetary incentive—on cognitive control. Cognitive control underlies the human ability to regulate thoughts and actions in the pursuit of behavioral goals. Previous studies show that monetary incentives can contribute to goal-oriented behavior by activating proactive control. There is, however, much less evidence of how social pressure affects cognitive control and task performance. In a within-subject experimental design, we tested 47 subjects performing the AX-CPT task to compare the activation of cognitive control modes under social pressure and monetary incentive beyond mere instructions to perform better. Our results indicate that instructing participants to improve their performance on its own leads to a significant shift from a reactive to a proactive control mode and that both social pressure and monetary incentive further enhance performance. PMID:26903901

Effect of Incentives and Mailing Features on Online Health Program Enrollment

PubMed Central

Alexander, Gwen L.; Divine, George W.; Couper, Mick P.; McClure, Jennifer B.; Stopponi, Melanie A.; Fortman, Kristine K.; Tolsma, Dennis D.; Strecher, Victor J.; Johnson, Christine Cole

2008-01-01

Background With the growing use of Internet-based interventions, strategies are needed to encourage broader participation. This study examined the effects of combinations of monetary incentives and mailing characteristics on enrollment, retention, and cost effectiveness for an online health program. Methods In 2004, a recruitment letter was mailed to randomly selected Midwestern integrated health system members aged 21–65 and stratified by gender and race/ethnicity; recipients were randomly pre-assigned to one of 24 combinations of incentives and various mailing characteristics. Enrollment and 3-month retention rates were measured by completion of online surveys. Analysis, completed in 2005, compared enrollment and retention factors using t tests and chi-square tests. Multivariate logistic regression modeling assessed the probability of enrollment and retention. Results Of 12,289 subjects, 531 (4.3%) enrolled online, ranging from 1% to 11% by incentive combination. Highest enrollment occurred with unconditional incentives, and responses varied by gender. Retention rates ranged from 0% to 100%, with highest retention linked to higher-value incentives. The combination of a $2 bill prepaid incentive and the promise of $20 for retention (10% enrollment and 71% retention) was optimal, considering per-subject recruitment costs ($32 enrollment, $70 retention) and equivalent enrollment by gender and race/ethnicity. Conclusions Cash incentives improved enrollment in an online health program. Men and women responded differently to mailing characteristics and incentives. Including a small prepaid monetary incentive ($2 or $5) and revealing the higher promised-retention incentive was cost effective and boosted enrollment. PMID:18407004

Endogenous cortisol levels are associated with an imbalanced striatal sensitivity to monetary versus non-monetary cues in pathological gamblers

PubMed Central

Li, Yansong; Sescousse, Guillaume; Dreher, Jean-Claude

2014-01-01

Pathological gambling is a behavioral addiction characterized by a chronic failure to resist the urge to gamble. It shares many similarities with drug addiction. Glucocorticoid hormones including cortisol are thought to play a key role in the vulnerability to addictive behaviors, by acting on the mesolimbic reward pathway. Based on our previous report of an imbalanced sensitivity to monetary versus non-monetary incentives in the ventral striatum of pathological gamblers (PGs), we investigated whether this imbalance was mediated by individual differences in endogenous cortisol levels. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and examined the relationship between cortisol levels and the neural responses to monetary versus non-monetary cues, while PGs and healthy controls were engaged in an incentive delay task manipulating both monetary and erotic rewards. We found a positive correlation between cortisol levels and ventral striatal responses to monetary versus erotic cues in PGs, but not in healthy controls. This indicates that the ventral striatum is a key region where cortisol modulates incentive motivation for gambling versus non-gambling related stimuli in PGs. Our results extend the proposed role of glucocorticoid hormones in drug addiction to behavioral addiction, and help understand the impact of cortisol on reward incentive processing in PGs. PMID:24723862

Research Compensation and Lottery: An Online Empirical Pilot Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zangeneh, Masood; Barmaki, Reza; Gibson-Wood, Hilary; Levitan, Michael-Jane; Romeo, Rosemary; Bottoms, Jennifer

2008-01-01

Recruiting participants for a research project can be challenging. Incentives, particularly monetary incentives, have been shown to increase response rates. Offering a monetary incentive for participation in a research study can become very costly for the investigators. For this reason some researchers, including graduate students involved in…

Alternative Fuels Data Center

Science.gov Websites

renewable energy initiatives; Establish ZEV purchase targets for governmental agency fleets, explore , monetary incentives to reduce the upfront purchase price of ZEVs as well as non-monetary incentives, such

Impact of monetary incentives on cognitive performance and error monitoring following sleep deprivation.

PubMed

Hsieh, Shulan; Li, Tzu-Hsien; Tsai, Ling-Ling

2010-04-01

To examine whether monetary incentives attenuate the negative effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance in a flanker task that requires higher-level cognitive-control processes, including error monitoring. Twenty-four healthy adults aged 18 to 23 years were randomly divided into 2 subject groups: one received and the other did not receive monetary incentives for performance accuracy. Both subject groups performed a flanker task and underwent electroencephalographic recordings for event-related brain potentials after normal sleep and after 1 night of total sleep deprivation in a within-subject, counterbalanced, repeated-measures study design. Monetary incentives significantly enhanced the response accuracy and reaction time variability under both normal sleep and sleep-deprived conditions, and they reduced the effects of sleep deprivation on the subjective effort level, the amplitude of the error-related negativity (an error-related event-related potential component), and the latency of the P300 (an event-related potential variable related to attention processes). However, monetary incentives could not attenuate the effects of sleep deprivation on any measures of behavior performance, such as the response accuracy, reaction time variability, or posterror accuracy adjustments; nor could they reduce the effects of sleep deprivation on the amplitude of the Pe, another error-related event-related potential component. This study shows that motivation incentives selectively reduce the effects of total sleep deprivation on some brain activities, but they cannot attenuate the effects of sleep deprivation on performance decrements in tasks that require high-level cognitive-control processes. Thus, monetary incentives and sleep deprivation may act through both common and different mechanisms to affect cognitive performance.

Monetary incentives in support of academic achievement: results of a randomized field trial involving high-achieving, low-resource, ethnically diverse urban adolescents.

PubMed

Spencer, Margaret Beale; Noll, Elizabeth; Cassidy, Elaine

2005-06-01

Significant resources have been directed at understanding and alleviating the achievement gap in education. Most programs focused on this aim rely on a top-down approach, including funding for infrastructure improvement, curriculum development, class size, and teacher salaries. This article presents findings from a randomized field trial that evaluates a bottom-up approach in which high-achieving students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds from poor families are given monetary incentives to maintain their academic standing. The evaluation was designed to explore the role of monetary incentives as a mechanism for promoting resiliency in the face of poverty-related challenge. Discussion of what motivates students to learn is framed as a function of normal cognitive and socioemotional development in challenging environments. Evaluation findings indicate that monetary incentives are effective in promoting academic success to different degrees and for different reasons depending on students' perception of the meaning of the incentive in relation to their emergent identity.

Monetary incentives to reinforce engagement and achievement in a job-skills training program for homeless, unemployed adults.

PubMed

Koffarnus, Mikhail N; Wong, Conrad J; Fingerhood, Michael; Svikis, Dace S; Bigelow, George E; Silverman, Kenneth

2013-01-01

The current study examined whether monetary incentives could increase engagement and achievement in a job-skills training program for unemployed, homeless, alcohol-dependent adults. Participants (n=124) were randomized to a no-reinforcement group (n=39), during which access to the training program was provided but no incentives were given; a training reinforcement group (n=42), during which incentives were contingent on attendance and performance; or an abstinence and training reinforcement group (n=43), during which incentives were contingent on attendance and performance, but access was granted only if participants demonstrated abstinence from alcohol. abstinence and training reinforcement and training reinforcement participants advanced further in training and attended more hours than no-reinforcement participants. Monetary incentives were effective in promoting engagement and achievement in a job-skills training program for individuals who often do not take advantage of training programs. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Modulation of working memory function by motivation through loss-aversion

PubMed Central

Krawczyk, Daniel C.; D’Esposito, Mark

2012-01-01

Cognitive performance is affected by motivation. Few studies, however, have investigated the neural mechanisms of the influence of motivation through potential monetary punishment on working memory. We employed functional MRI during a delayed recognition task that manipulated top-down control demands with added monetary incentives to some trials in the form of potential losses of bonus money. Behavioral performance on the task was influenced by loss-threatening incentives in the form of faster and more accurate performance. As shown previously, we found enhancement of activity for relevant stimuli occurs throughout all task periods (e.g. stimulus encoding, maintenance, and response) in both prefrontal and visual association cortex. Further, these activation patterns were enhanced for trials with possible monetary loss relative to non-incentive trials. During the incentive cue, the amygdala and striatum showed significantly greater activation when money was at a possible loss on the trial. We also evaluated patterns of functional connectivity between regions responsive to monetary consequences and prefrontal areas responsive to the task. This analysis revealed greater delay period connectivity between and the left insula and prefrontal cortex with possible monetary loss relative to non-incentive trials. Overall, these results reveal that incentive motivation can modulate performance on working memory tasks through top-down signals via amplification of activity within prefrontal and visual association regions selective to processing the perceptual inputs of the stimuli to be remembered. PMID:22113962

Effects of Monetary Incentives on Engagement in the PACE Parenting Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dumas, Jean E.; Begle, Angela Moreland; French, Brian; Pearl, Amanda

2010-01-01

This study evaluated parental engagement in an 8-week parenting program offered through daycare centers that were randomly assigned to a monetary incentive or nonincentive condition. Of an initial sample of 1,050 parents who rated their intent to enroll in the program, 610 went on to enroll--319 in the incentive and 291 in the nonincentive…

Monetary Incentives to Reinforce Engagement and Achievement in a Job-Skills Training Program for Homeless, Unemployed Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koffarnus, Mikhail N.; Wong, Conrad J.; Fingerhood, Michael; Svikis, Dace S.; Bigelow, George E.; Silverman, Kenneth

2013-01-01

The current study examined whether monetary incentives could increase engagement and achievement in a job-skills training program for unemployed, homeless, alcohol-dependent adults. Participants (n?=?124) were randomized to a no-reinforcement group (n?=?39), during which access to the training program was provided but no incentives were given; a…

Investigating Group Contingencies to Promote Brief Abstinence from Cigarette Smoking

PubMed Central

Meredith, Steven E.; Dallery, Jesse

2013-01-01

In contingency management (CM), monetary incentives are contingent on evidence of drug abstinence. Typically, incentives (e.g., “vouchers” exchangeable for goods or services) are contingent on individual performance. We programmed vouchers contingent on group performance to investigate whether these contingencies would promote brief abstinence from cigarette smoking. Thirty-two participants were divided into small teams (n = 3 per team). During three 5-day within-subject experimental conditions, participants submitted video recordings of breath carbon monoxide (CO) measures twice daily via Mōtiv8 Systems™, an Internet-based remote monitoring application. During the interdependent contingency condition, participants earned vouchers each time they and their teammates submitted breath CO samples indicative of abstinence (i.e., negative samples). During the independent contingency condition, participants earned vouchers each time they submitted negative samples, regardless of their teammates' performance. During the no vouchers condition, no monetary incentives were contingent on abstinence. In addition, half of the participants (n = 16) could communicate with their teammates through an online peer support forum. Although forum access did not appear to promote smoking abstinence, monetary incentives did promote brief abstinence. Significantly more negative samples were submitted when vouchers were contingent on individual performance (56%) or team performance (53%) relative to when no vouchers were available (35%; F = 6.9, p = 0.002). The results show that interdependent contingencies can promote brief abstinence from cigarette smoking. Moreover, the results suggest that these contingencies may help lower treatment costs and promote social support. PMID:23421358

The effectiveness of a monetary incentive offer on survey response rates and response completeness in a longitudinal study.

PubMed

Yu, Shengchao; Alper, Howard E; Nguyen, Angela-Maithy; Brackbill, Robert M; Turner, Lennon; Walker, Deborah J; Maslow, Carey B; Zweig, Kimberly C

2017-04-26

Achieving adequate response rates is an ongoing challenge for longitudinal studies. The World Trade Center Health Registry is a longitudinal health study that periodically surveys a cohort of ~71,000 people exposed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Since Wave 1, the Registry has conducted three follow-up surveys (Waves 2-4) every 3-4 years and utilized various strategies to increase survey participation. A promised monetary incentive was offered for the first time to survey non-respondents in the recent Wave 4 survey, conducted 13-14 years after 9/11. We evaluated the effectiveness of a monetary incentive in improving the response rate five months after survey launch, and assessed whether or not response completeness was compromised due to incentive use. The study compared the likelihood of returning a survey for those who received an incentive offer to those who did not, using logistic regression models. Among those who returned surveys, we also examined whether those receiving an incentive notification had higher rate of response completeness than those who did not, using negative binomial regression models and logistic regression models. We found that a $10 monetary incentive offer was effective in increasing Wave 4 response rates. Specifically, the $10 incentive offer was useful in encouraging initially reluctant participants to respond to the survey. The likelihood of returning a survey increased by 30% for those who received an incentive offer (AOR = 1.3, 95% CI: 1.1, 1.4), and the incentive increased the number of returned surveys by 18%. Moreover, our results did not reveal any significant differences on response completeness between those who received an incentive offer and those who did not. In the face of the growing challenge of maintaining a high response rate for the World Trade Center Health Registry follow-up surveys, this study showed the value of offering a monetary incentive as an additional refusal conversion strategy. Our findings also suggest that an incentive offer could be particularly useful near the end of data collection period when an immediate boost in response rate is needed.

Candy and the Brain: Neural Response to Candy Gains and Losses

PubMed Central

Luking, Katherine R; Barch, Deanna M

2013-01-01

Incentive processing is a critical component of a host of cognitive processes including attention, motivation, and learning. Neuroimaging studies have clarified the neural systems underlying processing of primary and secondary rewards in adults. However, current reward paradigms have hindered comparison across these reward types as well as between age groups. To address methodological issues regarding timing of incentive delivery (during versus post-scan) and the age-appropriateness of the incentive type we utilized fMRI and a modified version of a card guessing game (CGG), where candy pieces delivered post-scan served as the reinforcer, to investigate neural responses to incentives. Healthy young adults aged 22–26 years won and lost large and small amounts of candy based on their ability to guess the number on a mystery card. BOLD activity was compared following candy gain (large/small), loss (large/small) and neutral feedback. During candy gains, adults recruited regions typically involved in response to monetary and other rewards such as the caudate, putamen, and orbitofrontal cortex. During losses, adults displayed greater deactivation in the hippocampus compared to neutral and gain feedback. Additionally, individual difference analyses suggested a negative relationship between reward sensitivity (assessed by behavioral inhibition/behavioral activation scales) and the difference between high and low magnitude losses in the caudate and lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Also within the striatum greater punishment sensitivity was positively related to the difference in activity following high compared to low gains. Overall these results show strong overlap with those from previous monetary versions of the CGG and provide a baseline for future work with developmental populations. PMID:23519971

48 CFR 52.219-26 - Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program-Incentive Subcontracting.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Industry Subsectors as determined by the Department of... business concerns in the authorized NAICS Industry Subsectors, it will receive _ [Contracting Officer to insert the appropriate number between 0 and 10] percent of the dollars in excess of the monetary target...

48 CFR 52.219-26 - Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program-Incentive Subcontracting.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Industry Subsectors as determined by the Department of... business concerns in the authorized NAICS Industry Subsectors, it will receive _ [Contracting Officer to insert the appropriate number between 0 and 10] percent of the dollars in excess of the monetary target...

48 CFR 52.219-26 - Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program-Incentive Subcontracting.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Industry Subsectors as determined by the Department of... business concerns in the authorized NAICS Industry Subsectors, it will receive _ [Contracting Officer to insert the appropriate number between 0 and 10] percent of the dollars in excess of the monetary target...

48 CFR 52.219-26 - Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program-Incentive Subcontracting.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Industry Subsectors as determined by the Department of... business concerns in the authorized NAICS Industry Subsectors, it will receive _ [Contracting Officer to insert the appropriate number between 0 and 10] percent of the dollars in excess of the monetary target...

Impacts of monetary incentive measures on the acceptability for intelligent speed adaptation (ISA)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matsuo, Kojiro; Sugihara, Mitsuru; Yamazaki, Motohiro; Mimura, Yasuhiro; Kanno, Komei; Sugiki, Nao

2017-10-01

In Japan, Mandatory Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) or Voluntary ISA could be a new paradigm for urban driving speed management such as traffic calming in community streets, once it is widely disseminated. This study aims to analyze the impacts of various monetary incentive measures and individual attributes on the acceptability for several ISA installation. We conducted a stated preference (SP) surveys for the subjects who had attended in a 5-month Advisory ISA field experiment. Then we applied disaggregate model analyses to the response data. The main results were: that the acceptability for Advisory ISA is highest followed by Voluntary ISA and then Mandatory ISA; that the acceptability for ISA that operates only on community streets is high; that the acceptability becomes higher as the age of the subjects becomes higher; and that the acceptability becomes higher as the amount of the monetary incentive becomes greater, but the marginal effect becomes lower. In conclusions, the monetary incentive measures for disseminating Voluntary ISA seems to be practical.

Event-related EEG responses to anticipation and delivery of monetary and social reward.

PubMed

Flores, Amanda; Münte, Thomas F; Doñamayor, Nuria

2015-07-01

Monetary and a social incentive delay tasks were used to characterize reward anticipation and delivery with electroencephalography. During reward anticipation, N1, P2 and P3 components were modulated by both prospective reward value and incentive type (monetary or social), suggesting distinctive allocation of attentional and motivational resources depending not only on whether rewards or non-rewards were cued, but also on the monetary and social nature of the prospective outcomes. In the delivery phase, P2, FRN and P3 components were also modulated by levels of reward value and incentive type, illustrating how distinctive affective and cognitive processes were attached to the different outcomes. Our findings imply that neural processing of both reward anticipation and delivery can be specific to incentive type, which might have implications for basic as well as translational research. These results are discussed in the light of previous electrophysiological and neuroimaging work using similar tasks. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social and monetary incentives counteract fear-driven avoidance: Evidence from approach-avoidance decisions.

PubMed

Pittig, Andre; Hengen, Kristina; Bublatzky, Florian; Alpers, Georg W

2018-04-22

The reduction of avoidance behavior is a central target in the treatment of anxiety disorders, but it has rarely been studied how approach of fear-relevant stimuli may be initiated. In two studies, the impact of hypothetical monetary and symbolic social incentives on approach-avoidance behavior was examined. In Study 1, individuals high or low on fear of spiders (N = 84) could choose to approach a fear-relevant versus a neutral stimulus, which were equally rewarded. In a subsequent micro-intervention, approaching the fear-relevant stimulus was differentially rewarded either by monetary or social incentives. In Study 2 (N = 76), initial incentives for approach were discontinued to investigate the stability of approach. Hypothetical monetary and symbolic social incentives reduced or eliminated initial avoidance, even in highly fearful individuals. Approach resulted in a decrease of self-reported aversiveness towards the fear-relevant stimulus. However, even after successful approach, fearful individuals showed significant avoidance behavior when incentives for approach were discontinued. Future research should investigate the long-term effects of prolonged approach incentives on multiple levels of fear (e.g., self-report, behavioral, physiological). It should also be tested if such an intervention actually improves compliance with exposure based interventions. The present findings highlight that incentives are useful to initiate initial approach towards a feared stimulus. Although incentive-based approach may neither fully eliminate avoidance nor negative feelings towards the feared stimulus, such operant interventions may set the stage for more extensive extinction training. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reaching Asian Americans: sampling strategies and incentives.

PubMed

Lee, Soo-Kyung; Cheng, Yu-Yao

2006-07-01

Reaching and recruiting representative samples of minority populations is often challenging. This study examined in Chinese and Korean Americans: 1) whether using two different sampling strategies (random sampling vs. convenience sampling) significantly affected characteristics of recruited participants and 2) whether providing different incentives in the mail survey produced different response rates. We found statistically significant, however mostly not remarkable, differences between random and convenience samples. Offering monetary incentives in the mail survey improved response rates among Chinese Americans, while offering a small gift did not improve response rates among either Chinese or Korean Americans. This information will be useful for researchers and practitioners working with Asian Americans.

Candy and the brain: neural response to candy gains and losses.

PubMed

Luking, Katherine R; Barch, Deanna M

2013-09-01

Incentive processing is a critical component of a host of cognitive processes, including attention, motivation, and learning. Neuroimaging studies have clarified the neural systems underlying processing of primary and secondary rewards in adults. However, current reward paradigms have hindered comparisons across these reward types as well as between age groups. To address methodological issues regarding the timing of incentive delivery (during scan vs. postscan) and the age-appropriateness of the incentive type, we utilized fMRI and a modified version of a card-guessing game (CGG), in which candy pieces delivered postscan served as the reinforcer, to investigate neural responses to incentives. Healthy young adults 22-26 years of age won and lost large and small amounts of candy on the basis of their ability to guess the number on a mystery card. BOLD activity was compared following candy gain (large/small), loss (large/small), and neutral feedback. During candy gains, adults recruited regions typically involved in response to monetary and other rewards, such as the caudate, putamen, and orbitofrontal cortex. During losses, they displayed greater deactivation in the hippocampus than in response to neutral and gain feedback. Additionally, individual-difference analyses suggested a negative relationship between reward sensitivity (assessed by the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Activation Scales) and the difference between high- and low-magnitude losses in the caudate and lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Also within the striatum, greater punishment sensitivity was positively related to the difference in activity following high as compared to low gains. Overall, these results show strong overlap with those from previous monetary versions of the CGG and provide a baseline for future work with developmental populations.

Self-Solicited Feedback: Effects of Hourly Pay and Individual Monetary Incentive Pay

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Slowiak, Julie M.; Dickinson, Alyce M.; Huitema, Bradley E.

2011-01-01

The frequency of feedback solicitation under hourly pay and individual monetary incentive pay conditions was examined. A between-subjects design was used with 30 college students in the two groups. Participants attended three experimental sessions and entered the cash value of simulated bank checks presented on a computer screen. Performance was…

Money Affects Theory of Mind Differently by Gender

PubMed Central

Ridinger, Garret; McBride, Michael

2015-01-01

Theory of Mind (ToM) ─ the ability to understand other’s thoughts, intentions, and emotions ─ is important for navigating interpersonal relationships, avoiding conflict, and empathizing. Prior research has identified many factors that affect one’s ToM ability, but little work has examined how different kinds of monetary incentives affect ToM ability. We ask: Does money affect ToM ability? If so, how does the effect depend on the structure of monetary incentives? How do the differences depend on gender? We hypothesize that money will affect ToM ability differently by gender: monetary rewards increase males’ motivation to express ToM ability while simultaneously crowding out females’ motivation. This prediction is confirmed in an experiment that varies the structure of monetary rewards for correct answers in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). RMET scores decrease for females and increase for males with individual payments, and this effect is stronger with competitively-structured payments. RMET scores do not significantly change when monetary earnings go to a charity. Whether money improves or hinders ToM ability, and, hence, success in social interactions, thus depends on the interaction of gender and monetary incentive structure. PMID:26633171

Money Affects Theory of Mind Differently by Gender.

PubMed

Ridinger, Garret; McBride, Michael

2015-01-01

Theory of Mind (ToM)--the ability to understand other's thoughts, intentions, and emotions--is important for navigating interpersonal relationships, avoiding conflict, and empathizing. Prior research has identified many factors that affect one's ToM ability, but little work has examined how different kinds of monetary incentives affect ToM ability. We ask: Does money affect ToM ability? If so, how does the effect depend on the structure of monetary incentives? How do the differences depend on gender? We hypothesize that money will affect ToM ability differently by gender: monetary rewards increase males' motivation to express ToM ability while simultaneously crowding out females' motivation. This prediction is confirmed in an experiment that varies the structure of monetary rewards for correct answers in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). RMET scores decrease for females and increase for males with individual payments, and this effect is stronger with competitively-structured payments. RMET scores do not significantly change when monetary earnings go to a charity. Whether money improves or hinders ToM ability, and, hence, success in social interactions, thus depends on the interaction of gender and monetary incentive structure.

Adaptive neural reward processing during anticipation and receipt of monetary rewards in mindfulness meditators.

PubMed

Kirk, Ulrich; Brown, Kirk Warren; Downar, Jonathan

2015-05-01

Reward seeking is ubiquitous and adaptive in humans. But excessive reward seeking behavior, such as chasing monetary rewards, may lead to diminished subjective well-being. This study examined whether individuals trained in mindfulness meditation show neural evidence of lower susceptibility to monetary rewards. Seventy-eight participants (34 meditators, 44 matched controls) completed the monetary incentive delay task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The groups performed equally on the task, but meditators showed lower neural activations in the caudate nucleus during reward anticipation, and elevated bilateral posterior insula activation during reward anticipation. Meditators also evidenced reduced activations in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex during reward receipt compared with controls. Connectivity parameters between the right caudate and bilateral anterior insula were attenuated in meditators during incentive anticipation. In summary, brain regions involved in reward processing-both during reward anticipation and receipt of reward-responded differently in mindfulness meditators than in nonmeditators, indicating that the former are less susceptible to monetary incentives. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Do Monetary Incentives Matter in Classroom Experiments? Effects on Course Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rousu, Matthew C.; Corrigan, Jay R.; Harris, David; Hayter, Jill K.; Houser, Scott; Lafrancois, Becky A.; Onafowora, Olugbenga; Colson, Gregory; Hoffer, Adam

2015-01-01

Using 641 principles of economics students across four universities, the authors examine whether providing monetary incentives in a prisoner's dilemma game enhances student learning as measured by a set of common exam questions. Subjects either play a two-player prisoner's dilemma game for real money, play the same game with no money at stake…

A small unconditional non-financial incentive suggests an increase in survey response rates amongst older general practitioners (GPs): a randomised controlled trial study

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Few studies have investigated the effect of small unconditional non-monetary incentives on survey response rates amongst GPs or medical practitioners. This study assessed the effectiveness of offering a small unconditional non-financial incentive to increase survey response rates amongst general practitioners within a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Methods An RCT was conducted within a general practice survey that investigated how to prolong working lives amongst ageing GPs in Australia. GPs (n = 125) were randomised to receive an attractive pen or no pen during their first invitation for participation in a survey. GPs could elect to complete the survey online or via mail. Two follow up reminders were sent without a pen to both groups. The main outcome measure was response rates. Results The response rate for GPs who received a pen was higher in the intervention group (61.9%) compared to the control group (46.8%). This study did not find a statistically significant effect of a small unconditional non-financial incentive (in the form of a pen) on survey response rates amongst GPs (Odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 1.85 (0.91 to 3.77). No GPs completed the online version. Conclusion A small unconditional non-financial incentives, in the form of a pen, may improve response rates for GPs. PMID:23899116

A small unconditional non-financial incentive suggests an increase in survey response rates amongst older general practitioners (GPs): a randomised controlled trial study.

PubMed

Pit, Sabrina Winona; Hansen, Vibeke; Ewald, Dan

2013-07-30

Few studies have investigated the effect of small unconditional non-monetary incentives on survey response rates amongst GPs or medical practitioners. This study assessed the effectiveness of offering a small unconditional non-financial incentive to increase survey response rates amongst general practitioners within a randomised controlled trial (RCT). An RCT was conducted within a general practice survey that investigated how to prolong working lives amongst ageing GPs in Australia. GPs (n = 125) were randomised to receive an attractive pen or no pen during their first invitation for participation in a survey. GPs could elect to complete the survey online or via mail. Two follow up reminders were sent without a pen to both groups. The main outcome measure was response rates. The response rate for GPs who received a pen was higher in the intervention group (61.9%) compared to the control group (46.8%). This study did not find a statistically significant effect of a small unconditional non-financial incentive (in the form of a pen) on survey response rates amongst GPs (Odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 1.85 (0.91 to 3.77). No GPs completed the online version. A small unconditional non-financial incentives, in the form of a pen, may improve response rates for GPs.

Effects of Mental Fatigue on Physical Endurance Performance and Muscle Activation Are Attenuated by Monetary Incentives.

PubMed

Brown, Denver M Y; Bray, Steven R

2017-12-01

Physical performance is impaired following cognitive control exertion. Incentives can ameliorate adverse carryover effects of cognitive control exertion but have not been investigated for physical endurance. This study examined the effect of monetary incentives on physical performance and muscle activation following exposure to a mentally fatiguing, cognitive control task. Participants (N = 82) performed two isometric endurance handgrip trials separated by a 12-min cognitive control manipulation using a 2 (high cognitive control [HCC]/low cognitive control [LCC]) × 2 (incentive/no incentive) design. Mental fatigue was significantly higher in the HCC conditions. Performance decreased in the HCC/no incentive condition but was unaffected in the HCC/incentive condition, which did not differ from the low cognitive control conditions. Electromyography data revealed increased muscle activation in the HCC/no incentive condition, which was also attenuated in the HCC/incentive condition. Findings show that incentives counteract the negative effects of HCC on physical endurance and alter central drive to motor units.

Modulation of working memory function by motivation through loss-aversion.

PubMed

Krawczyk, Daniel C; D'Esposito, Mark

2013-04-01

Cognitive performance is affected by motivation. Few studies, however, have investigated the neural mechanisms of the influence of motivation through potential monetary punishment on working memory. We employed functional MRI during a delayed recognition task that manipulated top-down control demands with added monetary incentives to some trials in the form of potential losses of bonus money. Behavioral performance on the task was influenced by loss-threatening incentives in the form of faster and more accurate performance. As shown previously, we found enhancement of activity for relevant stimuli occurs throughout all task periods (e.g., stimulus encoding, maintenance, and response) in both prefrontal and visual association cortex. Further, these activation patterns were enhanced for trials with possible monetary loss relative to nonincentive trials. During the incentive cue, the amygdala and striatum showed significantly greater activation when money was at a possible loss on the trial. We also evaluated patterns of functional connectivity between regions responsive to monetary consequences and prefrontal areas responsive to the task. This analysis revealed greater delay period connectivity between and the left insula and prefrontal cortex with possible monetary loss relative to nonincentive trials. Overall, these results reveal that incentive motivation can modulate performance on working memory tasks through top-down signals via amplification of activity within prefrontal and visual association regions selective to processing the perceptual inputs of the stimuli to be remembered. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Motivating effort: a theoretical synthesis of the self-sufficiency and two-market theories.

PubMed

Yam, Kai Chi; Bumpus, Matthew F; Hill, Laura G

2012-12-01

We conducted two experimental studies to examine the effect of introducing social and monetary incentives on participants' (1) effort and (2) willingness to participate in a study. We found that extra credit invoked both communal sharing (CS, social reward) and market pricing (MP, monetary reward) schemas, thus leading to higher willingness to participate and greater effort in an experiment compared to an equivalent cash reward. Consistent with the potential combinational nature of different labour markets proposed by the relational theory, our results suggest that the labour market framework of monetary versus social incentive is not mutually exhaustive of all types of incentive, and the combinational effect created by introducing both labour markets may be the best motivator. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Common and distinctive approaches to motivation in different disciplines.

PubMed

Strombach, T; Strang, S; Park, S Q; Kenning, P

2016-01-01

Over the last couple of decades, a body of theories has emerged that explains when and why people are motivated to act. Multiple disciplines have investigated the origins and consequences of motivated behavior, and have done so largely in parallel. Only recently have different disciplines, like psychology and economics, begun to consolidate their knowledge, attempting to integrate findings. The following chapter presents and discusses the most prominent approaches to motivation in the disciplines of biology, psychology, and economics. Particularly, we describe the specific role of incentives, both monetary and alternative, in various motivational theories. Though monetary incentives are pivotal in traditional economic theory, biological and psychological theories ascribe less significance to monetary incentives and suggest alternative drivers for motivation. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Strategies to improve retention in randomised trials: a Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Brueton, V C; Tierney, J F; Stenning, S; Meredith, S; Harding, S; Nazareth, I; Rait, G

2014-01-01

Objective To quantify the effect of strategies to improve retention in randomised trials. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources Sources searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, DARE, CENTRAL, CINAHL, C2-SPECTR, ERIC, PreMEDLINE, Cochrane Methodology Register, Current Controlled Trials metaRegister, WHO trials platform, Society for Clinical Trials (SCT) conference proceedings and a survey of all UK clinical trial research units. Review methods Included trials were randomised evaluations of strategies to improve retention embedded within host randomised trials. The primary outcome was retention of trial participants. Data from trials were pooled using the fixed-effect model. Subgroup analyses were used to explore the heterogeneity and to determine whether there were any differences in effect by the type of strategy. Results 38 retention trials were identified. Six broad types of strategies were evaluated. Strategies that increased postal questionnaire responses were: adding, that is, giving a monetary incentive (RR 1.18; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.28) and higher valued incentives (RR 1.12; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.22). Offering a monetary incentive, that is, an incentive given on receipt of a completed questionnaire, also increased electronic questionnaire response (RR 1.25; 95% CI 1.14 to 1.38). The evidence for shorter questionnaires (RR 1.04; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.08) and questionnaires relevant to the disease/condition (RR 1.07; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.14) is less clear. On the basis of the results of single trials, the following strategies appeared effective at increasing questionnaire response: recorded delivery of questionnaires (RR 2.08; 95% CI 1.11 to 3.87); a ‘package’ of postal communication strategies (RR 1.43; 95% CI 1.22 to 1.67) and an open trial design (RR 1.37; 95% CI 1.16 to 1.63). There is no good evidence that the following strategies impact on trial response/retention: adding a non-monetary incentive (RR=1.00; 95% CI 0.98 to 1.02); offering a non-monetary incentive (RR=0.99; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.03); ‘enhanced’ letters (RR=1.01; 95% CI 0.97 to 1.05); monetary incentives compared with offering prize draw entry (RR=1.04; 95% CI 0.91 to 1.19); priority postal delivery (RR=1.02; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.09); behavioural motivational strategies (RR=1.08; 95% CI 0.93 to 1.24); additional reminders to participants (RR=1.03; 95% CI 0.99 to 1.06) and questionnaire question order (RR=1.00, 0.97 to 1.02). Also based on single trials, these strategies do not appear effective: a telephone survey compared with a monetary incentive plus questionnaire (RR=1.08; 95% CI 0.94 to 1.24); offering a charity donation (RR=1.02, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.32); sending sites reminders (RR=0.96; 95% CI 0.83 to 1.11); sending questionnaires early (RR=1.10; 95% CI 0.96 to 1.26); longer and clearer questionnaires (RR=1.01, 0.95 to 1.07) and participant case management by trial assistants (RR=1.00; 95% CI 0.97 to 1.04). Conclusions Most of the trials evaluated questionnaire response rather than ways to improve participants return to site for follow-up. Monetary incentives and offers of monetary incentives increase postal and electronic questionnaire response. Some strategies need further evaluation. Application of these results would depend on trial context and follow-up procedures. PMID:24496696

Variability of Valuation of Non-Monetary Incentives: Motivating and Implementing the Combinatorial Retention Auction Mechanism

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

homeport, geographic stability for two tours and compressed work week; homeport, lump sum SRB, and telecommuting ). The Monte Carlo simulation...Geographic stability 2 tours, and compressed work week). The Add 2 combination includes home port choice, lump sum SRB, and telecommuting ...VALUATION OF NON-MONETARY INCENTIVES: MOTIVATING AND IMPLEMENTING THE COMBINATORIAL RETENTION AUCTION MECHANISM by Jason Blake Ellis March 2009

Cost-effectiveness of health research study participant recruitment strategies: a systematic review.

PubMed

Huynh, Lynn; Johns, Benjamin; Liu, Su-Hsun; Vedula, S Swaroop; Li, Tianjing; Puhan, Milo A

2014-10-01

A large fraction of the cost of conducting clinical trials is allocated to recruitment of participants. A synthesis of findings from studies that evaluate the cost and effectiveness of different recruitment strategies will inform investigators in designing cost-efficient clinical trials. To systematically identify, assess, and synthesize evidence from published comparisons of the cost and yield of strategies for recruitment of participants to health research studies. We included randomized studies in which two or more strategies for recruitment of participants had been compared. We focused our economic evaluation on studies that randomized participants to different recruitment strategies. We identified 10 randomized studies that compared recruitment strategies, including monetary incentives (cash or prize), direct contact (letters or telephone call), and medical referral strategies. Only two of the 10 studies compared strategies for recruiting participants to clinical trials. We found that allocating additional resources to recruit participants using monetary incentives or direct contact yielded between 4% and 23% additional participants compared to using neither strategy. For medical referral, recruitment of prostate cancer patients by nurses was cost-saving compared to recruitment by consultant urologists. For all underlying study designs, monetary incentives cost more than direct contact with potential participants, with a median incremental cost per recruitment ratio of Int$72 (Int$-International dollar, a theoretical unit of currency) for monetary incentive strategy compared to Int$28 for direct contact strategy. Only monetary incentives and source of referral were evaluated for recruiting participants into clinical trials. We did not review studies that presented non-monetary cost or lost opportunity cost. We did not adjust for the number of study recruitment sites or the study duration in our economic evaluation analysis. Systematic and explicit reporting of cost and effectiveness of recruitment strategies from randomized comparisons is required to aid investigators to select cost-efficient strategies for recruiting participants to health research studies including clinical trials. © The Author(s) 2014.

Value affect of construction incentive payments on pavement performance.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2009-08-01

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has been using monetary incentive payments : for many years to improve contractors conformance with specifications and their overall : workmanship. It was envisioned that incentive/disincentive (I/D...

Two sides of the same coin: Monetary incentives concurrently improve and bias confidence judgments.

PubMed

Lebreton, Maël; Langdon, Shari; Slieker, Matthijs J; Nooitgedacht, Jip S; Goudriaan, Anna E; Denys, Damiaan; van Holst, Ruth J; Luigjes, Judy

2018-05-01

Decisions are accompanied by a feeling of confidence, that is, a belief about the decision being correct. Confidence accuracy is critical, notably in high-stakes situations such as medical or financial decision-making. We investigated how incentive motivation influences confidence accuracy by combining a perceptual task with a confidence incentivization mechanism. By varying the magnitude and valence (gains or losses) of monetary incentives, we orthogonalized their motivational and affective components. Corroborating theories of rational decision-making and motivation, our results first reveal that the motivational value of incentives improves aspects of confidence accuracy. However, in line with a value-confidence interaction hypothesis, we further show that the affective value of incentives concurrently biases confidence reports, thus degrading confidence accuracy. Finally, we demonstrate that the motivational and affective effects of incentives differentially affect how confidence builds on perceptual evidence. Together, these findings may provide new hints about confidence miscalibration in healthy or pathological contexts.

Alternative Fuels Data Center

Science.gov Websites

integrating ZEVs with renewable energy initiatives; Establish ZEV purchase targets for governmental agency effectiveness of, monetary incentives to reduce the upfront purchase price of ZEVs as well as non-monetary

The rewarding value of good motor performance in the context of monetary incentives.

PubMed

Lutz, Kai; Pedroni, Andreas; Nadig, Karin; Luechinger, Roger; Jäncke, Lutz

2012-07-01

Whether an agent receives positive task feedback or a monetary reward, neural activity in their striatum increases. In the latter case striatal activity reflects extrinsic reward processing, while in the former, striatal activity reflects the intrinsically rewarding effects of performing well. There can be a "hidden cost of reward", which is a detrimental effect of extrinsic on intrinsic reward value. This raises the question how these two types of reward interact. To address this, we applied a monetary incentive delay task: in all trials participants received feedback depending on their performance. In half of the trials they could additionally receive monetary reward if they performed well. This resulted in high performance trials, which were monetarily rewarded and high performance trials that were not. This made it possible to dissociate the neural correlates of performance feedback from the neural correlates of monetary reward that comes with high performance. Performance feedback alone elicits activation increases in the ventral striatum. This activation increases due to additional monetary reward. Neural response in the dorsal striatum on the other hand is only significantly increased by feedback when a monetary incentive is present. The quality of performance does not significantly influence dorsal striatum activity. In conclusion, our results indicate that the dorsal striatum is primarily sensitive to optional or actually received external rewards, whereas the ventral striatum may be coding intrinsic reward due to positive performance feedback. Thus the ventral striatum is suggested to be involved in the processing of intrinsically motivated behavior. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Behavioural economics: Cash incentives avert deforestation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cárdenas, Juan Camilo

2017-10-01

There is tension in developing countries between financial incentives to clear forests and climate regulation benefits of preserving trees. Now research shows that paying private forest owners in Uganda reduced deforestation, adding to the debate on the use of monetary incentives in forest conservation.

Two sides of the same coin: Monetary incentives concurrently improve and bias confidence judgments

PubMed Central

Lebreton, Maël; Slieker, Matthijs J.; Nooitgedacht, Jip S.; van Holst, Ruth J.; Luigjes, Judy

2018-01-01

Decisions are accompanied by a feeling of confidence, that is, a belief about the decision being correct. Confidence accuracy is critical, notably in high-stakes situations such as medical or financial decision-making. We investigated how incentive motivation influences confidence accuracy by combining a perceptual task with a confidence incentivization mechanism. By varying the magnitude and valence (gains or losses) of monetary incentives, we orthogonalized their motivational and affective components. Corroborating theories of rational decision-making and motivation, our results first reveal that the motivational value of incentives improves aspects of confidence accuracy. However, in line with a value-confidence interaction hypothesis, we further show that the affective value of incentives concurrently biases confidence reports, thus degrading confidence accuracy. Finally, we demonstrate that the motivational and affective effects of incentives differentially affect how confidence builds on perceptual evidence. Together, these findings may provide new hints about confidence miscalibration in healthy or pathological contexts. PMID:29854944

Monetary and Non-monetary SWO Retention Bonuses: An Experimental Approach to the Combinatorial Retention Auction Mechanism (CRAM)

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-12-01

this illustration offer individual values that exceed the Navy’s cost to provide the incentive for most individuals. On the other hand, telecommuting ...cost effective for the Navy to offer geographic stability and homeport to these SWOs. At the same time, there are some SWOs that value telecommuting ...and sabbaticals more than it costs the Navy’s provide them. The Navy would omit a cost-effective incentive if it did not offer telecommuting and

The Effects of Objective Feedback on Performance when Individuals Receive Fixed and Individual Incentive Pay

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Douglas A.; Dickinson, Alyce M.; Huitema, Bradley E.

2008-01-01

We examined whether objective feedback would enhance performance when individuals were paid monetary incentives. A two-by-two factorial design was used, with 123 college students assigned to incentive pay without feedback, incentive pay with feedback, fixed pay without feedback, or fixed pay with feedback. Participants attended six sessions and…

Factors associated with willingness to participate in a vaccine clinical trial among elderly Hispanic patients.

PubMed

Rikin, Sharon; Shea, Steven; LaRussa, Philip; Stockwell, Melissa

2017-09-01

A population specific understanding of barriers and facilitators to participation in clinical trials could improve recruitment of elderly and minority populations. We investigated how prior exposure to clinical trials and incentives were associated with likelihood of participation in a vaccine clinical trial through a questionnaire administered to 200 elderly patients in an academic general internal medicine clinic. Wilcoxon signed rank sum test compared likelihood of participation with and without monetary incentives. Logistic regression evaluated characteristics associated with intent to participate in an influenza vaccine trial, adjusted for age, gender, language, and education history. When asked about likelihood of participation if there was monetary compensation, there was a 12.2% absolute increase in those reporting that they would not participate, with a significant difference in the distribution of likelihood before and after mentioning a monetary incentive (Wilcoxon signed rank test, p = 0.001). Those with previous knowledge of clinical trials (54.4%) were more likely to report they would participate vs. those without prior knowledge (OR 2.5, 95% CI [1.2, 5.2]). The study highlights the importance of pre-testing recruitment materials and incentives in key group populations prior to implementing clinical trials.

The Effect of Incentives on Cognitive Processing of Text

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Konheim-Kalkstein, Yasmine L.; van den Broek, Paul

2008-01-01

This study examines the effect of incentives, a motivational manipulation, on cognitive processes of reading. Extrinsic motivation was manipulated through the use of monetary incentives to assess its effect on information processing in reading. One group of college students was paid for what they remembered from several narrative passages they…

Effects of alexithymia and empathy on the neural processing of social and monetary rewards.

PubMed

Goerlich, Katharina Sophia; Votinov, Mikhail; Lammertz, Sarah E; Winkler, Lina; Spreckelmeyer, Katja N; Habel, Ute; Gründer, Gerhard; Gossen, Anna

2017-07-01

Empathy has been found to affect the neural processing of social and monetary rewards. Alexithymia, a subclinical condition showing a close inverse relationship with empathy is linked to dysfunctions of socio-emotional processing in the brain. Whether alexithymia alters the neural processing of rewards, which is currently unknown. Here, we investigated the influence of both alexithymia and empathy on reward processing using a social incentive delay (SID) task and a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in 45 healthy men undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Controlling for temperament-character dimensions and rejection sensitivity, the relationship of alexithymia and empathy with neural activity in several a priori regions of interest (ROIs) was examined by means of partial correlations, while participants anticipated and received social and monetary rewards. Results were considered significant if they survived Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Alexithymia modulated neural activity in several ROIs of the emotion and reward network, both during the anticipation of social and monetary rewards and in response to the receipt of monetary rewards. In contrast, empathy did not affect reward anticipation and modulated ROI activity only in response to the receipt of social rewards. These results indicate a significant influence of alexithymia on the processing of social and monetary rewards in the healthy brain.

Cocaine addiction is associated with abnormal prefrontal function, increased striatal connectivity and sensitivity to monetary incentives, and decreased connectivity outside the human reward circuit.

PubMed

Vaquero, Lucía; Cámara, Estela; Sampedro, Frederic; Pérez de Los Cobos, José; Batlle, Francesca; Fabregas, Josep Maria; Sales, Joan Artur; Cervantes, Mercè; Ferrer, Xavier; Lazcano, Gerardo; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Riba, Jordi

2017-05-01

Cocaine addiction has been associated with increased sensitivity of the human reward circuit to drug-related stimuli. However, the capacity of non-drug incentives to engage this network is poorly understood. Here, we characterized the functional sensitivity to monetary incentives and the structural integrity of the human reward circuit in abstinent cocaine-dependent (CD) patients and their matched controls. We assessed the BOLD response to monetary gains and losses in 30 CD patients and 30 healthy controls performing a lottery task in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. We measured brain gray matter volume (GMV) using voxel-based morphometry and white matter microstructure using voxel-based fractional anisotropy (FA). Functional data showed that, after monetary incentives, CD patients exhibited higher activation in the ventral striatum than controls. Furthermore, we observed an inverted BOLD response pattern in the prefrontal cortex, with activity being highest after unexpected high gains and lowest after losses. Patients showed increased GMV in the caudate and the orbitofrontal cortex, increased white matter FA in the orbito-striatal pathway but decreased FA in antero-posterior association bundles. Abnormal activation in the prefrontal cortex correlated with GMV and FA increases in the orbitofrontal cortex. While functional abnormalities in the ventral striatum were inversely correlated with abstinence duration, structural alterations were not. In conclusion, results suggest abnormal incentive processing in CD patients with high salience for rewards and punishments in subcortical structures but diminished prefrontal control after adverse outcomes. They further suggest that hypertrophy and hyper-connectivity within the reward circuit, to the expense of connectivity outside this network, characterize cocaine addiction. © 2016 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Enhancing response inhibition by incentive: Comparison of adolescents with and without substance use disorder

PubMed Central

Chung, Tammy; Geier, Charles; Luna, Beatriz; Pajtek, Stefan; Terwilliger, Robert; Thatcher, Dawn; Clark, Duncan

2010-01-01

Effective response inhibition is a key component of recovery from addiction. Some research suggests that response inhibition can be enhanced through reward contingencies. We examined the effect of monetary incentive on response inhibition among adolescents with and without substance use disorder (SUD) using a fast event-related fMRI antisaccade reward task. The fMRI task permits investigation of how reward (monetary incentive) might modulate inhibitory control during three task phases: cue presentation (reward or neutral trial), response preparation, and response execution. Adolescents with lifetime SUD (n=12; 100% marijuana use disorder) were gender and age-matched to healthy controls (n=12). Monetary incentive facilitated inhibitory control for SUD adolescents; for healthy controls, the difference in error rate for neutral and reward trials was not significant. There were no significant differences in behavioral performance between groups across reward and neutral trials, however, group differences in regional brain activation were identified. During the response preparation phase of reward trials, SUD adolescents, compared to controls, showed increased activation of prefrontal and oculomotor control (e.g., frontal eye field) areas, brain regions that have been associated with effective response inhibition. Results indicate differences in brain activation between SUD and control youth when preparing to inhibit a prepotent response in the context of reward, and support a possible role for incentives in enhancing response inhibition among youth with SUD. PMID:21115229

Incentives for Blood Donation: A Discrete Choice Experiment to Analyze Extrinsic Motivation.

PubMed

Sadler, Andrew; Shi, Ling; Bethge, Susanne; Mühlbacher, Axel

2018-04-01

Background: Demographic trends affect size and age structure of populations. One of the consequences will be an increasing need for blood products to treat age-related diseases. Donation services rely on voluntariness and charitable motivation. It might be questioned whether there will be sufficient blood supply with voluntary donation. The present study focused on elicitation of preferences for incentives and aimed to contribute to the discussion on how to increase donation rates. Methods: A self-administered discrete choice experiment (DCE) was applied. Respondents were repeatedly asked to choose between hypothetical blood donation centers. In case of reluctance to receiving incentives a none-option was included. Random parameter logit (RPL) and latent class models (LCM) were used for analysis. Results: The study sample included 416 college students from the US and Germany. Choice decisions were significantly influenced by the characteristics of the donation center in the DCE. Incentives most preferred were monetary compensation, paid leave, and blood screening test. LCM identified subgroups with preference heterogeneity. Small subgroups indicated moderate to strong aversion to incentives. Conclusion: The majority of the sample positively responded to incentives and indicated a willingness to accept incentives. In face of future challenges, the judicious use and appropriate utilization of incentives might be an option to motivate potential donors and should be open to discussion.

Monetary incentive moderates the effect of implicit fear on effort-related cardiovascular response.

PubMed

Chatelain, Mathieu; Gendolla, Guido H E

2016-05-01

Integrating the implicit-affect-primes-effort model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015) with the principles of motivational intensity theory (Brehm & Self, 1989) we investigated if the effort mobilization deficit observed in people exposed to fear primes (vs. anger primes) in a difficult short-term memory task could be compensated by high monetary incentive. Effort was operationalized as cardiac response. We expected that fear primes should lead to the strongest cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity when incentive was high (high subjective demand and high justified effort) and to the weakest response when incentive was low (high subjective demand but only low justified effort). PEP reactivity in the anger-prime conditions should fall in between (high but feasible demand). We obtained the predicted pattern on responses of PEP and systolic blood pressure. The present findings show for the first time that the effort mobilization deficit of participants exposed to fear primes in a difficult cognitive task could be compensated by a high incentive. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Efficacy of Incentives to Motivate Continued Fitness-Center Attendance in College First-Year Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pope, Lizzy; Harvey, Jean

2014-01-01

Objective: To determine whether fitness-center attendance established with the provision of weekly monetary incentives persisted after the discontinuation, or decreased frequency, of incentives. Participants: One hundred seventeen first-year college students participated during the 2011-2012 academic year. Methods: A randomized controlled trial…

Money talks: neural substrate of modulation of fairness by monetary incentives

PubMed Central

Zhou, Yuan; Wang, Yun; Rao, Li-Lin; Yang, Liu-Qing; Li, Shu

2014-01-01

A unique feature of the human species is compliance with social norms, e.g., fairness, even though this normative decision means curbing self-interest. However, sometimes people prefer to pursue wealth at the expense of moral goodness. Specifically, deviations from a fairness-related normative choice have been observed in the presence of a high monetary incentive. The neural mechanism underlying this deviation from the fairness-related normative choice has yet to be determined. In order to address this issue, using functional magnetic resonance imaging we employed an ultimatum game (UG) paradigm in which fairness and a proposed monetary amount were orthogonally varied. We found evidence for a significant modulation by the proposed amount on fairness in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the bilateral insular cortices. Additionally, the insular subregions showed dissociable modulation patterns. Inter-individual differences in the modulation effects in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) accounted for inter-individual differences in the behavioral modulation effect as measured by the rejection rate, supporting the concept that the PFC plays a critical role in making fairness-related normative decisions in a social interaction condition. Our findings provide neural evidence for the modulation of fairness by monetary incentives as well as accounting for inter-individual differences. PMID:24834034

Auction Mechanisms For Allocating Individualized Non-monetary Retention Incentives in Complex Decision Environments: Evaluation Via Laboratory Experimentation

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

MILITARY COMPENSATION .....................7 1. Basic Pay and Allowances ......................8 2. Other Monetary and Non-Monetary Benefits ......9...3. Deferred Benefits ............................10 4. Special Pays and Bonuses .....................10 C. THE SRB PROGRAM (MARINE CORPS...or flexible benefits packages, to military personnel. Much of the thesis builds on this prior research. Chapter II provides an overview of

Differential effects of social and non-social reward on response inhibition in children and adolescents.

PubMed

Kohls, Gregor; Peltzer, Judith; Herpertz-Dahlmann, Beate; Konrad, Kerstin

2009-07-01

An important issue in the field of clinical and developmental psychopathology is whether cognitive control processes, such as response inhibition, can be specifically enhanced by motivation. To determine whether non-social (i.e. monetary) and social (i.e. positive facial expressions) rewards are able to differentially improve response inhibition accuracy in typically developing children and adolescents, an 'incentive' go/no-go task was applied with reward contingencies for successful inhibition. In addition, the impact of children's personality traits (such as reward seeking and empathy) on monetary and social reward responsiveness was assessed in 65 boys, ages 8 to 12 years. All subjects were tested twice: At baseline, inhibitory control was assessed without reward, and then subjects were pseudorandomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, including (1) social reward only, (2) monetary reward only, (3) mixed social and monetary reward, or (4) a retest condition without reward. Both social and non-social reward significantly improved task performance, although larger effects were observed for monetary reward. The higher the children scored on reward seeking scales, the larger was their improvement in response inhibition, but only if monetary reward was used. In addition, there was a tendency for an association between empathic skills and benefits from social reward. These data suggest that social incentives do not have an equally strong reinforcing value as compared to financial incentives. However, different personality traits seem to determine to what extent a child profits from different types of reward. Clinical implications regarding probable hyposensitivity to social reward in subjects with autism and dysregulated reward-seeking behaviour in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are discussed.

No Evidence for Inhibitory Deficits or Altered Reward Processing in ADHD: Data From a New Integrated Monetary Incentive Delay Go/No-Go Task.

PubMed

Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Wiersema, Jan R; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

2016-04-01

Cognitive and motivational factors differentially affect individuals with mental health problems such as ADHD. Here we introduce a new task to disentangle the relative contribution of inhibitory control and reward anticipation on task performance in children with ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Typically developing children, children with ADHD,  ASD, or both disorders worked during separate sessions for monetary or social rewards in go/no-go tasks with varying inhibitory load levels. Participants also completed a monetary temporal discounting (TD) task. As predicted, task performance was sensitive to both the effects of anticipated reward amount and inhibitory load. Reward amount had different effects depending on inhibitory load level. TD correlated with inhibitory control in the ADHD group. The integration of the monetary incentive delay and go/no-go paradigms was successful. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of inhibitory control deficits or altered reward anticipation in the clinical groups. © The Author(s) 2013.

Imbalance in the sensitivity to different types of rewards in pathological gambling.

PubMed

Sescousse, Guillaume; Barbalat, Guillaume; Domenech, Philippe; Dreher, Jean-Claude

2013-08-01

Pathological gambling is an addictive disorder characterized by a persistent and compulsive desire to engage in gambling activities. This maladaptive behaviour has been suggested to result from a decreased sensitivity to experienced rewards, regardless of reward type. Alternatively, pathological gambling might reflect an imbalance in the sensitivity to monetary versus non-monetary incentives. To directly test these two hypotheses, we examined how the brain reward circuit of pathological gamblers responds to different types of rewards. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared the brain responses of 18 pathological gamblers and 20 healthy control subjects while they engaged in a simple incentive task manipulating both monetary and visual erotic rewards. During reward anticipation, the ventral striatum of pathological gamblers showed a differential response to monetary versus erotic cues, essentially driven by a blunted reactivity to cues predicting erotic stimuli. This differential response correlated with the severity of gambling symptoms and was paralleled by a reduced behavioural motivation for erotic rewards. During reward outcome, a posterior orbitofrontal cortex region, responding to erotic rewards in both groups, was further recruited by monetary gains in pathological gamblers but not in control subjects. Moreover, while ventral striatal activity correlated with subjective ratings assigned to monetary and erotic rewards in control subjects, it only correlated with erotic ratings in gamblers. Our results point to a differential sensitivity to monetary versus non-monetary rewards in pathological gambling, both at the motivational and hedonic levels. Such an imbalance might create a bias towards monetary rewards, potentially promoting addictive gambling behaviour.

Neural basis of the undermining effect of monetary reward on intrinsic motivation

PubMed Central

Murayama, Kou; Matsumoto, Madoka; Izuma, Keise; Matsumoto, Kenji

2010-01-01

Contrary to the widespread belief that people are positively motivated by reward incentives, some studies have shown that performance-based extrinsic reward can actually undermine a person's intrinsic motivation to engage in a task. This “undermining effect” has timely practical implications, given the burgeoning of performance-based incentive systems in contemporary society. It also presents a theoretical challenge for economic and reinforcement learning theories, which tend to assume that monetary incentives monotonically increase motivation. Despite the practical and theoretical importance of this provocative phenomenon, however, little is known about its neural basis. Herein we induced the behavioral undermining effect using a newly developed task, and we tracked its neural correlates using functional MRI. Our results show that performance-based monetary reward indeed undermines intrinsic motivation, as assessed by the number of voluntary engagements in the task. We found that activity in the anterior striatum and the prefrontal areas decreased along with this behavioral undermining effect. These findings suggest that the corticobasal ganglia valuation system underlies the undermining effect through the integration of extrinsic reward value and intrinsic task value. PMID:21078974

Neural basis of the undermining effect of monetary reward on intrinsic motivation.

PubMed

Murayama, Kou; Matsumoto, Madoka; Izuma, Keise; Matsumoto, Kenji

2010-12-07

Contrary to the widespread belief that people are positively motivated by reward incentives, some studies have shown that performance-based extrinsic reward can actually undermine a person's intrinsic motivation to engage in a task. This "undermining effect" has timely practical implications, given the burgeoning of performance-based incentive systems in contemporary society. It also presents a theoretical challenge for economic and reinforcement learning theories, which tend to assume that monetary incentives monotonically increase motivation. Despite the practical and theoretical importance of this provocative phenomenon, however, little is known about its neural basis. Herein we induced the behavioral undermining effect using a newly developed task, and we tracked its neural correlates using functional MRI. Our results show that performance-based monetary reward indeed undermines intrinsic motivation, as assessed by the number of voluntary engagements in the task. We found that activity in the anterior striatum and the prefrontal areas decreased along with this behavioral undermining effect. These findings suggest that the corticobasal ganglia valuation system underlies the undermining effect through the integration of extrinsic reward value and intrinsic task value.

Use of monetary and nonmonetary incentives to increase response rates among African Americans in the Wisconsin Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System.

PubMed

Dykema, Jennifer; Stevenson, John; Kniss, Chad; Kvale, Katherine; González, Kim; Cautley, Eleanor

2012-05-01

From 2009 to 2010, an experiment was conducted to increase response rates among African American mothers in the Wisconsin Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). Sample members were randomly assigned to groups that received a prepaid, cash incentive of $5 (n = 219); a coupon for diapers valued at $6 (n = 210); or no incentive (n = 209). Incentives were included with the questionnaire, which was mailed to respondents. We examined the effects of the incentives on several outcomes, including response rates, cost effectiveness, survey response distributions, and item nonresponse. Response rates were significantly higher for the cash group than for the coupon (42.5 vs. 32.4%, P < .05) or no incentive group (42.5 vs. 30.1%, P < .01); the coupon and no incentive groups performed similarly. While absolute costs were the highest for the cash group, the cost per completed survey was the lowest. The incentives had limited effects on response distributions for specific survey questions. Although respondents completing the survey by mail in the cash and coupon groups exhibited a trend toward being less likely to have missing data, the effect was not significant. Compared to a coupon or no incentive, a small cash incentive significantly improved response rates and was cost effective among African American respondents in Wisconsin PRAMS. Incentives had only limited effects, however, on survey response distributions, and no significant effects on item nonresponse.

Incentives for Better Performance in Health Care

PubMed Central

Abduljawad, Asaad; Al-Assaf, Assaf F.

2011-01-01

Incentives for better performance in health care have several modes and methods. They are designed to motivate and encourage people to perform well and improve their outcomes. They may include monetary or non-monetary incentives and may be applied to consumers, individual providers or institutions. One such model is the Pay-for-Performance system. In this system, beneficiaries are compared with one another based on a set of performance indicators and those that achieve a high level of performance are rewarded financially. This system is meant to recognise and primarily to reward high performers. Its goal is to encourage beneficiaries to strive for better performance. This system has been applied in several countries and for several recipients and settings. Early indications show that this system has had mixed effects on performance. PMID:21969891

The Combinatorial Retention Auction Mechanism (CRAM): Integrating Monetary and Non-monetary Reenlistment Incentives

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-11-01

individuals value the ability to choose as highly as the actual choices themselves (Van Boening, Blackstone , MckKee, Rutstrom, 2006). But can people...benefits satisfaction. Human Relations, 51(5), 667-688. Retrieved July 20, 2008, from http://www.proquest.com. Van Boening, M., Blackstone , T.F

Evaluating the financial cost and impact on long-term pavement performance of expediting Michigan's road construction work.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-02-01

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has been using monetary incentive payments for many : years to accelerate highway construction work, resulting in reduced delays to the traveling public. It was : envisioned that incentive/disincentive...

Monetary Incentives and Organizational Change in Mexican Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moreno, Carlos Ivan

2012-01-01

This dissertation explores and explains the organizational responses of Mexican public state universities to an ambitious incentive-based policy created by the federal government in 2001: "The Integral Program for Institutional Strengthening" ("PIFI"). Drawing upon literature on organizational-environmental relationships and on…

Nudging for health: do we need financial incentives?

PubMed

Goel, Vivek

2012-01-01

Nudges, creating simple processes or structures that guide people toward a particular behaviour choice, are potentially a powerful tool for health promotion. User financial incentives could be a monetary form of such nudges. Given the challenges of chronic disease prevention, interventions such as nudges should be explored further. However, there would appear to be limited rationale for pursuing financial incentives as nudges.

Carrots and Sticks: New Brunswick and Maine Forest Landowner Perceptions Toward Incentives and Regulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quartuch, Michael R.; Beckley, Thomas M.

2014-01-01

The governments of countries that allow private land ownership have two main tools to motivate landowner behavior: regulations and incentives. This research examines landowner preferences toward these policy tools and asks specifically: Do private forest landowners in New Brunswick and Maine believe that regulations and/or incentives are effective means to motivate responsible stewardship? Can landowners identify explicit regulations and policies that restrict property rights? Also, we were interested to see if any discernible differences existed between these adjacent jurisdictions from different countries, but that share similar forests and a similar settlement history. We identified and interviewed diverse landowners, recorded and transcribed our discussions, and analyzed the results using a grounded theory approach. Findings suggest that both New Brunswick and Maine participants are fairly comfortable with most regulations and many agreed that a combination of incentives and regulations are in fact useful. Furthermore, landowners in New Brunswick discussed non-monetary incentives as a mechanism to reward "good" stewardship; while Maine respondents articulated a degree of responsible stewardship that transcends a need to incentivize landowners. This study demonstrates that diverse landowners may be more comfortable with environmental regulations than previously understood and may be interested in non-monetary incentives.

Expert views on most suitable monetary incentives on food to stimulate healthy eating.

PubMed

Waterlander, Wilma E; Steenhuis, Ingrid H M; de Vet, Emely; Schuit, Albertine J; Seidell, Jacob C

2010-06-01

Pricing strategies are an important component in the marketing mix and may also be useful in stimulating healthier food choices. However, due to competing interests and feasibility problems, the introduction of pricing strategies is complicated. For successfully introducing food pricing strategies, it is essential to explore incentives that are not only promising but also realizable and being approved by different sectors. We aimed to assemble a list of pricing strategies by exploring expert views using the Delphi method. Subjects included experts from academia, industry, retail, agriculture, policymakers, consumers and non-governmental organizations. Data were collected in three rounds. In round one, experts designed promising pricing strategies. Based on a time-budget model incorporating Sleep, Leisure, Occupation, Transportation and Home-based activities, these strategies were in the subsequent rounds judged on several criteria. Results were analysed using median and interquartile deviations scores. We found fair consensus levels among experts and a varied list of promising pricing strategies. The panel agreed on the potential success of offering small presents, providing price-cuts on healthy foods and discounting healthier foods more frequently. Also, it was found that experts gave higher rates to pricing strategies for which the implementation responsibilities could be placed elsewhere. The resulted list of promising monetary incentives is an essential first step for the future design of pricing strategies. Following this study, it is important to determine how to make solid agreements on responsibility and implementation issues. Also, consumer perceptions regarding the proposed pricing strategies should be studied.

Evaluation of the effects of an offer of a monetary incentive on the rate of questionnaire return during follow-up of a clinical trial: a randomised study within a trial.

PubMed

Hardy, Pollyanna; Bell, Jennifer L; Brocklehurst, Peter

2016-07-15

A systematic review on the use of incentives to promote questionnaire return in clinical trials suggest they are effective, but not all studies have sufficient funds to use them. Promising an incentive once data are returned can reduce the cost-burden of this approach, with possible further cost-savings if the offer were restricted to reminder letters only. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of promising a monetary incentive at first mailout versus a promise on reminder letters only. This was a randomised Study Within A Trial (SWAT) nested within BUMPES, a multicentre randomised controlled trial of maternal position in the late stage of labour in women with an epidural. The follow-up questionnaire asked for information on the women's health, wellbeing and health service use one year following the birth of their baby. Women who consented to be contacted were randomised to a promise of a monetary incentive at first mailout or a promise on reminder letters only. Women were given an option of completing the questionnaire on paper or on online. The incentive was posted out on receipt of a completed questionnaire. The primary outcome was the overall return rate, and secondary outcomes were the return rate without any chasing from the study office, and the total cost of the vouchers. A total of 1,029 women were randomised, 508 to the first mailout group and 518 to the reminder group. There was no evidence to suggest a difference between groups in the overall return rate (adjusted RR 1.03 (95 % CI 0.96 to 1.11), however the proportion returned without chasing was higher in the first mailout group (adjusted RR 1.22, 95 % CI 1.07 to 1.39). The total cost of the vouchers per participant was higher in the first mailout group (mean difference £4.56, 95 % CI £4.02 to £5.11). Offering a monetary incentive when a reminder is required could be cost-effective depending on the sample size of the study and the resources available to administer the reminder letters. The BUMPES Trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials: ISRCTN35706297 , 26(th) August 2009.

The utility of monetary contingency contracts for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Sykes-Muskett, Bianca J; Prestwich, Andrew; Lawton, Rebecca J; Armitage, Christopher J

2015-01-01

Financial incentives to improve health have received increasing attention, but are subject to ethical concerns. Monetary Contingency Contracts (MCCs), which require individuals to deposit money that is refunded contingent on reaching a goal, are a potential alternative strategy. This review evaluates systematically the evidence for weight loss-related MCCs. Randomised controlled trials testing the effect of weight loss-related MCCs were identified in online databases. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to calculate overall effect sizes for weight loss and participant retention. The association between MCC characteristics and weight loss/participant retention effects was calculated using meta-regression. There was a significant small-to-medium effect of MCCs on weight loss during treatment when one outlier study was removed. Group refunds, deposit not paid as lump sum, participants setting their own deposit size and additional behaviour change techniques were associated with greater weight loss during treatment. Post-treatment, there was no significant effect of MCCs on weight loss. There was a significant small-to-medium effect of MCCs on participant retention during treatment. Researcher-set deposits paid as one lump sum, refunds delivered on an all-or-nothing basis and refunds contingent on attendance at classes were associated with greater retention during treatment. Post-treatment, there was no significant effect of MCCs on participant retention. The results support the use of MCCs to promote weight loss and participant retention up to the point that the incentive is removed and identifies the conditions under which MCCs work best.

The Relationship of Financial Incentives and Consumers' Willingness to Disclose Information to eCommerce Marketers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pourhosseini, Parissa

2009-01-01

In this study the problem examined was a lack of research based information on the degree to which incentives can be used to encourage consumers to volunteer private information. The purpose of this study was to determine if monetary incentives would be a beneficial means to increase consumers' involvement in eCommerce and thereby boost the growth…

Motivating the Army Acquisition Workforce

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-04-07

this research study attempts to determine whether the AAW is primarily motivated by monetary incentives or by nonmonetary incentives . This study...analyzes and summarizes motivation theory and strategies through a literature review. The researcher also conducted secondary research using the 2015...most common or well- 2 known form of motivating employees is through financial incentives like a pay raise or a cash bonus. However, managers have a

Black Art Posters, an Incentive to Increase Study Enrollment among Blacks in a Large Cohort Study

PubMed Central

Yancey, Antronette K.; Herring, R. Patti; Fraser, Gary E.; Yan, Ru; Baker, Phyllip; Lampkin, Andrew; Kyle, James

2009-01-01

Objective Black art posters were offered to replace or augment the established $10 incentive for questionnaire completion in a longitudinal cohort study. Method 81 churches located in the US southern region were divided between two intervention groups, with a control group of 24 churches from the same region. Primary outcome measures were study enrollment rates and questionnaire return rates between December 2003 and July 2004 as a proportion of church goal. Results 9.3% of participants returning questionnaires selected a poster in preference to $10. Half of participants offered both monetary and art incentives indicated a poster selection. Crude questionnaire return rates were 57.4% for the pooled intervention churches and 38.2% for the control churches. Enrollment rates among those offered both incentives were significantly higher (p<0.01) than when monetary incentives alone were offered after adjustment for church size, promotional dates, and average income of church members. Survey return rates were also higher in the churches offered both incentives (p=0.04). Conclusion These data suggest that the black art posters improved study enrollment and survey return rates. The relatively low rate of poster selection suggests that the art primarily influenced participation indirectly, by creating a more culturally inclusive image of the study. PMID:18234325

Incentives for breastfeeding and for smoking cessation in pregnancy: an exploration of types and meanings.

PubMed

Crossland, Nicola; Thomson, Gill; Morgan, Heather; Dombrowski, Stephan U; Hoddinott, Pat

2015-03-01

Financial or tangible incentives are a strategy for improving health behaviours. The mechanisms of action of incentives are complex and debated. Using a multidisciplinary integrated mixed methods study, with service-user collaboration throughout, we developed a typology of incentives and their meanings for initiating and sustaining smoking cessation in pregnancy and breastfeeding. The ultimate aim was to inform incentive intervention design by providing insights into incentive acceptability and mechanisms of action. Systematic evidence syntheses of incentive intervention studies for smoking cessation in pregnancy or breastfeeding identified incentive characteristics, which were developed into initial categories. Little published qualitative data on user perspectives and acceptability was available. Qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted in three UK regions with a diverse socio-demographic sample of 88 women and significant others from the target population, 53 service providers, 24 experts/decision makers, and conference attendees identified new potential incentives and providers, with and without experience of incentives. Identified incentives (published and emergent) were classified into eight categories: cash and shopping vouchers, maternal wellbeing, baby and pregnancy-related, behaviour-related, health-related, general utility, awards and certificates, and experiences. A typology was refined iteratively through concurrent data collection and thematic analysis to explore participants' understandings of 'incentives' and to compare and contrast meanings across types. Our typology can be understood in three dimensions: the degree of restriction, the extent to which each is hedonic and/or utilitarian, and whether each has solely monetary value versus monetary with added social value. The layers of autonomy, meanings and the social value of incentive types influence their acceptability and interact with structural, social, and personal factors. Dimensions of incentive meaning that go beyond the simple incentive description should inform incentive programme design and are likely to influence outcomes. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Analysis of the Effect of Zero-Emission Vehicle Policies: State-Level Incentives and the California Zero-Emission Vehicle Regulations

EIA Publications

2017-01-01

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) contracted with Leidos to analyze the effect of California zero-emission vehicle regulations (ZEVR) and state-level incentives on zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales. Leidos worked to review the effect of state-level incentives by: *Conducting a review on the available incentives on zero-emission vehicles and related transitional vehicle types such has plug-in hybrid electric vehicles *Quantifying the effective monetary value of these different incentives *Evaluating the combined values of these incentives in each state on an example sale of a Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt

42 CFR 422.134 - Reward and incentive programs.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 42 Public Health 3 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Reward and incentive programs. 422.134 Section 422.134 Public Health CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES... monetary cap as determined by CMS of a value that may be expected to impact enrollee behavior but not...

1984 Winners of the Cost Reduction Incentive Awards. NACUBO/USSF.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Association of College and University Business Officers, Washington, DC.

Abstracts of college projects that were winners of the ninth annual Cost Reduction Incentive Awards Program are presented, including 47 programs that received monetary awards and 11 that received honorable mentions. One of the three top winners was Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, which used an ultrasound device to detect…

Controlled trial of the effect of length, incentives, and follow-up techniques on response to a mailed questionnaire.

PubMed

Hoffman, S C; Burke, A E; Helzlsouer, K J; Comstock, G W

1998-11-15

Mailed questionnaires are an economical method of data collection for epidemiologic studies, but response tends to be lower than for telephone or personal interviews. As part of a follow-up study of volunteers who provided a brief health history and blood sample for a blood specimen bank in 1989, the authors conducted a controlled trial of the effect of length, incentives, and follow-up techniques on response to a mailed questionnaire. Interventions tested included variations on length of the questionnaire, effect of a monetary incentive, and effect of a postcard reminder versus a letter accompanied by a second questionnaire. Response was similar for the short (16-item, 4-page) and long (76-item, 16-page) questionnaire groups. The non-monetary [corrected] incentive did not improve the frequency of response. The second mailing of a questionnaire was significantly better than a postcard reminder in improving responses (23% vs. 10%). It is important to systematically test marketing principles to determine which techniques are effective in increasing response to mailed questionnaires for epidemiologic studies.

Selection for Career Course and Impact on Retention of Brazilian Air Force Officers

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-03-01

diminish ( Ryan & Deci , 2000). The authors found, as they predicted, that monetary incentives are more effective when tasks are simultaneously less complex...Corps) may present in response to a determined 46 incentive. According to the theory reviewed in Chapter II, the incentives are supposed to enhance...organizational behavior (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Ryan , R., & Deci , E. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions

Elevated striatal reactivity across monetary and social rewards in bipolar I disorder.

PubMed

Dutra, Sunny J; Cunningham, William A; Kober, Hedy; Gruber, June

2015-11-01

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with increased reactivity to rewards and heightened positive affectivity. It is less clear to what extent this heightened reward sensitivity is evident across contexts and what the associated neural mechanisms might be. The present investigation used both a monetary and social incentive delay task among adults with remitted BD Type I (n = 24) and a healthy nonpsychiatric control group (HC; n = 25) using fMRI. Both whole-brain and region-of-interest analyses revealed elevated reactivity to reward receipt in the striatum, a region implicated in incentive sensitivity, in the BD group. Post hoc analyses revealed that greater striatal reactivity to reward receipt, across monetary and social reward tasks, predicted decreased self-reported positive affect when anticipating subsequent rewards in the HC but not in the BD group. Results point toward elevated striatal reactivity to reward receipt as a potential neural mechanism of persistent reward pursuit in BD. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of monetary incentives on absenteeism: a case study

Treesearch

Charles H. Wolf

1974-01-01

An attendance bonus paid by a wood processing firm was studied to determine its effectiveness in reducing absenteeism. Employees were divided into permanent and short-term groups, and their response to the bonus was studied, using non-parametric tests. The evidence suggested that the incentive favorably influenced the work attendance of only the permanent group....

Monetary and Nonmonetary Student Incentives for Tutoring Services: A Randomized Controlled Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Springer, Matthew G.; Rosenquist, Brooks A.; Swain, Walker A.

2015-01-01

In recent years, the largely punitive accountability measures imposed by the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act have given way to an emphasis on financial incentives. Although most policy interventions have focused primarily on linking teacher compensation to student test scores, several recent studies have examined the prospects for the use of…

Effects of reward and punishment on brain activations associated with inhibitory control in cigarette smokers.

PubMed

Luijten, Maartje; O'Connor, David A; Rossiter, Sarah; Franken, Ingmar H A; Hester, Robert

2013-11-01

Susceptibility to use of addictive substances may result, in part, from a greater preference for an immediate small reward relative to a larger delayed reward or relative insensitivity to punishment. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined the neural basis of inhibiting an immediately rewarding stimulus to obtain a larger delayed reward in smokers. We also investigated whether punishment could modulate inhibitory control. The Monetary Incentive Go/NoGo (MI-Go/NoGo) task was administered that provided three types of reward outcomes contingent upon inhibitory control performance over rewarding stimuli: inhibition failure was either followed by no monetary reward (neutral condition), a small monetary reward with immediate feedback (reward condition) or immediate monetary punishment (punishment condition). In the reward and punishment conditions, successful inhibitory control resulted in larger delayed rewards. Community sample of smokers in the Melbourne (Australia) area. Nineteen smokers were compared with 17 demographically matched non-smoking controls. Accuracy, reaction times and brain activation associated with the MI-Go/NoGo task. Smokers showed hyperactivation in the right insula (P < 0.01), inferior and middle frontal gyrus (P < 0.01), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (P = 0.001) and inferior parietal lobe (P < 0.01) both during inhibition of an immediately rewarding stimulus to obtain a larger delayed reward, and during inhibition of neutral stimuli. Group differences in brain activity were not significant in the punishment condition in the right insula and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, most probably as a result of increased activation in non-smoking controls. Compared with non-smokers, smokers showed increased neural activation when resisting immediately rewarding stimuli and may be less sensitive to punishment as a strategy to increase control over rewarding stimuli. © 2013 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Monetary Incentive Effects on Event-Based Prospective Memory Three Months after Traumatic Brain Injury in Children

PubMed Central

Pedroza, Claudia; Chapman, Sandra B.; Cook, Lori G.; Vásquez, Ana C.; Levin, Harvey S.

2011-01-01

Information regarding the remediation of event-based prospective memory (EB-PM) impairments following pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) is scarce. Addressing this, two levels of monetary incentives were used to improve EB-PM in children ages 7 to 16 years with orthopedic injuries (OI, n = 51), or moderate (n = 25), and severe (n = 39) TBI at approximately three months postinjury. The EB-PM task consisted of the child giving a specific verbal response to a verbal cue from the examiner while performing a battery of neuropsychological measures (ongoing task). Significant effects were found for Age-at-Test, Motivation Condition, Period, and Group. Within-group analyses indicated OI and moderate TBI groups performed significantly better under the high-versus low-incentive condition, but the severe TBI group demonstrated no significant improvement. These results indicate EB-PM can be significantly improved at three months postinjury in children with moderate, but not severe, TBI. PMID:21347945

The effects of two different incentives on recruitment rates of families into a prevention program.

PubMed

Heinrichs, Nina

2006-07-01

This study experimentally manipulated two incentives for participation (monetary: paid participation for sessions and setting: group vs. individual) in a child behavior problem prevention program to analyze their effects on recruitment and retention of families. A population of 690 eligible families from 15 preschools located in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods was invited to participate in a parent training (PT) program. The study recruited parents by using advertisements that had information describing only the indicated condition (i.e., PT in group-unpaid, or PT individual-unpaid, or PT in group-paid, or PT individual-paid). Results demonstrate significant impact of payment on recruitment and initial attendance. Training setting alone (individual or group) did not significantly influence these rates. Editors' Strategic Implications: A compelling case is made for the utility of monetary incentives to increase proportions of low-income families in prevention research and programs. Evaluators and program designers should note the impressive use of the experimental design and hierarchical linear modeling to test the effects on recruitment.

Wanting and liking in dysphoria: Cardiovascular and facial EMG responses during incentive processing.

PubMed

Franzen, Jessica; Brinkmann, Kerstin

2016-12-01

Theories and research on depression point to reduced responsiveness during reward anticipation and in part also during punishment anticipation. They also suggest weaker affective responses to reward consumption and unchanged affective responses to punishment consumption. However, studies investigating incentive anticipation using effort mobilization and incentive consumption using facial expressions are scarce. The present studies tested reward and punishment responsiveness in a subclinically depressed sample, manipulating a monetary reward (Study 1) and a monetary punishment (Study 2). Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity and blunted self-reported wanting during reward anticipation but reduced PEP reactivity and normal self-reported wanting during punishment anticipation. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity and blunted self-reported liking during reward consumption but normal corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity and normal self-reported disliking during punishment consumption. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Central African detail experience: what US FIA field staff can teach and learn through short term assignments—Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon

Treesearch

Josh Feinberg

2015-01-01

REDD+, Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is a United Nations initiative targeted to combat atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming by providing monetary incentives to developing countries to preserve their forested land as effective carbon sinks. In order for these countries to receive this monetary benefit, they must develop and...

Orbitofrontal reward sensitivity and impulsivity in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

PubMed

Wilbertz, Gregor; van Elst, Ludger Tebartz; Delgado, Mauricio R; Maier, Simon; Feige, Bernd; Philipsen, Alexandra; Blechert, Jens

2012-03-01

Impulsivity symptoms of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) such as increased risk taking have been linked with impaired reward processing. Previous studies have focused on reward anticipation or on rewarded executive functioning tasks and have described a striatal hyporesponsiveness and orbitofrontal alterations in adult and adolescent ADHD. Passive reward delivery and its link to behavioral impulsivity are less well understood. To study this crucial aspect of reward processing we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) combined with electrodermal assessment in male and female adult ADHD patients (N=28) and matched healthy control participants (N=28) during delivery of monetary and non-monetary rewards. Further, two behavioral tasks assessed risky decision making (game of dice task) and delay discounting. Results indicated that both groups activated ventral and dorsal striatum and the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) in response to high-incentive (i.e. monetary) rewards. A similar, albeit less strong activation pattern was found for low-incentive (i.e. non-monetary) rewards. Group differences emerged when comparing high and low incentive rewards directly: activation in the mOFC coded for the motivational change in reward delivery in healthy controls, but not ADHD patients. Additionally, this dysfunctional mOFC activity in patients correlated with risky decision making and delay discounting and was paralleled by physiological arousal. Together, these results suggest that the mOFC codes reward value and type in healthy individuals whereas this function is deficient in ADHD. The brain-behavior correlations suggest that this deficit might be related to behavioral impulsivity. Reward value processing difficulties in ADHD should be considered when assessing reward anticipation and emotional learning in research and applied settings. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An initial study of neural responses to monetary incentives as related to treatment outcome in cocaine dependence.

PubMed

Jia, Zhiru; Worhunsky, Patrick D; Carroll, Kathleen M; Rounsaville, Bruce J; Stevens, Michael C; Pearlson, Godfrey D; Potenza, Marc N

2011-09-15

Although cocaine dependence (CD) involves abnormalities in drug-related, reward-based decision making, it is not well understood whether these abnormalities generalize to nondrug-related cues and rewards and how neural functions underlying reward processing in cocaine abusers relate to treatment outcome. Twenty CD patients before treatment and 20 matched healthy control (HC) subjects participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a monetary incentive delay task. Outcomes through 8 weeks were assessed via percent cocaine-negative urine toxicology, self-reported cocaine abstinence, and treatment retention. Among the whole sample, anticipation of working for monetary reward (i.e., reward anticipation) was associated with activation in the ventral striatum (VS), medial frontal gyrus, thalamus, right subcallosal gyrus, right insula, and left amygdala. Cocaine dependence compared with HC participants exhibited greater activation during notification of rewarding outcome (i.e., reward receipt) in left and right VS, right caudate, and right insula. In CD participants during reward anticipation, activation in left and right thalamus and right caudate correlated negatively with percent cocaine-negative urine toxicology, activation in thalamus bilaterally correlated negatively with self-reported abstinence measures, and activation in left amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus correlated negatively with treatment retention. During reward notification, activation in right thalamus, right VS, and left culmen correlated negatively with abstinence and with urine toxicology. These findings suggest that in treatment-seeking CD participants, corticolimbic reward circuitry is relatively overactivated during monetary incentive delay task performance and specific regional activations related to reward processing may predict aspects of treatment outcome and represent important targets for treatment development in CD. Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Distinct processing of social and monetary rewards in late adolescents with trait anhedonia.

PubMed

Chan, Raymond C K; Li, Zhi; Li, Ke; Zeng, Ya-Wei; Xie, Wei-Zhen; Yan, Chao; Cheung, Eric F C; Jin, Zhen

2016-03-01

Anticipatory and consummatory dissociation of hedonic experience may manifest as trait anhedonia in healthy and clinical populations. It is still unclear whether the underlying neural mechanisms of the monetary-based and affect-based incentive delay paradigms are distinct from each other. The present study aimed to examine the similarities and differences between the Affect Incentive Delay (AID) and the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) imaging paradigms in relation to brain activations. We administered the AID and the MID imaging tasks to 28 adolescent participants. A cue signaling the type of forthcoming feedback (reward or punishment) was displayed to the participants, followed by a target-hit task with corresponding reward or punishment. The striatal and limbic regions were activated during the anticipatory phase of MID, while there was no brain activation during the anticipatory phase of AID. In the consummatory phase, the MID task activated the medial frontal cortex, while the AID task activated the frontal and dorsal limbic regions. We further found that the anhedonic group exhibited significant hypoactivation than the nonanhedonic group at the left pulvinar, the left claustrum and the left insula to positive cues in the anticipatory phase of the AID task. The results suggest that the AID and the MID tasks have unique activation patterns. Our findings also suggest that the AID task may be more sensitive in detecting anhedonia in people with trait anhedonia. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Independent effects of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions.

PubMed

Kang, Guanlan; Zhou, Xiaolin; Wei, Ping

2015-09-01

The present study investigated the effect of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions, using a spatial cue-target paradigm. A colored cue was presented at the left or right side of the central fixation point, with its color indicating the monetary reward stakes of a given trial (incentive vs. non-incentive), followed by the presentation of an emotional facial target (angry vs. neutral) at a cued or un-cued location. Participants were asked to discriminate the emotional expression of the target, with the cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony being 200-300 ms in Experiment 1 and 950-1250 ms in Experiment 2a (without a fixation cue) and Experiment 2b (with a fixation cue), producing a spatial facilitation effect and an inhibition of return effect, respectively. The results of all the experiments revealed faster reaction times in the monetary incentive condition than in the non-incentive condition, demonstrating the effect of reward to facilitate task performance. An interaction between reward expectation and the emotion of the target was evident in all the three experiments, with larger reward effects for angry faces than for neutral faces. This interaction was not affected by spatial orientation. These findings demonstrate that incentive motivation improves task performance and increases sensitivity to angry faces, irrespective of spatial orienting and reorienting processes.

Strategies to improve retention in randomised trials.

PubMed

Brueton, Valerie C; Tierney, Jayne; Stenning, Sally; Harding, Seeromanie; Meredith, Sarah; Nazareth, Irwin; Rait, Greta

2013-12-03

Loss to follow-up from randomised trials can introduce bias and reduce study power, affecting the generalisability, validity and reliability of results. Many strategies are used to reduce loss to follow-up and improve retention but few have been formally evaluated. To quantify the effect of strategies to improve retention on the proportion of participants retained in randomised trials and to investigate if the effect varied by trial strategy and trial setting. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, DARE, CINAHL, Campbell Collaboration's Social, Psychological, Educational and Criminological Trials Register, and ERIC. We handsearched conference proceedings and publication reference lists for eligible retention trials. We also surveyed all UK Clinical Trials Units to identify further studies. We included eligible retention trials of randomised or quasi-randomised evaluations of strategies to increase retention that were embedded in 'host' randomised trials from all disease areas and healthcare settings. We excluded studies aiming to increase treatment compliance. We contacted authors to supplement or confirm data that we had extracted. For retention trials, we recorded data on the method of randomisation, type of strategy evaluated, comparator, primary outcome, planned sample size, numbers randomised and numbers retained. We used risk ratios (RR) to evaluate the effectiveness of the addition of strategies to improve retention. We assessed heterogeneity between trials using the Chi(2) and I(2) statistics. For main trials that hosted retention trials, we extracted data on disease area, intervention, population, healthcare setting, sequence generation and allocation concealment. We identified 38 eligible retention trials. Included trials evaluated six broad types of strategies to improve retention. These were incentives, communication strategies, new questionnaire format, participant case management, behavioural and methodological interventions. For 34 of the included trials, retention was response to postal and electronic questionnaires with or without medical test kits. For four trials, retention was the number of participants remaining in the trial. Included trials were conducted across a spectrum of disease areas, countries, healthcare and community settings. Strategies that improved trial retention were addition of monetary incentives compared with no incentive for return of trial-related postal questionnaires (RR 1.18; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.28, P value < 0.0001), addition of an offer of monetary incentive compared with no offer for return of electronic questionnaires (RR 1.25; 95% CI 1.14 to 1.38, P value < 0.00001) and an offer of a GBP20 voucher compared with GBP10 for return of postal questionnaires and biomedical test kits (RR 1.12; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.22, P value < 0.005). The evidence that shorter questionnaires are better than longer questionnaires was unclear (RR 1.04; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.08, P value = 0.07) and the evidence for questionnaires relevant to the disease/condition was also unclear (RR 1.07; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.14). Although each was based on the results of a single trial, recorded delivery of questionnaires seemed to be more effective than telephone reminders (RR 2.08; 95% CI 1.11 to 3.87, P value = 0.02) and a 'package' of postal communication strategies with reminder letters appeared to be better than standard procedures (RR 1.43; 95% CI 1.22 to 1.67, P value < 0.0001). An open trial design also appeared more effective than a blind trial design for return of questionnaires in one fracture prevention trial (RR 1.37; 95% CI 1.16 to 1.63, P value = 0.0003).There was no good evidence that the addition of a non-monetary incentive, an offer of a non-monetary incentive, 'enhanced' letters, letters delivered by priority post, additional reminders, or questionnaire question order either increased or decreased trial questionnaire response/retention. There was also no evidence that a telephone survey was either more or less effective than a monetary incentive and a questionnaire. As our analyses are based on single trials, the effect on questionnaire response of using offers of charity donations, sending reminders to trial sites and when a questionnaire is sent, may need further evaluation. Case management and behavioural strategies used for trial retention may also warrant further evaluation. Most of the retention trials that we identified evaluated questionnaire response. There were few evaluations of ways to improve participants returning to trial sites for trial follow-up. Monetary incentives and offers of monetary incentives increased postal and electronic questionnaire response. Some other strategies evaluated in single trials looked promising but need further evaluation. Application of the findings of this review would depend on trial setting, population, disease area, data collection and follow-up procedures.

Comparing the effectiveness of individualistic, altruistic, and competitive incentives in motivating completion of mental exercises.

PubMed

Schofield, Heather; Loewenstein, George; Kopsic, Jessica; Volpp, Kevin G

2015-12-01

This study examines the impact of individually oriented, purely altruistic, and a hybrid of competitive and cooperative monetary reward incentives on older adults' completion of cognitive exercises and cognitive function. We find that all three incentive structures approximately double the number of exercises completed during the six-week active experimental period relative to a no incentive control condition. However, the altruistic and cooperative/competitive incentives led to different patterns of participation, with significantly higher inter-partner correlations in utilization of the software, as well as greater persistence once incentives were removed. Provision of all incentives significantly improved performance on the incentivized exercises. However, results of an independent cognitive testing battery suggest no generalizable gains in cognitive function resulted from the training. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Increased default mode network activity in socially anxious individuals during reward processing

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Social anxiety has been associated with potentiated negative affect and, more recently, with diminished positive affect. It is unclear how these alterations in negative and positive affect are represented neurally in socially anxious individuals and, further, whether they generalize to non-social stimuli. To explore this, we used a monetary incentive paradigm to explore the association between social anxiety and both the anticipation and consumption of non-social incentives. Eighty-four individuals from a longitudinal community sample underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participating in a monetary incentive delay (MID) task. The MID task consisted of alternating cues indicating the potential to win or prevent losing varying amounts of money based on the speed of the participant’s response. We examined whether self-reported levels of social anxiety, averaged across approximately 7 years of data, moderated brain activity when contrasting gain or loss cues with neutral cues during the anticipation and outcome phases of incentive processing. Whole brain analyses and analyses restricted to the ventral striatum for the anticipation phase and the medial prefrontal cortex for the outcome phase were conducted. Results Social anxiety did not associate with differences in hit rates or reaction times when responding to cues. Further, socially anxious individuals did not exhibit decreased ventral striatum activity during anticipation of gains or decreased MPFC activity during the outcome of gain trials, contrary to expectations based on literature indicating blunted positive affect in social anxiety. Instead, social anxiety showed positive associations with extensive regions implicated in default mode network activity (for example, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and parietal lobe) during anticipation and receipt of monetary gain. Social anxiety was further linked with decreased activity in the ventral striatum during anticipation of monetary loss. Conclusions Socially anxious individuals may increase default mode network activity during reward processing, suggesting high self-focused attention even in relation to potentially rewarding stimuli lacking explicit social connotations. Additionally, social anxiety may relate to decreased ventral striatum reactivity when anticipating potential losses. PMID:25075275

Incentives, Program Configuration, and Employee Uptake of Workplace Wellness Programs.

PubMed

Huang, Haijing; Mattke, Soeren; Batorsky, Benajmin; Miles, Jeremy; Liu, Hangsheng; Taylor, Erin

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of wellness program configurations and financial incentives on employee participation rate. We analyze a nationally representative survey on workplace wellness programs from 407 employers using cluster analysis and multivariable regression analysis. Employers who offer incentives and provide a comprehensive set of program offerings have higher participation rates. The effect of incentives differs by program configuration, with the strongest effect found for comprehensive and prevention-focused programs. Among intervention-focused programs, incentives are not associated with higher participation. Wellness programs can be grouped into distinct configurations, which have different workplace health focuses. Although monetary incentives can be effective in improving employee participation, the magnitude and significance of the effect is greater for some program configurations than others.

Major depressive disorder is characterized by greater reward network activation to monetary than pleasant image rewards

PubMed Central

Smoski, Moria J.; Rittenberg, Alison; Dichter, Gabriel S.

2011-01-01

Anhedonia, the loss of interest or pleasure in normally rewarding activities, is a hallmark feature of unipolar Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). A growing body of literature has identified frontostriatal dysfunction during reward anticipation and outcomes in MDD. However, no study to date has directly compared responses to different types of rewards such as pleasant images and monetary rewards in MDD. To investigate the neural responses to monetary and pleasant image rewards in MDD, a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task was used during fMRI scanning to assess neural responses during anticipation and receipt of monetary and pleasant image rewards. Participants included nine adults with MDD and thirteen affectively healthy controls. The MDD group showed lower activation than controls when anticipating monetary rewards in right orbitofrontal cortex and subcallosal cortex, and when anticipating pleasant image rewards in paracingulate and supplementary motor cortex. The MDD group had relatively greater activation in right putamen when anticipating monetary versus pleasant image rewards, relative to the control group. Results suggest reduced reward network activation in MDD when anticipating rewards, as well as relatively greater hypoactivation to pleasant image than monetary rewards. PMID:22079658

Major depressive disorder is characterized by greater reward network activation to monetary than pleasant image rewards.

PubMed

Smoski, Moria J; Rittenberg, Alison; Dichter, Gabriel S

2011-12-30

Anhedonia, the loss of interest or pleasure in normally rewarding activities, is a hallmark feature of unipolar Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). A growing body of literature has identified frontostriatal dysfunction during reward anticipation and outcomes in MDD. However, no study to date has directly compared responses to different types of rewards such as pleasant images and monetary rewards in MDD. To investigate the neural responses to monetary and pleasant image rewards in MDD, a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task was used during functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess neural responses during anticipation and receipt of monetary and pleasant image rewards. Participants included nine adults with MDD and 13 affectively healthy controls. The MDD group showed lower activation than controls when anticipating monetary rewards in right orbitofrontal cortex and subcallosal cortex, and when anticipating pleasant image rewards in paracingulate and supplementary motor cortex. The MDD group had relatively greater activation in right putamen when anticipating monetary versus pleasant image rewards, relative to the control group. Results suggest reduced reward network activation in MDD when anticipating rewards, as well as relatively greater hypoactivation to pleasant image than monetary rewards. 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Goal or gold: overlapping reward processes in soccer players upon scoring and winning money.

PubMed

Häusler, Alexander Niklas; Becker, Benjamin; Bartling, Marcel; Weber, Bernd

2015-01-01

Social rewards are important incentives for human behavior. This is especially true in team sports such as the most popular one worldwide: soccer. We investigated reward processing upon scoring a soccer goal in a standard two-versus-one situation and in comparison to winning in a monetary incentive task. The results show a strong overlap in brain activity between the two conditions in established reward regions of the mesolimbic dopaminergic system, including the ventral striatum and ventromedial pre-frontal cortex. The three main components of reward-associated learning, i.e., reward probability (RP), reward reception (RR) and reward prediction errors (RPE) showed highly similar activation in both con-texts, with only the RR and RPE components displaying overlapping reward activity. Passing and shooting behavior did not correlate with individual egoism scores, but we observe a positive correlation be-tween egoism and activity in the left middle frontal gyrus upon scoring after a pass versus a direct shot. Our findings suggest that rewards in the context of soccer and monetary incentives are based on similar neural processes.

Goal or Gold: Overlapping Reward Processes in Soccer Players upon Scoring and Winning Money

PubMed Central

Häusler, Alexander Niklas; Becker, Benjamin; Bartling, Marcel; Weber, Bernd

2015-01-01

Social rewards are important incentives for human behavior. This is especially true in team sports such as the most popular one worldwide: soccer. We investigated reward processing upon scoring a soccer goal in a standard two-versus-one situation and in comparison to winning in a monetary incentive task. The results show a strong overlap in brain activity between the two conditions in established reward regions of the mesolimbic dopaminergic system, including the ventral striatum and ventromedial pre-frontal cortex. The three main components of reward-associated learning i.e. reward probability (RP), reward reception (RR) and reward prediction errors (RPE) showed highly similar activation in both con-texts, with only the RR and RPE components displaying overlapping reward activity. Passing and shooting behavior did not correlate with individual egoism scores, but we observe a positive correlation be-tween egoism and activity in the left middle frontal gyrus upon scoring after a pass versus a direct shot. Our findings suggest that rewards in the context of soccer and monetary incentives are based on similar neural processes. PMID:25875594

Integrating Monetary and Non-Monetary Retention Incentives for the U.S. Navy Dental Corps Officers Utilizing the Combinatorial Retention Auction Mechanism (CRAM)

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

Periodontics (1760) • Prosthodontics (1769) • Public Health Dentistry (1775) • Oral Pathology (1780) • Orofacial Pain (1785) • Dental Research (1790...Health Dentistry 1 Temporomandibular Dysfunction/ Orofacial pain 1 Dental Research 1 Exodontia (Advanced Clinical Practice - ACP) 3 Endodontics (ACP) 3...Prosthodontics 1769 9 Public Health Dentistry 1775 0 Oral Pathology 1780 3 50 Specialty Code Number of Specialists Orofacial Pain 1785 1

Inflation in Brazil: The Principles of Monetary Correction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campos, Roberto de Oliveira

1975-01-01

The evils of inflation and Brazil's attempts to minimize inflation by a generalized indexation for all forms of saving, wage adjustments, tax reform, a mini-devaluation, and saving incentives are examined. (DE)

Information and reward in voluntary heart rate control.

PubMed

Bouchard, M A; Granger, L

1980-10-01

Two studies are reported which examined the relative effects of the pressence and absence of monetary incentives and instructions in a heart rate (HR) regulation task. Twelve male undergraduates were offered seven sessions of feedback assisted voluntary HR control training. In Experiment 1 six S s attempted to increase their HR with the aid of a "success," or positive binary visual signal. In Experiment 2 six S s were instructed to decrease their HR and were assisted by a "failure," or negative binary visual signal. In both studies the presence or absence of E's specific instructions to control HR was systematically varied from sessions 4 to 7. S s were paid on only half of the feedback trials of each session. These variables were thus systematically varied in a within-subject design. The main results suggest that (a) the instructions and monetary incentives significantly facilitated HR acceleration while showing no effects on HR deceleration; (b) in the no-instructions, no-incentive condition, HR control was minimal. The general hypothesis that Estes' interpretation of information and reward apply to human voluntary HR control received some support. It would appear that contrary to a traditional view, the exteroceptive feedback per se does not necessarily act as a reinforcer of the behavior, as witnessed for instance in the no-instructions, no-incentive conditions.

Effect of non-monetary incentives on uptake of couples' counselling and testing among clients attending mobile HIV services in rural Zimbabwe: a cluster-randomised trial.

PubMed

Sibanda, Euphemia L; Tumushime, Mary; Mufuka, Juliet; Mavedzenge, Sue Napierala; Gudukeya, Stephano; Bautista-Arredondo, Sergio; Hatzold, Karin; Thirumurthy, Harsha; McCoy, Sandra I; Padian, Nancy; Copas, Andrew; Cowan, Frances M

2017-09-01

Couples' HIV testing and counselling (CHTC) is associated with greater engagement with HIV prevention and care than individual testing and is cost-effective, but uptake remains suboptimal. Initiating discussion of CHTC might result in distrust between partners. Offering incentives for CHTC could change the focus of the pre-test discussion. We aimed to determine the impact of incentives for CHTC on uptake of couples testing and HIV case diagnosis in rural Zimbabwe. In this cluster-randomised trial, 68 rural communities (the clusters) in four districts receiving mobile HIV testing services were randomly assigned (1:1) to incentives for CHTC or not. Allocation was not masked to participants and researchers. Randomisation was stratified by district and proximity to a health facility. Within each stratum random permutation was done to allocate clusters to the study groups. In intervention communities, residents were informed that couples who tested together could select one of three grocery items worth US$1·50. Standard mobilisation for testing was done in comparison communities. The primary outcome was the proportion of individuals testing with a partner. Analysis was by intention to treat. 3 months after CHTC, couple-testers from four communities per group individually completed a telephone survey to evaluate any social harms resulting from incentives or CHTC. The effect of incentives on CHTC was estimated using logistic regression with random effects adjusting for clustering. The trial was registered with the Pan African Clinical Trial Registry, number PACTR201606001630356. From May 26, 2015, to Jan 29, 2016, of 24 679 participants counselled with data recorded, 14 099 (57·1%) were in the intervention group and 10 580 (42·9%) in the comparison group. 7852 (55·7%) testers in the intervention group versus 1062 (10·0%) in the comparison group tested with a partner (adjusted odds ratio 13·5 [95% CI 10·5-17·4]). Among 427 (83·7%) of 510 eligible participants who completed the telephone survey, 11 (2·6%) reported that they were pressured or themselves pressured their partner to test together; none regretted couples' testing. Relationship unrest was reported by eight individuals (1·9%), although none attributed this to incentives. Small non-monetary incentives, which are potentially scalable, were associated with significantly increased CHTC and HIV case diagnosis. Incentives did not increase social harms beyond the few typically encountered with CHTC without incentives. The intervention could help achieve UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets. The study was funded by the UK Department for International Development, Irish AID, and Swedish SIDA, through Population Services International Zimbabwe under the Integrated Support Program. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Incentive effect on inhibitory control in adolescents with early-life stress: an antisaccade study.

PubMed

Mueller, Sven C; Hardin, Michael G; Korelitz, Katherine; Daniele, Teresa; Bemis, Jessica; Dozier, Mary; Peloso, Elizabeth; Maheu, Francoise S; Pine, Daniel S; Ernst, Monique

2012-03-01

Early-life stress (ES) such as adoption, change of caregiver, or experience of emotional neglect may influence the way in which affected individuals respond to emotional stimuli of positive or negative valence. These modified responses may stem from a direct alteration of how emotional stimuli are coded, and/or the cognitive function implicated in emotion modulation, such as self-regulation or inhibition. These ES effects have been probed on tasks either targeting reward and inhibitory function. Findings revealed deficits in both reward processing and inhibitory control in ES youths. However, no work has yet examined whether incentives can improve automatic response or inhibitory control in ES youths. To determine whether incentives would only improve self-regulated voluntary actions or generalize to automated motoric responses, participants were tested on a mixed eye movement task that included reflex-like prosaccades and voluntary controlled antisaccade eye movements. Seventeen adopted children (10 females, mean age 11.3 years) with a documented history of neglect and 29 typical healthy youths (16 females, mean age 11.9 years) performed the mixed prosaccade/antisaccade task during monetary incentive conditions or during no-incentive conditions. Across both saccade types, ES adolescents responded more slowly than controls. As expected, control participants committed fewer errors on antisaccades during the monetary incentive condition relative to the no-incentive condition. By contrast, ES youths failed to show this incentive-related improvement on inhibitory control. No significant incentive effects were found with prepotent prosaccades trials in either group. Finally, co-morbid psychopathology did not modulate the findings. These data suggest that youths with experience of early stress exhibit deficient modulation of inhibitory control by reward processes, in tandem with a reward-independent deficit in preparation for both automatic and controlled responses. These data may be relevant to interventions in ES youths. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neural Mechanisms Underlying Paradoxical Performance for Monetary Incentives Are Driven by Loss Aversion

PubMed Central

Chib, Vikram S.; De Martino, Benedetto; Shimojo, Shinsuke; O'Doherty, John P.

2012-01-01

Summary Employers often make payment contingent on performance in order to motivate workers. We used fMRI with a novel incentivized skill task to examine the neural processes underlying behavioral responses to performance-based pay. We found that individuals' performance increased with increasing incentives; however, very high incentive levels led to the paradoxical consequence of worse performance. Between initial incentive presentation and task execution, striatal activity rapidly switched between activation and deactivation in response to increasing incentives. Critically, decrements in performance and striatal deactivations were directly predicted by an independent measure of behavioral loss aversion. These results suggest that incentives associated with successful task performance are initially encoded as a potential gain; however, when actually performing a task, individuals encode the potential loss that would arise from failure. PMID:22578508

Quantifying familial influences on brain activation during the monetary incentive delay task: an adolescent monozygotic twin study.

PubMed

Silverman, Merav H; Krueger, Robert F; Iacono, William G; Malone, Stephen M; Hunt, Ruskin H; Thomas, Kathleen M

2014-12-01

Although altered brain activation during reward tasks has been found in a number of heritable psychiatric disorders and health outcomes, the familial nature of reward-related brain activation remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated the degree to which the magnitude of mesocorticolimbic reward system signal intensities in anticipation of reward during the monetary incentive delay (MID) task was similar within 46 pairs of adolescent, monozygotic twins. Significant within-pair correlations in brain activation during anticipation of gain were found in one third of the 18 reward-related regions investigated. These regions were the right nucleus accumbens, left and right posterior caudate, right anterior caudate, left insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. This serves as evidence for a shared familial contribution to individual differences in reward related brain activity in certain key reward processing regions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Peer-Referral Chains with Incentives to Promote HIV Testing and Identify Undiagnosed HIV Infections Among Crack Users in San Salvador

PubMed Central

Glasman, Laura R.; Dickson-Gomez, Julia; Lechuga, Julia; Tarima, Sergey; Bodnar, Gloria; de Mendoza, Lorena Rivas

2016-01-01

In El Salvador, crack users are at high risk for HIV but they are not targeted by efforts to promote early HIV diagnosis. We evaluated the promise of peer-referral chains with incentives to increase HIV testing and identify undiagnosed HIV infections among networks of crack users in San Salvador. For 14 months, we offered HIV testing in communities with a high prevalence of crack use. For the following 14 months, we promoted chains in which crack users from these communities referred their peers to HIV testing and received a small monetary incentive. We recorded the monthly numbers of HIV testers, and their crack use, sexual risk behaviors and test results. After launching the referral chains, the monthly numbers of HIV testers increased significantly (Z = 6.90, p < .001) and decayed more slowly (Z = 5.93, p < .001), and the total number of crack-using testers increased nearly fourfold. Testers in the peer-referral period reported fewer HIV risk behaviors, but a similar percentage (~5 %) tested HIV positive in both periods. More women than men received an HIV-positive diagnosis throughout the study (χ2(1, N = 799) = 4.23, p = .040). Peer-referral chains with incentives can potentially increase HIV testing among networks of crack users while retaining a focus on high-risk individuals. PMID:26687093

Advertising energy saving programs: The potential environmental cost of emphasizing monetary savings.

PubMed

Schwartz, Daniel; Bruine de Bruin, Wändi; Fischhoff, Baruch; Lave, Lester

2015-06-01

Many consumers have monetary or environmental motivations for saving energy. Indeed, saving energy produces both monetary benefits, by reducing energy bills, and environmental benefits, by reducing carbon footprints. We examined how consumers' willingness and reasons to enroll in energy-savings programs are affected by whether advertisements emphasize monetary benefits, environmental benefits, or both. From a normative perspective, having 2 noteworthy kinds of benefit should not decrease a program's attractiveness. In contrast, psychological research suggests that adding external incentives to an intrinsically motivating task may backfire. To date, however, it remains unclear whether this is the case when both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are inherent to the task, as with energy savings, and whether removing explicit mention of extrinsic motivation will reduce its importance. We found that emphasizing a program's monetary benefits reduced participants' willingness to enroll. In addition, participants' explanations about enrollment revealed less attention to environmental concerns when programs emphasized monetary savings, even when environmental savings were also emphasized. We found equal attention to monetary motivations in all conditions, revealing an asymmetric attention to monetary and environmental motives. These results also provide practical guidance regarding the positioning of energy-saving programs: emphasize intrinsic benefits; the extrinsic ones may speak for themselves. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

German physicians "on strike"--shedding light on the roots of physician dissatisfaction.

PubMed

Janus, Katharina; Amelung, Volker Eric; Gaitanides, Michael; Schwartz, Friedrich Wilhelm

2007-08-01

Over the past few years, students in Germany have been dropping out of medical school at increasing rates, and the number of physicians choosing to work abroad or in non-medical professions has been growing. A recent study (the "Ramboll Study") commissioned by the Health Ministry concluded that German physicians' dissatisfaction with existing monetary and non-monetary incentive systems during training and subsequent practice was the main reason for these trends. Among those physicians who have remained in the workforce, there is a similar dissatisfaction, reflected in part by a general strike in 2006 by German physicians in favour of higher wages and better working conditions. To better understand the decision-making process of physicians which is highly determined by the satisfaction they experience in their work life and to extract the factors that contribute to their satisfaction. We surveyed all physicians who spent more than 50% of their time in patient care (and less than 50% in research) at the teaching hospital of the Hannover Medical School (839, after exclusion of pre-test participants). Based on existing satisfaction studies, we designed a self-administered questionnaire that contained 28 items, including items measuring several dimensions of physician job satisfaction; the monetary and non-monetary incentives the physicians experienced in the recent past; other job-related potential confounding factors and socio-demographic questions. Respondents were asked to rate each job satisfaction item on five-point Likert scales regarding both satisfaction with and importance of the item. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, factor and correlation analyses. Our data suggest that non-monetary factors are important determinants of physician job satisfaction, perhaps more important than monetary incentives that may augment or reduce physicians' base incomes. Factor analysis revealed seven principal factors of which decision-making and recognition, continuous education and job security, administrative tasks and collegial relationships were highly significant, specialized technology and patient contact were significant and research and teaching and international exchange were not significant in contributing to physician job satisfaction. This study sheds light to the underlying factors that contribute to physician job satisfaction in Germany, and it provides insights into the reasons for physicians leaving medical practice. In order for a health system to recruit and retain physicians, it may be necessary for a system's physician strategy to shift from focusing primarily on hard, monetary and compensation-related factors to a broader focus that incorporates the soft, non-monetary factors. The implementation of policies and management practices that reduce the time burden on physicians, and enhance physicians' participation in the development of patient care management processes and in managerial decisions that affect patient care appears to be crucial. The result will be increased job satisfaction among physicians, which is important to the future recruitment and retention of doctors, as well as to the productivity and quality of the services provided by this essential component of our medical care systems.

Withdrawal-Related Changes in Delay Discounting Predict Short-Term Smoking Abstinence.

PubMed

Miglin, Rickie; Kable, Joseph W; Bowers, Maureen E; Ashare, Rebecca L

2017-06-01

Impulsive decision making is associated with smoking behavior and reflects preferences for smaller, immediate rewards and intolerance of temporal delays. Nicotine withdrawal may alter impulsive decision making and time perception. However, little is known about whether withdrawal-related changes in decision making and time perception predict smoking relapse. Forty-five smokers (14 female) completed two laboratory sessions, one following 24-hour abstinence and one smoking-as-usual (order counterbalanced; biochemically verified abstinence). During each visit, participants completed measures of time perception, decision making (ie, discount rates), craving, and withdrawal. Following the second laboratory session, subjects underwent a well-validated model of short-term abstinence (quit week) with small monetary incentives for each day of biochemically confirmed abstinence. Smokers significantly overestimated time during abstinence, compared to smoking-as-usual (p = .021), but there were no abstinence effects on discount rates (p = .6). During the quit week, subjects were abstinent for 3.5 days (SD = 2.15) and smoked a total of 12.9 cigarettes (SD = 15.8). Importantly, higher discount rates (ie, preferences for immediate rewards) during abstinence (abstinence minus smoking difference score) predicted greater number of days abstinent (p = .01) and fewer cigarettes smoked during the quit week (p = .02). Withdrawal-related change in time reproduction did not predict relapse (p = .2). These data suggest that individuals who have a greater preference for immediate rewards during abstinence (vs. smoking-as-usual) may be more successful at maintaining short-term abstinence when provided with frequent (eg, daily) versus less frequent incentive schedules (eg, 1 month). Abstinence-induced changes in decision making may be important for identifying smokers who may benefit from interventions that incentivize abstinence such as contingency management (CM). The present results suggest that smokers who place greater subjective value on immediate rewards during withdrawal (compared to smoking-as-usual) may be less likely to relapse if offered small, frequent monetary incentives to maintain abstinence. Thus, the current findings may have important implications for identifying smokers most likely to benefit from particular interventions such as CM. Future research might evaluate whether withdrawal-related changes in delay discounting moderate treatment response to different incentive schedules with the goal of optimizing CM effectiveness to improve abstinence rates. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Teasing apart the anticipatory and consummatory processing of monetary incentives: An event-related potential study of reward dynamics.

PubMed

Novak, Keisha D; Foti, Dan

2015-11-01

The monetary incentive delay (MID) task has been widely used in fMRI studies to investigate the neural networks involved in anticipatory and consummatory reward processing. Previous efforts to adapt the MID task for use with ERPs, however, have had limited success. Here, we sought to further decompose reward dynamics using a comprehensive set of anticipatory (cue-N2, cue-P3, contingent negative variation [CNV]) and consummatory ERPs (feedback negativity [FN], feedback P3 [fb-P3]). ERP data was recorded during adapted versions of the MID task across two experiments. Unlike previous studies, monetary incentive cues modulated the cue-N2, cue-P3, and CNV; however, cue-related ERPs and the CNV were uncorrelated with one another, indicating distinct anticipatory subprocesses. With regard to consummatory processing, FN amplitude primarily tracked outcome valence (reward vs. nonreward), whereas fb-P3 amplitude primarily tracked outcome salience (uncertain vs. certain). Independent modulation of the cue-P3 and fb-P3 was observed, indicating that these two P3 responses may uniquely capture the allocation of attention during anticipatory and consummatory reward processing, respectively. Overall, across two samples, consistent evidence of both anticipatory and consummatory ERP activity was observed on an adapted version of the MID paradigm, demonstrating for the first time how these ERP components may be integrated with one another to more fully characterize the time course of reward processing. This ERP-MID paradigm is well suited to parsing reward dynamics, and can be applied to both healthy and clinical populations. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

The impact of monetary incentives on general fertility rates in Western Australia.

PubMed

Langridge, Amanda T; Nassar, Natasha; Li, Jianghong; Jacoby, Peter; Stanley, Fiona J

2012-04-01

There has been widespread international concern about declining fertility rates and the long-term negative consequences particularly for industrialised countries with ageing populations. In an attempt to boost fertility rates, the Australian Government introduced a maternity payment known as the Baby Bonus. However, major concerns have been raised that such monetary incentives would attract teenagers and socially disadvantaged groups. Population-level data and generalised linear models were used to examine general fertility rates between 1995 and 2006 by socioeconomic group, maternal age group, Aboriginality and location in Western Australia prior to and following the introduction of the Baby Bonus in July 2004. After a steady decline in general fertility rates between 1995 and 2004, rates increased significantly from 52.2 births per 1000 women, aged between 15 and 49 years, in 2004 to 58.6 births per 1000 women in 2006. While there was an overall increase in general fertility rates after adjusting for maternal socio-demographic characteristics, there were no significant differences among maternal age groups (p=0.98), between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women(p=0.80), maternal residential locations (p=0.98) or socioeconomic groups (p=0.68). The greatest increase in births were among women residing in the highest socioeconomic areas who had the lowest general fertility rate in 2004 (21.5 births per 1000 women) but the highest in 2006 (38.1 births per 1000 women). Findings suggest that for countries with similar social, economic and political climates to Australia, a monetary incentive may provide a satisfactory solution to declining general fertility rates.

Electromyographic Activity of Hand Muscles in a Motor Coordination Game: Effect of Incentive Scheme and Its Relation with Social Capital

PubMed Central

Censolo, Roberto; Craighero, Laila; Ponti, Giovanni; Rizzo, Leonzio; Canto, Rosario; Fadiga, Luciano

2011-01-01

Background A vast body of social and cognitive psychology studies in humans reports evidence that external rewards, typically monetary ones, undermine intrinsic motivation. These findings challenge the standard selfish-rationality assumption at the core of economic reasoning. In the present work we aimed at investigating whether the different modulation of a given monetary reward automatically and unconsciously affects effort and performance of participants involved in a game devoid of visual and verbal interaction and without any perspective-taking activity. Methodology/Principal Findings Twelve pairs of participants were submitted to a simple motor coordination game while recording the electromyographic activity of First Dorsal Interosseus (FDI), the muscle mainly involved in the task. EMG data show a clear effect of alternative rewards strategies on subjects' motor behavior. Moreover, participants' stock of relevant past social experiences, measured by a specifically designed questionnaire, was significantly correlated with EMG activity, showing that only low social capital subjects responded to monetary incentives consistently with a standard rationality prediction. Conclusions/Significance Our findings show that the effect of extrinsic motivations on performance may arise outside social contexts involving complex cognitive processes due to conscious perspective-taking activity. More importantly, the peculiar performance of low social capital individuals, in agreement with standard economic reasoning, adds to the knowledge of the circumstances that makes the crowding out/in of intrinsic motivation likely to occur. This may help in improving the prediction and accuracy of economic models and reconcile this puzzling effect of external incentives with economic theory. PMID:21464986

Outplacement Services in Support of BRAC and Competitive Sourcing Task Group

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-07-30

Management(SM) is an automated Web-based solution that streamlines workforce adjustment initiatives and exit processing, saving time and money by getting...effected during FY02 – almost 7,000. o Over 160,000 employees have been saved from involuntary separation since program inception in 1993. Buyouts...monetary incentive, up to $25,000, for employee to retire, either optional or early, or resign. Payment of the incentive must save another DoD employee

Elevated Striatal Reactivity Across Monetary and Social Rewards in Bipolar I Disorder

PubMed Central

Dutra, Sunny J.; Cunningham, William A.; Kober, Hedy; Gruber, June

2016-01-01

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with increased reactivity to rewards and heightened positive affectivity. It is less clear to what extent this heightened reward sensitivity is evident across contexts and what the associated neural mechanisms might be. The present investigation employed both a monetary and social incentive delay task among adults with remitted BD type I (N=24) and a healthy non-psychiatric control group (HC; N=25) using fMRI. Both whole-brain and region-of-interest analyses revealed elevated ventral and dorsal striatal reactivity across monetary and social reward receipt, but not anticipation, in the BD group. Post-hoc analyses further suggested that greater striatal reactivity to reward receipt across monetary and social reward tasks predicted decreased self-reported positive affect when anticipating subsequent rewards in the HC, but not BD, group. Results point toward elevated striatal reactivity to reward receipt as a potential neural mechanism of reward reactivity. PMID:26390194

Processing of social and monetary rewards in the human striatum.

PubMed

Izuma, Keise; Saito, Daisuke N; Sadato, Norihiro

2008-04-24

Despite an increasing focus on the neural basis of human decision making in neuroscience, relatively little attention has been paid to decision making in social settings. Moreover, although human social decision making has been explored in a social psychology context, few neural explanations for the observed findings have been considered. To bridge this gap and improve models of human social decision making, we investigated whether acquiring a good reputation, which is an important incentive in human social behaviors, activates the same reward circuitry as monetary rewards. In total, 19 subjects participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments involving monetary and social rewards. The acquisition of one's good reputation robustly activated reward-related brain areas, notably the striatum, and these overlapped with the areas activated by monetary rewards. Our findings support the idea of a "common neural currency" for rewards and represent an important first step toward a neural explanation for complex human social behaviors.

Section 4: Evaluation of carbon management requirements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The chapters in this section are perhaps the broadest of the book. They discuss the integrated set of factors that affect carbon management in general. Roed-Larsen and Flach start the section with a detailed summary of current accreditation schemes. Verification of carbon credits is critical for validation of monetary sequestration incentives. Commercial-scale geologic sequestration will likely not advance unless such financial incentives are implemented. The type of incentive also is critical. For example, in the one country where a carbon tax is in place, Norway, commercial geologic sequestration has been underway since 1996. In other countries, where a cap-and-trade system is in place, and of course in countries where no incentives are offered, no commercial carbon sequestration is taking place.

Reincentivizing--a new theory of work and work absence.

PubMed

Thulesius, Hans O; Grahn, Birgitta E

2007-07-03

Work capacity correlates weakly to disease concepts, which in turn are insufficient to explain sick leave behavior. With data mainly from Sweden, a welfare state with high sickness absence rates, our aim was to develop an explanatory theory of how to understand and deal with work absence and sick leave. We used classic grounded theory for analyzing data from >130 interviews with people working or on sick leave, physicians, social security officers, and literature. Several hundreds of typed and handwritten memos were the basis for writing up the theory. In this paper we present a theory of work incentives and how to deal with work absence. We suggest that work disability can be seen as hurt work drivers or people caught in mode traps. Work drivers are specified as work capacities + work incentives, monetary and non-monetary. Also, people can get trapped in certain modes of behavior through changed capacities or incentives, or by inertia. Different modes have different drivers and these can trap the individual from reincentivizing, ie from going back to work or go on working. Hurt drivers and mode traps are recognized by driver assessments done on several different levels. Mode driver calculations are done by the worker. Then follows employer, physician, and social insurance officer assessments. Also, driver assessments are done on the macro level by legislators and other stakeholders. Reincentivizing is done by different repair strategies for hurt work drivers such as body repair, self repair, work-place repair, rehumanizing, controlling sick leave insurance, and strengthening monetary work incentives. Combinations of these driver repair strategies also do release people from mode traps. Reincentivizing is about recognizing hurt work drivers and mode traps followed by repairing and releasing the same drivers and traps. Reincentivizing aims at explaining what is going on when work absence is dealt with and the theory may add to social psychological research on work and work absence, and possibly inform sick leave policies.

Reincentivizing – a new theory of work and work absence

PubMed Central

Thulesius, Hans O; Grahn, Birgitta E

2007-01-01

Background Work capacity correlates weakly to disease concepts, which in turn are insufficient to explain sick leave behavior. With data mainly from Sweden, a welfare state with high sickness absence rates, our aim was to develop an explanatory theory of how to understand and deal with work absence and sick leave. Methods We used classic grounded theory for analyzing data from >130 interviews with people working or on sick leave, physicians, social security officers, and literature. Several hundreds of typed and handwritten memos were the basis for writing up the theory. Results In this paper we present a theory of work incentives and how to deal with work absence. We suggest that work disability can be seen as hurt work drivers or people caught in mode traps. Work drivers are specified as work capacities + work incentives, monetary and non-monetary. Also, people can get trapped in certain modes of behavior through changed capacities or incentives, or by inertia. Different modes have different drivers and these can trap the individual from reincentivizing, ie from going back to work or go on working. Hurt drivers and mode traps are recognized by driver assessments done on several different levels. Mode driver calculations are done by the worker. Then follows employer, physician, and social insurance officer assessments. Also, driver assessments are done on the macro level by legislators and other stakeholders. Reincentivizing is done by different repair strategies for hurt work drivers such as body repair, self repair, work-place repair, rehumanizing, controlling sick leave insurance, and strengthening monetary work incentives. Combinations of these driver repair strategies also do release people from mode traps. Conclusion Reincentivizing is about recognizing hurt work drivers and mode traps followed by repairing and releasing the same drivers and traps. Reincentivizing aims at explaining what is going on when work absence is dealt with and the theory may add to social psychological research on work and work absence, and possibly inform sick leave policies. PMID:17608942

The dark side of monetary incentive: how does extrinsic reward crowd out intrinsic motivation.

PubMed

Ma, Qingguo; Jin, Jia; Meng, Liang; Shen, Qiang

2014-02-12

It was widely believed that incentives could effectively enhance the motivation of both students and employees. However, psychologists reported that extrinsic reward actually could undermine individuals' intrinsic motivation to a given interesting task, which challenged viewpoints from traditional incentive theories. Numerous studies have been carried out to test and explain the undermining effect; however, the neural basis of this effect is still elusive. Here, we carried out an electrophysiological study with a simple but interesting stopwatch task to explore to what extent the performance-based monetary reward undermines individuals' intrinsic motivation toward the task. The electrophysiological data showed that the differentiated feedback-related negativity amplitude toward intrinsic success failure divergence was prominently reduced once the extrinsic reward was imposed beforehand. However, such a difference was not observed in the control group, in which no extrinsic reward was provided throughout the experiment. Furthermore, such a pattern was not observed for P300 amplitude. Therefore, the current results indicate that extrinsic reward demotivates the intrinsic response of individuals toward success-failure outcome, which was reflected in the corresponding reduced motivational-related differentiated feedback-related negativity, but not in amplitude of P300.

Text-message reminders plus incentives increase adherence to antidiabetic medication in adults with type 2 diabetes.

PubMed

Raiff, Bethany R; Jarvis, Brantley P; Dallery, Jesse

2016-12-01

Some adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus have difficulty adhering to their oral medication regimens. The current study used a multiple baseline design with 3 adults with Type 2 diabetes. Medication taking was monitored remotely in real time via an electronic pill bottle. During the intervention, monetary incentives were delivered contingent on evidence of adherence to taking medication at specified times. Text-message reminders were also sent if medication was not taken. Adherence increased for all participants. Future studies should separate the relative contributions of text-message and incentive components of the intervention. © 2016 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

5 CFR 930.206 - Performance rating and awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... Section 930.206 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS (CONTINUED) PROGRAMS FOR SPECIFIC POSITIONS AND EXAMINATIONS (MISCELLANEOUS) Administrative Law... an administrative law judge. (b) An agency may not grant any monetary or honorary award or incentive...

5 CFR 930.206 - Performance rating and awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... Section 930.206 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS (CONTINUED) PROGRAMS FOR SPECIFIC POSITIONS AND EXAMINATIONS (MISCELLANEOUS) Administrative Law... an administrative law judge. (b) An agency may not grant any monetary or honorary award or incentive...

5 CFR 930.206 - Performance rating and awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... Section 930.206 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS (CONTINUED) PROGRAMS FOR SPECIFIC POSITIONS AND EXAMINATIONS (MISCELLANEOUS) Administrative Law... an administrative law judge. (b) An agency may not grant any monetary or honorary award or incentive...

5 CFR 930.206 - Performance rating and awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... Section 930.206 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS (CONTINUED) PROGRAMS FOR SPECIFIC POSITIONS AND EXAMINATIONS (MISCELLANEOUS) Administrative Law... an administrative law judge. (b) An agency may not grant any monetary or honorary award or incentive...

5 CFR 930.206 - Performance rating and awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... Section 930.206 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS (CONTINUED) PROGRAMS FOR SPECIFIC POSITIONS AND EXAMINATIONS (MISCELLANEOUS) Administrative Law... an administrative law judge. (b) An agency may not grant any monetary or honorary award or incentive...

The effects of monetary and social rewards on task performance in children and adolescents: liking is not enough.

PubMed

Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Baeyens, Dieter; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

2012-12-01

The current study compared the effects of reward anticipation on task performance in children and adolescents (8-16 years old) using monetary and various social rewards. Eighty-five typically developing children undertook the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Of these 44 also undertook the Social Incentive Delay (SID-basic) task where social reward was operationalized as a smiling face and spoken compliments. Forty-one children participated in the SID-plus where points were added to a pictogram with written compliments. In a preparatory validation study participants were asked howmuch they liked the SID-basic rewards.Results showed that there was an effect of reward size on accuracy and RT in both the MID task and SID-plus, but not SID-basic. Subjective value of the SID-basic rewards was rated higher with hypothesized increasing reward intensity. In conclusion, although the social rewards in SID-basic were liked by children andadolescents in the validation study, they had no effect on the behaviour. Only when points were added (SID-plus), anticipated social reward affected task performance. Thus our results highlight (i) the difference between likeability andreinforcing quality and (ii) the need for a quantifiable element to rewards for themto be reinforcing for children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

42 CFR 495.348 - Procurement standards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... (CONTINUED) STANDARDS AND CERTIFICATION STANDARDS FOR THE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD TECHNOLOGY INCENTIVE... solicit nor accept gratuities, favors, or anything of monetary value from contractors, or parties to sub... or the gift is an unsolicited item of nominal value. (5) The standards of conduct provide for...

42 CFR 495.348 - Procurement standards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... (CONTINUED) STANDARDS AND CERTIFICATION STANDARDS FOR THE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD TECHNOLOGY INCENTIVE... solicit nor accept gratuities, favors, or anything of monetary value from contractors, or parties to sub... or the gift is an unsolicited item of nominal value. (5) The standards of conduct provide for...

42 CFR 495.348 - Procurement standards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... (CONTINUED) STANDARDS AND CERTIFICATION STANDARDS FOR THE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD TECHNOLOGY INCENTIVE... solicit nor accept gratuities, favors, or anything of monetary value from contractors, or parties to sub... or the gift is an unsolicited item of nominal value. (5) The standards of conduct provide for...

Monetary reward magnitude effects on behavior and brain function during goal-directed behavior.

PubMed

Rosell-Negre, P; Bustamante, J C; Fuentes-Claramonte, P; Costumero, V; Benabarre, S; Barrós-Loscertales, A

2017-08-01

Reward may modulate the cognitive processes required for goal achievement, while individual differences in personality may affect reward modulation. Our aim was to test how different monetary reward magnitudes modulate brain activation and performance during goal-directed behavior, and whether individual differences in reward sensitivity affect this modulation. For this purpose, we scanned 37 subjects with a parametric design in which we varied the magnitude of monetary rewards (€0, €0.01, €0.5, €1 or €1.5) in a blocked fashion while participants performed an interference counting-Stroop condition. The results showed that the brain activity of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the striatum were modulated by increasing and decreasing reward magnitudes, respectively. Behavioral performance improved as the magnitude of monetary reward increased while comparing the non reward (€0) condition to any other reward condition, or the lower €0.01 to any other reward condition, and this improvement was related with individual differences in reward sensitivity. In conclusion, the locus of influence of monetary incentives overlaps the activity of the regions commonly involved in cognitive control.

Higher incentives can impair performance: neural evidence on reinforcement and rationality

PubMed Central

Achtziger, Anja; Hügelschäfer, Sabine; Steinhauser, Marco

2015-01-01

Standard economic thinking postulates that increased monetary incentives should increase performance. Human decision makers, however, frequently focus on past performance, a form of reinforcement learning occasionally at odds with rational decision making. We used an incentivized belief-updating task from economics to investigate this conflict through measurements of neural correlates of reward processing. We found that higher incentives fail to improve performance when immediate feedback on decision outcomes is provided. Subsequent analysis of the feedback-related negativity, an early event-related potential following feedback, revealed the mechanism behind this paradoxical effect. As incentives increase, the win/lose feedback becomes more prominent, leading to an increased reliance on reinforcement and more errors. This mechanism is relevant for economic decision making and the debate on performance-based payment. PMID:25816816

Anticipatory reward processing in addicted populations: a focus on the monetary incentive delay task.

PubMed

Balodis, Iris M; Potenza, Marc N

2015-03-01

Advances in brain imaging techniques have allowed neurobiological research to temporally analyze signals coding for the anticipation of reward. In addicted populations, both hyporesponsiveness and hyperresponsiveness of brain regions (e.g., ventral striatum) implicated in drug effects and reward system processing have been reported during anticipation of generalized reward. We discuss the current state of knowledge of reward processing in addictive disorders from a widely used and validated task: the monetary incentive delay task. Only studies applying the monetary incentive delay task in addicted and at-risk adult populations are reviewed, with a focus on anticipatory processing and striatal regions activated during task performance as well as the relationship of these regions with individual difference (e.g., impulsivity) and treatment outcome variables. We further review drug influences in challenge studies as a means to examine acute influences on reward processing in abstinent, recreationally using, and addicted populations. Generalized reward processing in addicted and at-risk populations is often characterized by divergent anticipatory signaling in the ventral striatum. Although methodologic and task variations may underlie some discrepant findings, anticipatory signaling in the ventral striatum may also be influenced by smoking status, drug metabolites, and treatment status in addicted populations. Divergent results across abstinent, recreationally using, and addicted populations demonstrate complexities in interpreting findings. Future studies would benefit from focusing on characterizing how impulsivity and other addiction-related features relate to anticipatory striatal signaling over time. Additionally, identifying how anticipatory signals recover or adjust after protracted abstinence will be important in understanding recovery processes. Copyright © 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Are the carrot and the stick the two sides of same coin? A neural examination of approach/avoidance motivation during cognitive performance.

PubMed

Belayachi, Sanaâ; Majerus, Steve; Gendolla, Guido; Salmon, Eric; Peters, Frédéric; Van der Linden, Martial

2015-10-15

The present study examined neural circuit activity in a working memory (WM) task under conditions of approach and avoidance motivation. Eighteen participants were scanned with functional MRI while they performed a 3-back WM task under three conditions: in an avoidance condition incorrect responses were punished with monetary loss; in an approach condition correct responses were rewarded with monetary gain; in a neutral control condition there was no monetary incentive. Compared with the control condition, activation in fronto-parietal areas - which are associated with WM processing - was increased in both the approach and avoidance conditions. The results suggest that both approach and avoidance motivation increase task-related cognitive activation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Peer-Referral Chains with Incentives to Promote HIV Testing and Identify Undiagnosed HIV Infections Among Crack Users in San Salvador.

PubMed

Glasman, Laura R; Dickson-Gomez, Julia; Lechuga, Julia; Tarima, Sergey; Bodnar, Gloria; de Mendoza, Lorena Rivas

2016-06-01

In El Salvador, crack users are at high risk for HIV but they are not targeted by efforts to promote early HIV diagnosis. We evaluated the promise of peer-referral chains with incentives to increase HIV testing and identify undiagnosed HIV infections among networks of crack users in San Salvador. For 14 months, we offered HIV testing in communities with a high prevalence of crack use. For the following 14 months, we promoted chains in which crack users from these communities referred their peers to HIV testing and received a small monetary incentive. We recorded the monthly numbers of HIV testers, and their crack use, sexual risk behaviors and test results. After launching the referral chains, the monthly numbers of HIV testers increased significantly (Z = 6.90, p < .001) and decayed more slowly (Z = 5.93, p < .001), and the total number of crack-using testers increased nearly fourfold. Testers in the peer-referral period reported fewer HIV risk behaviors, but a similar percentage (~5 %) tested HIV positive in both periods. More women than men received an HIV-positive diagnosis throughout the study (χ(2)(1, N = 799) = 4.23, p = .040). Peer-referral chains with incentives can potentially increase HIV testing among networks of crack users while retaining a focus on high-risk individuals.

The Influence of Different Kinds of Incentives on Decision-Making and Cognitive Control in Adolescent Development: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroscientific Studies

PubMed Central

Kray, Jutta; Schmitt, Hannah; Lorenz, Corinna; Ferdinand, Nicola K.

2018-01-01

A number of recent hypothetical models on adolescent development take a dual-systems perspective and propose an imbalance in the maturation of neural systems underlying reward-driven and control-related behavior. In particular, such models suggest that the relative dominance of the early emerging subcortical reward system over the later emerging prefrontal-guided control system leads to higher risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior in mid-adolescents. Here, we will review recent empirical evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies examining interactions between these systems and showing that empirical evidence in support for the view of a higher sensitivity to rewards in mid-adolescents is rather mixed. One possible explanation for this may be the use of different kinds and amounts of incentives across studies. We will therefore include developmental studies comparing the differential influence of primary and secondary incentives, as well as those investigating within the class of secondary incentives the effects of monetary, cognitive, or social incentives. We hypothesized that the value of receiving sweets or sours, winning or losing small or large amounts of money, and being accepted or rejected from a peer group may also changes across development, and thereby might modulate age differences in decision-making and cognitive control. Our review revealed that although developmental studies directly comparing different kinds of incentives are rather scarce, results of various studies rather consistently showed only minor age differences in the impact of incentives on the behavioral level. In tendency, adolescents were more sensitive to higher amounts of incentives and larger uncertainty of receiving them, as well as to social incentives such as the presence of peers observing them. Electrophysiological studies showed that processing efficiency was enhanced during anticipation of incentives and receiving them, irrespective of incentive type. Again, we found no strong evidence for interactions with age across studies. Finally, functional brain imaging studies revealed evidence for overlapping brain regions activated during processing of primary and secondary incentives, as well as social and non-social incentives. Adolescents recruited similar reward-related and control-related brain regions as adults did, but to a different degree. Implications for future research will be discussed. PMID:29875720

The Influence of Different Kinds of Incentives on Decision-Making and Cognitive Control in Adolescent Development: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroscientific Studies.

PubMed

Kray, Jutta; Schmitt, Hannah; Lorenz, Corinna; Ferdinand, Nicola K

2018-01-01

A number of recent hypothetical models on adolescent development take a dual-systems perspective and propose an imbalance in the maturation of neural systems underlying reward-driven and control-related behavior. In particular, such models suggest that the relative dominance of the early emerging subcortical reward system over the later emerging prefrontal-guided control system leads to higher risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior in mid-adolescents. Here, we will review recent empirical evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies examining interactions between these systems and showing that empirical evidence in support for the view of a higher sensitivity to rewards in mid-adolescents is rather mixed. One possible explanation for this may be the use of different kinds and amounts of incentives across studies. We will therefore include developmental studies comparing the differential influence of primary and secondary incentives, as well as those investigating within the class of secondary incentives the effects of monetary, cognitive, or social incentives. We hypothesized that the value of receiving sweets or sours, winning or losing small or large amounts of money, and being accepted or rejected from a peer group may also changes across development, and thereby might modulate age differences in decision-making and cognitive control. Our review revealed that although developmental studies directly comparing different kinds of incentives are rather scarce, results of various studies rather consistently showed only minor age differences in the impact of incentives on the behavioral level. In tendency, adolescents were more sensitive to higher amounts of incentives and larger uncertainty of receiving them, as well as to social incentives such as the presence of peers observing them. Electrophysiological studies showed that processing efficiency was enhanced during anticipation of incentives and receiving them, irrespective of incentive type. Again, we found no strong evidence for interactions with age across studies. Finally, functional brain imaging studies revealed evidence for overlapping brain regions activated during processing of primary and secondary incentives, as well as social and non-social incentives. Adolescents recruited similar reward-related and control-related brain regions as adults did, but to a different degree. Implications for future research will be discussed.

Performance pay improves engagement, progress, and satisfaction in computer-based job skills training of low-income adults

PubMed Central

Koffarnus, Mikhail N.; DeFulio, Anthony; Sigurdsson, Sigurdur O.; Silverman, Kenneth

2018-01-01

Advancing the education of low-income adults could increase employment and income, but adult education programs have not successfully engaged low-income adults. Monetary reinforcement may be effective in promoting progress in adult education. This experiment evaluated the benefits of providing incentives for performance in a job-skills training program for low-income, unemployed adults. Participants worked on Typing and Keypad programs for 7 months. Participants randomly assigned to Group A (n=23) earned hourly and productivity pay on the Typing program (Productivity Pay), but earned only equalized hourly pay on the Keypad program (Hourly Pay). Group B (n=19) participants had the opposite contingencies. Participants worked more on, advanced further on, and preferred their productivity pay program. These results show that monetary incentives can increase performance in a job-skills training program, and indicate that payment in adult education programs should be delivered contingent on performance in the training program instead of simply on attendance. PMID:24114155

Performance pay improves engagement, progress, and satisfaction in computer-based job skills training of low-income adults.

PubMed

Koffarnus, Mikhail N; DeFulio, Anthony; Sigurdsson, Sigurdur O; Silverman, Kenneth

2013-01-01

Advancing the education of low-income adults could increase employment and income, but adult education programs have not successfully engaged low-income adults. Monetary reinforcement may be effective in promoting progress in adult education. This experiment evaluated the benefits of providing incentives for performance in a job-skills training program for low-income, unemployed adults. Participants worked on typing and keypad programs for 7 months. Participants randomly assigned to Group A (n = 23) earned hourly and productivity pay on the typing program (productivity pay), but earned only equalized hourly pay on the keypad program (hourly pay). Group B (n = 19) participants had the opposite contingencies. Participants worked more on, advanced further on, and preferred their productivity pay program. These results show that monetary incentives can increase performance in a job-skills training program, and indicate that payment in adult education programs should be delivered contingent on performance in the training program instead of simply on attendance. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

The affordable care ACT on loyalty programs for federal beneficiaries.

PubMed

Piacentino, Justin J; Williams, Karl G

2014-02-01

To discuss changes in the law that allow community pharmacy loyalty programs to include and offer incentives to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The retailer rewards exception of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and its change to the definition of remuneration in the civil monetary penalties of the Anti-Kickback Statute now allow incentives to be earned on federal benefit tied prescription out-of-pocket costs. The criteria required to design a compliant loyalty program are discussed. Community pharmacies can now include Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in compliant customer loyalty programs, where allowed by state law. There is a need for research directly on the influence of loyalty programs and nominal incentives on adherence.

A randomised controlled trial to determine the effect on response of including a lottery incentive in health surveys [ISRCTN32203485

PubMed Central

Roberts, LM; Wilson, S; Roalfe, A; Bridge, P

2004-01-01

Background Postal questionnaires are an economical and simple method of data collection for research purposes but are subject to non-response bias. Several studies have explored the effect of monetary and non-monetary incentives on response. Recent meta-analyses conclude that financial incentives are an effective way of increasing response rates. However, large surveys rarely have the resources to reward individual participants. Three previous papers report on the effectiveness of lottery incentives with contradictory results. This study aimed to determine the effect of including a lottery-style incentive on response rates to a postal health survey. Methods Randomised controlled trial. Setting: North and West Birmingham. 8,645 patients aged 18 or over randomly selected from registers of eight general practices (family physician practices). Intervention: Inclusion of a flyer and letter with a health questionnaire informing patients that returned questionnaires would be entered into a lottery-style draw for £100 of gift vouchers. Control: Health questionnaire accompanied only by standard letter of explanation. Main outcome measures: Response rate and completion rate to questionnaire. Results 5,209 individuals responded with identical rates in both groups (62.1%). Practice, patient age, sex and Townsend score (a postcode based deprivation measure) were identified as predictive of response, with higher response related to older age, being female and living in an area with a lower Townsend score (less deprived). Conclusion This RCT, using a large community based sample, found that the offer of entry into a lottery style draw for £100 of High Street vouchers has no effect on response rates to a postal health questionnaire. PMID:15533256

In Praise of Monetary Motivation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piamonte, John S.

1979-01-01

Although management has built remuneration policies on the belief that money does not motivate personnel, the author states that the best way to encourage high performance is still money if administered correctly. He discusses behavior theories, incentive/contingency principles, the weaknesses of many merit pay schemes, and factors in employee…

The Demand for, and Impact of, Learning HIV Status

PubMed Central

Thornton, Rebecca L.

2011-01-01

This paper evaluates an experiment in which individuals in rural Malawi were randomly assigned monetary incentives to learn their HIV results after being tested. Distance to the HIV results centers was also randomly assigned. Without any incentive, 34 percent of the participants learned their HIV results. However, even the smallest incentive doubled that share. Using the randomly assigned incentives and distance from results centers as instruments for the knowledge of HIV status, sexually active HIV-positive individuals who learned their results are three times more likely to purchase condoms two months later than sexually active HIV-positive individuals who did not learn their results; however, HIV-positive individuals who learned their results purchase only two additional condoms than those who did not. There is no significant effect of learning HIV-negative status on the purchase of condoms. PMID:21687831

Common alterations in sensitivity to type but not amount of reward in ADHD and autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Baeyens, Dieter; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

2011-11-01

Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) display abnormalities in reward processing. Most reward studies have focused on the effects of material or monetary rewards. Studies with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have focused on social rewards. In this study we compared the effects of amount and type of reward in children with ADHD and those with ASD. Two adapted versions of the Monetary Incentive Delay Task were used to study the effects of monetary and social reward anticipation on performance in 40 typically developing (TD) children and adolescents (8-16y), 35 children and adolescents with ADHD and 31 children and adolescents with ASD. Monetary and social reward improved accuracy and response time (RT) in all groups. The higher the anticipated reward, the more accurate and faster were responses. Independent of these effects, there was a differential effect of reward type. Both clinical groups, but not TD, responded faster for monetary than social rewards. The results, while not supporting hyposensitivity to changes in reward amount in ADHD and ASD, do suggest that both groups are generally less motivated in settings where social as opposed to monetary rewards can be earned. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. © 2011 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Association Between Monetary Deposits and Weight Loss in Online Commitment Contracts

PubMed Central

Lesser, Lenard I.; Thompson, Caroline A.; Luft, Harold S.

2017-01-01

Purpose To examine the characteristics of voluntary online commitment contracts that may be associated with greater weight loss. Design Retrospective analysis of weight loss commitment contracts derived from a company that provides web-based support for personal commitment contracts. Using regression, we analyzed whether percentage weight loss differed between participants who incentivized their contract using monetary deposits and those who did not. Setting Online. Participants Users (N = 3857) who voluntarily signed up online in 2013 for a weight loss contract. Intervention Participants specified their own weight loss goal, time period, and self-reported weekly weight. Deposits were available in the following 3 categories: charity, anticharity (a nonprofit one does not like), or donations made to a friend. Measures Percentage weight loss per week. Analysis Multivariable linear regressions. Results Controlling for several participant and contract characteristics, contracts with anticharity, charity, and friend deposits had greater reported weight loss than nonincentivized contracts. Weight change per week relative to those without deposits was −0.33%, −0.28%, and −0.25% for anti-charity, charity, and friend, respectively (P < 0.001). Contracts without a weight verification method claimed more weight loss than those with verification. Conclusion Voluntary use of commitment contracts may be an effective tool to assist weight loss. Those who choose to use monetary incentives report more weight loss. It is not clear whether this is due to the incentives or higher motivation. PMID:27502832

Rationality in Public Sector Salary Scales: The Case of Rural Teachers in Pakistan.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khan, Shahrukh Rafi

2002-01-01

Examines the relationship between a public-sector teacher salary structure based on qualifications and experience and teacher effectiveness in rural Pakistan. Findings raise questions regarding the rationality of the salary structure's assumed positive association between teacher monetary incentives, teacher cognitive skills, and student academic…

Individualism, innovation, and long-run growth.

PubMed

Gorodnichenko, Yuriy; Roland, Gerard

2011-12-27

Countries having a more individualist culture have enjoyed higher long-run growth than countries with a more collectivist culture. Individualist culture attaches social status rewards to personal achievements and thus, provides not only monetary incentives for innovation but also social status rewards, leading to higher rates of innovation and economic growth.

Where's the Beef in Administrator Pay?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cunningham, William G.; Sperry, J. Brent

2001-01-01

Salary differences between educators and business leaders range from tens of thousands of dollars for principals to millions for superintendents. Employees valuing monetary incentives will not be attracted to or remain in the education field. Wealthy taxpayers get too many breaks. Progressive income taxes should replace skewed property taxes. (MLH)

Field Experiments in Manpower Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mobilization for Youth, Inc., New York, NY. Experimental Manpower Lab.

The first three reports in this series describe the data-based results of systematic experimentation and survey research concerned with the following timely manpower issues: (1) The Effects of Monetary Incentives on the Learning of Remedial English by Disadvantaged Trainees, (2) The Reward Preferences of Neighborhood Youth Corps Trainees, and (3)…

Evaluation of the Reformation of Navy Personally Procured Transportation

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-01

but also has multiple categories of items such as desks and dressers /chests. There is little explanation or definition of the categories, which may...rents a large truck/trailer for a cross -country trip. To receive the 60 percent advance on the monetary incentive, service members must go to the

Individualism, innovation, and long-run growth

PubMed Central

Gorodnichenko, Yuriy; Roland, Gerard

2011-01-01

Countries having a more individualist culture have enjoyed higher long-run growth than countries with a more collectivist culture. Individualist culture attaches social status rewards to personal achievements and thus, provides not only monetary incentives for innovation but also social status rewards, leading to higher rates of innovation and economic growth. PMID:22198759

Social values and the corruption argument against financial incentives for healthy behaviour

PubMed Central

Brown, Rebecca C H

2017-01-01

Financial incentives may provide a way of reducing the burden of chronic diseases by motivating people to adopt healthy behaviours. While it is still uncertain how effective such incentives could be for promoting health, some argue that, even if effective, there are ethical objections that preclude their use. One such argument is made by Michael Sandel, who suggests that monetary transactions can have a corrupting effect on the norms and values that ordinarily regulate exchange and behaviour in previously non-monetised contexts. In this paper, I outline Sandel's corruption argument and consider its validity in the context of health incentives. I distinguish between two forms of corruption that are implied by Sandel's argument: efficiency corruption and value corruption. While Sandel's thought-provoking discussion provides a valuable contribution to debates about health policies generally and health incentives specifically, I suggest the force of his criticism of health incentives is limited: further empirical evidence and theoretical reasoning are required to support the suggestion that health incentives are an inappropriate tool for promoting health. While I do not find Sandel's corruption argument compelling, this only constitutes a partial defence of health incentives, since other criticisms relating to their use may prove more successful. PMID:27738254

Independent functional connectivity networks underpin food and monetary reward sensitivity in excess weight.

PubMed

Verdejo-Román, Juan; Fornito, Alex; Soriano-Mas, Carles; Vilar-López, Raquel; Verdejo-García, Antonio

2017-02-01

Overvaluation of palatable food is a primary driver of obesity, and is associated with brain regions of the reward system. However, it remains unclear if this network is specialized in food reward, or generally involved in reward processing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize functional connectivity during processing of food and monetary rewards. Thirty-nine adults with excess weight and 37 adults with normal weight performed the Willingness to Pay for Food task and the Monetary Incentive Delay task in the fMRI scanner. A data-driven graph approach was applied to compare whole-brain, task-related functional connectivity between groups. Excess weight was associated with decreased functional connectivity during the processing of food rewards in a network involving primarily frontal and striatal areas, and increased functional connectivity during the processing of monetary rewards in a network involving principally frontal and parietal areas. These two networks were topologically and anatomically distinct, and were independently associated with BMI. The processing of food and monetary rewards involve segregated neural networks, and both are altered in individuals with excess weight. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study

PubMed Central

Brealey, Stephen D; Atwell, Christine; Bryan, Stirling; Coulton, Simon; Cox, Helen; Cross, Ben; Fylan, Fiona; Garratt, Andrew; Gilbert, Fiona J; Gillan, Maureen GC; Hendry, Maggie; Hood, Kerenza; Houston, Helen; King, David; Morton, Veronica; Orchard, Jo; Robling, Michael; Russell, Ian T; Torgerson, David; Wadsworth, Valerie; Wilkinson, Clare

2007-01-01

Background Poor response rates to postal questionnaires can introduce bias and reduce the statistical power of a study. To improve response rates in our trial in primary care we tested the effect of introducing an unconditional direct payment of £5 for the completion of postal questionnaires. Methods We recruited patients in general practice with knee problems from sites across the United Kingdom. An evidence-based strategy was used to follow-up patients at twelve months with postal questionnaires. This included an unconditional direct payment of £5 to patients for the completion and return of questionnaires. The first 105 patients did not receive the £5 incentive, but the subsequent 442 patients did. We used logistic regression to analyse the effect of introducing a monetary incentive to increase the response to postal questionnaires. Results The response rate following reminders for the historical controls was 78.1% (82 of 105) compared with 88.0% (389 of 442) for those patients who received the £5 payment (diff = 9.9%, 95% CI 2.3% to 19.1%). Direct payments significantly increased the odds of response (adjusted odds ratio = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.009) with only 12 of 442 patients declining the payment. The incentive did not save costs to the trial – the extra cost per additional respondent was almost £50. Conclusion The direct payment of £5 significantly increased the completion of postal questionnaires at negligible increase in cost for an adequately powered study. PMID:17326837

Paid protection? Ethics of incentivised long-acting reversible contraception in adolescents with alcohol and other drug use.

PubMed

Won, Tiana; Blumenthal-Barby, Jennifer; Chacko, Mariam

2017-03-01

Pregnant adolescents have a higher risk of poor maternal and fetal outcomes, particularly in the setting of concomitant maternal alcohol and other drug (AOD) use. Despite numerous programmes aimed at reducing overall teen pregnancy rates and the recognition of AOD use as a risk factor for unintended pregnancy in adolescents, interventions targeting this specific group have been sparse. In adult drug-using women, financial incentives for contraception have been provided but are ethically controversial. This article explores whether a trial could ethically employ monetary incentives in adolescents with AOD use to promote the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), with special attention to the relevant distinctions between adults and adolescents. We conclude that a trial of incentives to promote LARC in this patient population is ethically permissible if the incentives are small, are tied to completion of an educational activity to minimise the quick fix temptation and potential for non-attendance to the risks and benefits of LARC and are provided only to the adolescent after an assessment of her reasoning to rule out coercion (eg, by guardians) as motivation. Information about treatment for AOD use and follow-up care in case of problems with the contraceptive or desire for removal should also be provided. Before implementing such a trial, qualitative research with input from providers, potential patients and their parents should be conducted to inform the programme's specific structure. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

The relation between community bans of self-service tobacco displays and store environment and between tobacco accessibility and merchant incentives.

PubMed

Lee, R E; Feighery, E C; Schleicher, N C; Halvorson, S

2001-12-01

These studies investigated (1) the effect of community bans of self-service tobacco displays on store environment and (2) the effect of consumer tobacco accessibility on merchants. We counted cigarette displays (self-service, clerk-assisted, clear acrylic case) in 586 California stores. Merchant interviews (N = 198) identified consumer tobacco accessibility, tobacco company incentives, and shoplifting. Stores in communities with self-service tobacco display bans had fewer self-service displays and more acrylic displays but an equal total number of displays. The merchants who limited consumer tobacco accessibility received fewer incentives and reported lower shoplifting losses. In contrast, consumer access to tobacco was unrelated to the amount of monetary incentives. Community bans decreased self-service tobacco displays; however, exposure to tobacco advertising in acrylic displays remained high. Reducing consumer tobacco accessibility may reduce shoplifting.

Higher incentives can impair performance: neural evidence on reinforcement and rationality.

PubMed

Achtziger, Anja; Alós-Ferrer, Carlos; Hügelschäfer, Sabine; Steinhauser, Marco

2015-11-01

Standard economic thinking postulates that increased monetary incentives should increase performance. Human decision makers, however, frequently focus on past performance, a form of reinforcement learning occasionally at odds with rational decision making. We used an incentivized belief-updating task from economics to investigate this conflict through measurements of neural correlates of reward processing. We found that higher incentives fail to improve performance when immediate feedback on decision outcomes is provided. Subsequent analysis of the feedback-related negativity, an early event-related potential following feedback, revealed the mechanism behind this paradoxical effect. As incentives increase, the win/lose feedback becomes more prominent, leading to an increased reliance on reinforcement and more errors. This mechanism is relevant for economic decision making and the debate on performance-based payment. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Motivating employees through incentives: productive or a counterproductive strategy.

PubMed

Qayum, Mehran; Sawal, Shefa Haider; Khan, Hassan Mehmood

2014-05-01

The disparity between human resource in health and provision of health services is a growing concern worldwide. Many developing countries are facing this crisis and therefore human resource in health is considered a high priority on their agenda.This imbalance between supplies of human resource is exacerbated by migration of health workers in many countries. Understanding the motivational factor is an important aspect to retain the migrating health workforce. This paper analyses the role of financial and non financial incentives in motivating the health work force. A review of available literature was conducted to understand the role of motivational factor in retaining health workforce. A review of current literature found that an incentive plays a key role in motivating a health worker. Financial incentives are useful in improving the compliance to standard policies and procedures. Comprehensive integrated incentive system approach should be established to develop a sustainable health workforce with required skill. Likewise monetary incentives should be linked to adherence to provincial and national guidelines and procedures. Sustainability could be ensured by commitment of government, political will and involvement of key stakeholders and decision makers.

Oxytocin modulates hemodynamic responses to monetary incentives in humans

PubMed Central

Mickey, Brian J.; Heffernan, Joseph; Heisel, Curtis; Peciña, Marta; Hsu, David T.; Zubieta, Jon-Kar; Love, Tiffany M.

2016-01-01

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide widely recognized for its role in regulating social and reproductive behavior. Increasing evidence from animal models suggests that oxytocin also modulates reward circuitry in non-social contexts, but evidence in humans is lacking. Here we examined the effects of oxytocin administration on reward circuit function in 18 healthy men as they performed a monetary incentive task. The blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging in the context of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial of intranasal oxytocin. We found that oxytocin increases the BOLD signal in the midbrain (substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area) during the late phase of the hemodynamic response to incentive stimuli. Oxytocin’s effects on midbrain responses correlated positively with its effects on positive emotional state. We did not detect an effect of oxytocin on responses in the nucleus accumbens. Whole-brain analyses revealed that oxytocin attenuated medial prefrontal cortical deactivation specifically during anticipation of loss. Our findings demonstrate that intranasal administration of oxytocin modulates human midbrain and medial prefrontal function during motivated behavior. These findings suggest that endogenous oxytocin is a neurochemical mediator of reward behaviors in humans – even in a non-social context – and that the oxytocinergic system is a potential target of pharmacotherapy for psychiatric disorders that involve dysfunction of reward circuitry. PMID:27614896

Recruiting Health Information Faculty: The Effects of Monetary Recruitment Incentives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winter, Paul A.; Logsdon, Marsha R.

2004-01-01

This paper addresses recruitment of Health Information faculty for community and technical colleges, an issue of crucial importance because many faculty hired during the enrollment boom of the 1960s are retiring. The design for this research was a factorial experiment, involving a two-way analysis of variance. The participants (N = 194) were…

Simulation of Enlisted Sailor Assignment Process to Explore the Cost of Non-Monetary Incentives

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

Herzbergs Two - factor Theory (Exams_tutor_business) ....................... 6... two - factor theory , also known as Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory . (Exams_tutor_business) Herzberg categorized work related factors into two ...from Motivation - 4. Herzbergs Two Factor Theory : http://www.examstutor.com/business/resources/studyroom/people_and_or

The Effect of Disability Insurance on Health Investment: Evidence from the Veterans Benefits Administration's Disability Compensation Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singleton, Perry

2009-01-01

I examine whether individuals respond to monetary incentives to detect latent medical conditions. The effect is identified by a policy that deemed diabetes associated with herbicide exposure a compensable disability under the Veterans Benefits Administration's Disability Compensation program. Since a diagnosis is a requisite for benefit…

77 FR 19623 - Certain Welded Carbon Steel Standard Pipe from Turkey: Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-02

... International Financial Statistics, a publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For Euro-denominated... The Social Security Institution of the GOT administers the incentive for the Employer's Share in... certain welded carbon steel standard pipe from Turkey for the period January 1, 2010, through December 31...

Preliminary Examination of Adolescent Spending in a Contingency Management-Based Smoking-Cessation Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavallo, Dana A.; Nich, Charla; Schepis, Ty S.; Smith, Anne E.; Liss, Thomas B.; McFetridge, Amanda K.; Krishnan-Sarin, Suchitra

2010-01-01

Contingency management (CM) utilizing monetary incentives is efficacious in enhancing abstinence in an adolescent smoking-cessation program, but how adolescents spend their money has not been examined. We assessed spending habits of 38 adolescent smokers in a CM-based smoking-cessation project prior to quitting and during treatment using a…

Monetary incentives at retrieval promote recognition of involuntarily learned emotional information.

PubMed

Yan, Chunping; Li, Yunyun; Zhang, Qin; Cui, Lixia

2018-03-07

Previous studies have suggested that the effects of reward on memory processes are affected by certain factors, but it remains unclear whether the effects of reward at retrieval on recognition processes are influenced by emotion. The event-related potential was used to investigate the combined effect of reward and emotion on memory retrieval and its neural mechanism. The behavioral results indicated that the reward at retrieval improved recognition performance under positive and negative emotional conditions. The event-related potential results indicated that there were significant interactions between the reward and emotion in the average amplitude during recognition, and the significant reward effects from the frontal to parietal brain areas appeared at 130-800 ms for positive pictures and at 190-800 ms for negative pictures, but there were no significant reward effects of neutral pictures; the reward effect of positive items appeared relatively earlier, starting at 130 ms, and that of negative pictures began at 190 ms. These results indicate that monetary incentives at retrieval promote recognition of involuntarily learned emotional information.

Factors Identified with Higher Levels of Career Satisfaction of Physicians in Andalusia, Spain

PubMed Central

Peña-Sánchez, Juan Nicolás; Lepnurm, Rein; Morales-Asencio, José Miguel; Delgado, Ana; Domagała, Alicja; Górkiewicz, Maciej

2014-01-01

The satisfaction of physicians is a worldwide issue linked with the quality of health services; their satisfaction needs to be studied from a multi-dimensional perspective, considering lower- and higher-order needs. The objectives of this study were to: i) measure the career satisfaction of physicians; ii) identify differences in the dimensions of career satisfaction; and iii) test factors that affect higher- and lower-order needs of satisfaction among physicians working in Andalusian hospitals (Spain). Forty-one percent of 299 eligible physicians participated in a study conducted in six selected hospitals. Physicians reported higher professional, inherent, and performance satisfaction than personal satisfaction. Foreign physicians reported higher levels of personal and performance satisfaction than local physicians, and those who received non-monetary incentives had higher professional and performance satisfaction. In conclusion, physicians in the selected Andalusian hospitals reported low levels of personal satisfaction. Non-monetary incentives were more relevant to influence their career satisfaction. Further investigations are recommended to study differences in the career satisfaction between foreign and local physicians. PMID:26973935

The impact of incentives on intrinsic and extrinsic motives for fitness-center attendance in college first-year students.

PubMed

Pope, Lizzy; Harvey, Jean

2015-01-01

A criticism of incentives for health behaviors is that incentives undermine intrinsic motivation. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of monetary incentive provision on participation motives for exercise in first-year college students at a northeastern public university. Randomized-controlled trial. Public university in the Northeastern United States. One hundred seventeen first-year college students. Participants were randomized to one of three conditions: a control condition receiving no incentives for meeting fitness-center attendance goals; a discontinued-incentive condition receiving weekly incentives during fall semester 2011, and no incentives during spring semester 2012; or a continued-incentive condition receiving weekly incentives during fall semester, and incentives on a variable-interval schedule during spring semester. The Exercise Motivation Inventory 2 measured exercise participation motives at baseline, end of fall semester, and end of spring semester. Fitness-center attendance was monitored by using ID-card check-in/check-out records. Repeated-measures analyses using linear mixed models with first-order autoregressive covariance structures were run to compare motive changes in the three conditions. Participation motives of Enjoyment and Revitalization associated with intrinsic motivation did not decrease significantly over time in any of the conditions, F(4, 218) = 2.25, p = .065 and F(4, 220) = 1.67, p = .16, respectively. Intrinsically associated participation motives for exercise did not decrease with incentive provision. Therefore, incentives may encourage fitness-center attendance without negatively impacting participation motives for exercise.

Cost savings in a hospital clinical laboratory with a pay-for-performance incentive program for supervisors.

PubMed

Winkelman, J W; Aitken, J L; Wybenga, D R

1991-01-01

A pay-for-performance incentive program for clinical laboratory supervisors was developed and implemented at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, Mass). It provides monetary rewards to personnel who directly produce cost savings in their area of responsibility. This reward system is new to the hospital laboratory but is commonly used in industry. Substantial true cost savings over and above previously established stringent budgets were achieved, 11% of which was returned to first-line supervisors in the form of a bonus. The program expanded the scope of professionalism for supervisors to include fiscal management.

Competing for the benefit of offspring eliminates the gender gap in competitiveness

PubMed Central

Cassar, Alessandra; Wordofa, Feven; Zhang, Y. Jane

2016-01-01

Recent advances have highlighted the evolutionary significance of female competition, with the sexes pursuing different competitive strategies and women reserving their most intense competitive behaviors for the benefit of offspring. Influential economic experiments using cash incentives, however, have found evidence suggesting that women have a lower desire to compete than men. We hypothesize that the estimated gender differences critically depend on how we elicit them, especially on the incentives used. We test this hypothesis through an experiment with adults in China (n = 358). Data show that, once the incentives are switched from monetary to child-benefitting, gender differences disappear. This result suggests that female competition can be just as intense as male competition given the right goals, indicating important implications for policies designed to promote gender equality. PMID:27114513

Competing for the benefit of offspring eliminates the gender gap in competitiveness.

PubMed

Cassar, Alessandra; Wordofa, Feven; Zhang, Y Jane

2016-05-10

Recent advances have highlighted the evolutionary significance of female competition, with the sexes pursuing different competitive strategies and women reserving their most intense competitive behaviors for the benefit of offspring. Influential economic experiments using cash incentives, however, have found evidence suggesting that women have a lower desire to compete than men. We hypothesize that the estimated gender differences critically depend on how we elicit them, especially on the incentives used. We test this hypothesis through an experiment with adults in China (n = 358). Data show that, once the incentives are switched from monetary to child-benefitting, gender differences disappear. This result suggests that female competition can be just as intense as male competition given the right goals, indicating important implications for policies designed to promote gender equality.

Effect of GABRA2 Genotype on Development of Incentive-Motivation Circuitry in a Sample Enriched for Alcoholism Risk

PubMed Central

Heitzeg, Mary M; Villafuerte, Sandra; Weiland, Barbara J; Enoch, Mary-Anne; Burmeister, Margit; Zubieta, Jon-Kar; Zucker, Robert A

2014-01-01

Heightened reactivity of the incentive-motivation system has been proposed to underlie adolescent-typical risky behaviors, including problem alcohol involvement. However, even in adolescence considerable individual variation in these behaviors exists, which may have genetic underpinnings and be related to variations in risk for later alcohol use disorder (AUD). Variants in GABRA2 have been associated with adult alcohol dependence as well as phenotypic precursors, including impulsiveness and externalizing behaviors. We investigated the impact of GABRA2 on the developmental trajectory of nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation during anticipation of monetary reward from childhood to young adulthood. Functional MRI during a monetary incentive delay task was collected in 175 participants, with the majority (n=151) undergoing repeated scanning at 1- to 2-year intervals. One group entered the study at age 8–13 years (n=76) and another entered at age 18–23 years (n=99). Most participants were children of alcoholics (79%) and thus at heightened risk for AUD. A total of 473 sessions were completed, covering ages 8–27 years. NAcc activation was heightened during adolescence compared with childhood and young adulthood. GABRA2 genotype (SNP rs279858) was associated with individual differences in NAcc activation specifically during adolescence, with the minor allele (G) associated with greater activation. Furthermore, NAcc activation mediated an effect of genotype on alcohol problems (n=104). This work demonstrates an impact of GABRA2 genotype on incentive-motivation neurocircuitry in adolescence, with implications for vulnerability to alcoholism. These findings represent an important step toward understanding the genetic and neural basis of individual differences in how risk for addiction unfolds across development. PMID:24975023

The Effect of Positive and Negative Feedback on Risk-Taking across Different Contexts.

PubMed

Losecaat Vermeer, Annabel B; Sanfey, Alan G

2015-01-01

Preferences for risky choices have often been shown to be unstable and context-dependent. Though people generally avoid gambles with mixed outcomes, a phenomenon often attributed to loss aversion, contextual factors can impact this dramatically. For example, people typically prefer risky options after a financial loss, while generally choosing safer options after a monetary gain. However, it is unclear what exactly contributes to these preference shifts as a function of prior outcomes, as these gain/loss outcomes are usually confounded with participant performance, and therefore it is unclear whether these effects are driven purely by the monetary gains or losses, or rather by success or failure at the actual task. Here, we experimentally separated the effects of monetary gains/losses from performance success/failure prior to a standard risky choice. Participants performed a task in which they experienced contextual effects: 1) monetary gain or loss based directly on performance, 2) monetary gain or loss that was randomly awarded and was, crucially, independent from performance, and 3) success or failure feedback based on performance, but without any monetary incentive. Immediately following these positive/negative contexts, participants were presented with a gain-loss gamble that they had to decide to either play or pass. We found that risk preferences for identical sets of gambles were biased by positive and negative contexts containing monetary gains and losses, but not by contexts containing performance feedback. This data suggests that the observed framing effects are driven by aversion for monetary losses and not simply by the positive or negative valence of the context, or by potential moods resulting from positive or negative contexts. These results highlight the specific context dependence of risk preferences.

Brain reward system's alterations in response to food and monetary stimuli in overweight and obese individuals.

PubMed

Verdejo-Román, Juan; Vilar-López, Raquel; Navas, Juan F; Soriano-Mas, Carles; Verdejo-García, Antonio

2017-02-01

The brain's reward system is crucial to understand obesity in modern society, as increased neural responsivity to reward can fuel the unhealthy food choices that are driving the growing obesity epidemic. Brain's reward system responsivity to food and monetary rewards in individuals with excessive weight (overweight and obese) versus normal weight controls, along with the relationship between this responsivity and body mass index (BMI) were tested. The sample comprised 21 adults with obesity (BMI > 30), 21 with overweight (BMI between 25 and 30), and 39 with normal weight (BMI < 25). Participants underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session while performing two tasks that involve the processing of food (Willing to Pay) and monetary rewards (Monetary Incentive Delay). Neural activations within the brain reward system were compared across the three groups. Curve fit analyses were conducted to establish the association between BMI and brain reward system's response. Individuals with obesity had greater food-evoked responsivity in the dorsal and ventral striatum compared with overweight and normal weight groups. There was an inverted U-shape association between BMI and monetary-evoked responsivity in the ventral striatum, medial frontal cortex, and amygdala; that is, individuals with BMIs between 27 and 32 had greater responsivity to monetary stimuli. Obesity is associated with greater food-evoked responsivity in the ventral and dorsal striatum, and overweight is associated with greater monetary-evoked responsivity in the ventral striatum, the amygdala, and the medial frontal cortex. Findings suggest differential reactivity of the brain's reward system to food versus monetary rewards in obesity and overweight. Hum Brain Mapp 38:666-677, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A National Study To Assess Payments and Benefits to Cooperating Teachers Working with Teacher Training Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barker, Bruce O.; And Others

The major purpose of this study was to find out how much money colleges and universities pay public school cooperating teachers who supervise student teachers, education students' early field experiences, or pre-student teaching. Two secondary purposes were to determine what other incentives, besides monetary remuneration, are granted and the role…

Allocating Non-Monetary Incentives for Navy Nurse Corps Officers: Menu Method vs. Bid Method Combinatorial Retention Auction Mechanism (CRAM)

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

in a pyramid style, as shown in Table 6. The pyramid style gradually introduces complexity into the process and identifies learning effects by later...Corps BUMED Bethesda, Maryland 4. Captain Pamela Giza , NC, USN Deputy Director, Navy Nurse Corps BUMED Bethesda, Maryland 5. Captain Regina

Personal Goals and Global Awareness of American Community College Women regarding Parenthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strom, Robert D.; Strom, Paris S.

2010-01-01

Young women in many countries are choosing a future without children. The scope of decline in fertility rates among developed nations is described along with public policy efforts intended to reverse the course of population change. The initiatives commonly used to persuade women that they should become mothers are monetary incentives and…

Evaluating the Impact of a Connecticut Program to Reduce Availability of Unhealthy Competitive Food in Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Long, Michael W.; Henderson, Kathryn E.; Schwartz, Marlene B.

2010-01-01

Background: This article seeks to inform state and local school food policies by evaluating the impact of Connecticut's Healthy Food Certification (HFC), a program which provides monetary incentives to school districts that choose to implement state nutrition standards for all foods sold to students outside reimbursable school meals. Methods: Food…

Performance Pay Improves Engagement, Progress, and Satisfaction in Computer-Based Job Skills Training of Low-Income Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koffarnus, Mikhail N.; DeFulio, Anthony; Sigurdsson, Sigurdur O.; Silverman, Kenneth

2013-01-01

Advancing the education of low-income adults could increase employment and income, but adult education programs have not successfully engaged low-income adults. Monetary reinforcement may be effective in promoting progress in adult education. This experiment evaluated the benefits of providing incentives for performance in a job-skills training…

78 FR 8032 - Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-02-05

... believe that this growth is being caused by the offering of incentives for referrals to use this service... precipitated largely by new referral programs that offer monetary rewards for the referral of customers who... cost to the consumer. In short, offering such rewards may have the effect of enlisting customers who...

Strategies to improve retention in randomised trials

PubMed Central

Brueton, Valerie C; Tierney, Jayne; Stenning, Sally; Harding, Seeromanie; Meredith, Sarah; Nazareth, Irwin; Rait, Greta

2013-01-01

Background Loss to follow-up from randomised trials can introduce bias and reduce study power, affecting the generalisability, validity and reliability of results. Many strategies are used to reduce loss to follow-up and improve retention but few have been formally evaluated. Objectives To quantify the effect of strategies to improve retention on the proportion of participants retained in randomised trials and to investigate if the effect varied by trial strategy and trial setting. Search methods We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, DARE, CINAHL, Campbell Collaboration's Social, Psychological, Educational and Criminological Trials Register, and ERIC. We handsearched conference proceedings and publication reference lists for eligible retention trials. We also surveyed all UK Clinical Trials Units to identify further studies. Selection criteria We included eligible retention trials of randomised or quasi-randomised evaluations of strategies to increase retention that were embedded in 'host' randomised trials from all disease areas and healthcare settings. We excluded studies aiming to increase treatment compliance. Data collection and analysis We contacted authors to supplement or confirm data that we had extracted. For retention trials, we recorded data on the method of randomisation, type of strategy evaluated, comparator, primary outcome, planned sample size, numbers randomised and numbers retained. We used risk ratios (RR) to evaluate the effectiveness of the addition of strategies to improve retention. We assessed heterogeneity between trials using the Chi2 and I2 statistics. For main trials that hosted retention trials, we extracted data on disease area, intervention, population, healthcare setting, sequence generation and allocation concealment. Main results We identified 38 eligible retention trials. Included trials evaluated six broad types of strategies to improve retention. These were incentives, communication strategies, new questionnaire format, participant case management, behavioural and methodological interventions. For 34 of the included trials, retention was response to postal and electronic questionnaires with or without medical test kits. For four trials, retention was the number of participants remaining in the trial. Included trials were conducted across a spectrum of disease areas, countries, healthcare and community settings. Strategies that improved trial retention were addition of monetary incentives compared with no incentive for return of trial-related postal questionnaires (RR 1.18; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.28, P value < 0.0001), addition of an offer of monetary incentive compared with no offer for return of electronic questionnaires (RR 1.25; 95% CI 1.14 to 1.38, P value < 0.00001) and an offer of a GBP20 voucher compared with GBP10 for return of postal questionnaires and biomedical test kits (RR 1.12; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.22, P value < 0.005). The evidence that shorter questionnaires are better than longer questionnaires was unclear (RR 1.04; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.08, P value = 0.07) and the evidence for questionnaires relevant to the disease/condition was also unclear (RR 1.07; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.14). Although each was based on the results of a single trial, recorded delivery of questionnaires seemed to be more effective than telephone reminders (RR 2.08; 95% CI 1.11 to 3.87, P value = 0.02) and a 'package' of postal communication strategies with reminder letters appeared to be better than standard procedures (RR 1.43; 95% CI 1.22 to 1.67, P value < 0.0001). An open trial design also appeared more effective than a blind trial design for return of questionnaires in one fracture prevention trial (RR 1.37; 95% CI 1.16 to 1.63, P value = 0.0003). There was no good evidence that the addition of a non-monetary incentive, an offer of a non-monetary incentive, 'enhanced' letters, letters delivered by priority post, additional reminders, or questionnaire question order either increased or decreased trial questionnaire response/retention. There was also no evidence that a telephone survey was either more or less effective than a monetary incentive and a questionnaire. As our analyses are based on single trials, the effect on questionnaire response of using offers of charity donations, sending reminders to trial sites and when a questionnaire is sent, may need further evaluation. Case management and behavioural strategies used for trial retention may also warrant further evaluation. Authors' conclusions Most of the retention trials that we identified evaluated questionnaire response. There were few evaluations of ways to improve participants returning to trial sites for trial follow-up. Monetary incentives and offers of monetary incentives increased postal and electronic questionnaire response. Some other strategies evaluated in single trials looked promising but need further evaluation. Application of the findings of this review would depend on trial setting, population, disease area, data collection and follow-up procedures. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY Methods that might help to keep people in randomised trials Background Most trials follow people up to collect data through personal contact after they have been recruited. Some trials get data from other sources, such as routine collected data or disease registers. There are many ways to collect data from people in trials, and these include using letters, the internet, telephone calls, text messaging, face-to-face meetings or the return of medical test kits. Most trials have missing data, for example, because people are too busy to reply, are unable to attend a clinic, have moved or no longer want to participate. Sometimes data has not been recorded at study sites, or are not sent to the trial co-ordinating centre. Researchers call this 'loss to follow-up', 'drop out' or 'attrition' and it can affect the trial's results. For example, if the people with the most or least severe symptoms do not return questionnaires or attend a follow-up visit, this will bias the findings of the trial. Many methods are used by researchers to keep people in trials. These encourage people to send back data by questionnaire, return to a clinic or hospital for trial-related tests, or be seen by a health or community care worker. Study characteristics This review identified methods that encouraged people to stay in trials. We searched scientific databases for randomised studies (where people are allocated to one of two or more possible treatments in a random manner) or quasi-randomised studies (where allocation is not really random, e.g. based on date of birth, order in which they attended clinic) that compared methods of increasing retention in trials. We included trials of participants from any age, gender, ethnic, cultural, language and geographic groups. Key results The methods that appeared to work were offering or giving a small amount of money for return of a completed questionnaire and enclosing a small amount of money with a questionnaire with the promise of a further small amount of money for return of a filled in questionnaire. The effect of other ways to keep people in trials is still not clear and more research is needed to see if these really do work. Such methods are shorter questionnaires, sending questionnaires by recorded delivery, using a trial design where people know which treatment they will receive, sending specially designed letters with a reply self addressed stamped envelope followed by a number of reminders, offering a donation to charity or entry into a prize draw, sending a reminder to the study site about participants to follow-up, sending questionnaires close to the time the patient was last followed-up, managing peoples' follow-up, conducting follow-up by telephone and changing the order of questionnaire questions. Quality of evidence The methods that we identified were tested in trials run in many different disease areas and settings and, in some cases, were tested in only one trial. Therefore, more studies are needed to help decide whether our findings could be used in other research fields. PMID:24297482

Why Don't You Try Harder? An Investigation of Effort Production in Major Depression

PubMed Central

Cléry-Melin, Marie-Laure; Schmidt, Liane; Lafargue, Gilles; Baup, Nicolas; Fossati, Philippe; Pessiglione, Mathias

2011-01-01

Depression is mainly characterized as an emotional disorder, associated with reduced approach behavior. It remains unclear whether the difficulty in energising behavior relates to abnormal emotional states or to a flattened response to potential rewards, as suggested by several neuroimaging studies. Here, we aimed to demonstrate a specific incentive motivation deficit in major depression, independent of patients' emotional state. We employed a behavioral paradigm designed to measure physical effort in response to both emotional modulation and incentive motivation. Patients did exert more effort following emotionally arousing pictures (whether positive or negative) but not for higher monetary incentives, contrary to healthy controls. These results show that emotional and motivational sources of effort production are dissociable in pathological conditions. In addition, patients' ratings of perceived effort increased for high incentives, whereas controls' ratings were decreased. Thus, depressed patients objectively behave as if they do not want to gain larger rewards, but subjectively feel that they try harder. We suggest that incentive motivation impairment is a core deficit of major depression, which may render everyday tasks abnormally effortful for patients. PMID:21853083

Comparing farmers' market revenue trends before and after the implementation of a monetary incentive for recipients of food assistance.

PubMed

Freedman, Darcy A; Mattison-Faye, Amy; Alia, Kassandra; Guest, M Aaron; Hébert, James R

2014-05-22

We examined the influence of an intervention to increase fruit and vegetable purchases at farmers' markets for recipients of food assistance, Shop N Save (SNS), on revenue trends at a farmers' market located at a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in rural South Carolina. We compared revenue trends for 20 weeks before the intervention (2011) and 20 weeks after (2012). SNS provided one $5 monetary incentive per week to customers spending $5 or more in food assistance at the farmers' market. SNS was available to any farmers' market customer using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and/or Senior or WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) vouchers. Sales receipts were recorded for each transaction at the farmers' market to document payment type and the cost of the purchase. All SNS participants completed a one-time enrollment survey. A total of 336 customers self-enrolled in SNS from June through October 2012. Most SNS participants were female, African American, and patients at the FQHC. In total, the use of all forms of food assistance (SNAP, WIC, and FMNP) at the farmers' market increased significantly after the intervention (from 10% before, to 25% after, P = .003). Senior FMNP vouchers and SNAP usage increased the most. Interventions that provide incentives to recipients of food assistance programs at farmers' markets are a viable strategy for increasing food assistance usage and revenue.

Comparing Farmers’ Market Revenue Trends Before and After the Implementation of a Monetary Incentive for Recipients of Food Assistance

PubMed Central

Mattison-Faye, Amy; Alia, Kassandra; Guest, M. Aaron; Hébert, James R.

2014-01-01

Introduction We examined the influence of an intervention to increase fruit and vegetable purchases at farmers’ markets for recipients of food assistance, Shop N Save (SNS), on revenue trends at a farmers’ market located at a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in rural South Carolina. We compared revenue trends for 20 weeks before the intervention (2011) and 20 weeks after (2012). Methods SNS provided one $5 monetary incentive per week to customers spending $5 or more in food assistance at the farmers’ market. SNS was available to any farmers’ market customer using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and/or Senior or WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) vouchers. Sales receipts were recorded for each transaction at the farmers’ market to document payment type and the cost of the purchase. All SNS participants completed a one-time enrollment survey. Results A total of 336 customers self-enrolled in SNS from June through October 2012. Most SNS participants were female, African American, and patients at the FQHC. In total, the use of all forms of food assistance (SNAP, WIC, and FMNP) at the farmers’ market increased significantly after the intervention (from 10% before, to 25% after, P = .003). Senior FMNP vouchers and SNAP usage increased the most. Conclusion Interventions that provide incentives to recipients of food assistance programs at farmers’ markets are a viable strategy for increasing food assistance usage and revenue. PMID:24854238

Task relevance regulates the interaction between reward expectation and emotion.

PubMed

Wei, Ping; Kang, Guanlan

2014-06-01

In the present study, we investigated the impact of reward expectation on the processing of emotional facial expression using a cue-target paradigm. A cue indicating the reward condition of each trial (incentive vs. non-incentive) was followed by the presentation of a picture of an emotional face, the target. Participants were asked to discriminate the emotional expression of the target face in Experiment 1, to discriminate the gender of the target face in Experiment 2, and to judge a number superimposed on the center of the target face as even or odd in Experiment 3, rendering the emotional expression of the target face as task relevant in Experiment 1 but task irrelevant in Experiments 2 and 3. Faster reaction times (RTs) were observed in the monetary incentive condition than in the non-incentive condition, demonstrating the effect of reward on facilitating task concentration. Moreover, the reward effect (i.e., RTs in non-incentive conditions versus incentive conditions) was larger for emotional faces than for neutral faces when emotional expression was task relevant but not when it was task irrelevant. The findings suggest that top-down incentive motivation biased attentional processing toward task-relevant stimuli, and that task relevance played an important role in regulating the influence of reward expectation on the processing of emotional stimuli.

Blood donors' attitudes towards incentives: influence on motivation to donate.

PubMed

Kasraian, Leila; Maghsudlu, Mahtab

2012-04-01

Understanding the factors that motivate donors to donate will facilitate improvements in recruitment programmes. Donation incentives are often used to improve the effect of recruitment programmes. This cross-sectional study was designed to understand donors' attitudes toward incentives. Participants (n=421) were recruited among volunteer donors at the Shiraz Blood Transfusion Centre when they registered for blood donation. They completed a questionnaire with items regarding demographic characteristics, donation status (first-time donor or regular donor), and their motivation for donating, their attitude towards incentives, and the best type of incentives. Multiple logistic regression and chi-squared tests were used to analyse the data with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The majority of donors (85.6%) donated blood for altruistic reasons. One quarter of the donors (25.3%) believed that incentives should be offered to encourage them to donate. Most donors (84.5%) believed that the most effective incentive was offering specific blood tests. Donors who had donated for non-altruistic reasons were more interested in receiving incentives. The desire to receive incentives was more widespread among younger, married, first-time donors, donors with a lower educational level and donors with a history of more than five donations. The desire to receive incentives decreased as age increased. Most of the donors (74.7%) had no desire to receive incentives, and this was even more apparent among donors who donated for altruistic reasons. Non-monetary incentives may be effective in attracting younger, married, first-time donors, donors with a lower educational level and donors with a history of more than five donations.

Paying for performance: Performance incentives increase desire for the reward object.

PubMed

Hur, Julia D; Nordgren, Loran F

2016-09-01

The current research examines how exposure to performance incentives affects one's desire for the reward object. We hypothesized that the flexible nature of performance incentives creates an attentional fixation on the reward object (e.g., money), which leads people to become more desirous of the rewards. Results from 5 laboratory experiments and 1 large-scale field study provide support for this prediction. When performance was incentivized with monetary rewards, participants reported being more desirous of money (Study 1), put in more effort to earn additional money in an ensuing task (Study 2), and were less willing to donate money to charity (Study 4). We replicated the result with nonmonetary rewards (Study 5). We also found that performance incentives increased attention to the reward object during the task, which in part explains the observed effects (Study 6). A large-scale field study replicated these findings in a real-world setting (Study 7). One laboratory experiment failed to replicate (Study 3). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

An Experimental Study of the Effects of Monetary Incentives on Performance on the 12th-Grade NAEP Reading Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braun, Henry; Kirsch, Irwin; Yamamoto, Kentaro

2011-01-01

Background/context: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only comparative assessment of academic competencies regularly administered to nationally representative samples of students enrolled in Grades 4, 8, and 12. Because NAEP is a low-stakes assessment, there are long-standing questions about the level of engagement and…

Impact of Monetary Incentives and Mailing Procedures: An Experiment in a Federally Sponsored Telephone Survey. Methodology Report. NCES 2006-066

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brick, J. Michael; Hagedorn, Mary Collins; Montaquila, Jill; Roth, Shelley Brock; Chapman, Christopher

2006-01-01

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) includes a series of random digit dial (RDD) surveys developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to collect information on important educational issues through telephone surveys of…

Parents' Employment and Children's Wellbeing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heinrich, Carolyn J.

2014-01-01

Since modern welfare reform began in the 1980s, we have seen low-income parents leave the welfare rolls and join the workforce in large numbers. At the same time, the Earned Income Tax Credit has offered a monetary incentive for low-income parents to work. Thus, unlike some of the other two-generation mechanisms discussed in this issue of…

Social values and the corruption argument against financial incentives for healthy behaviour.

PubMed

Brown, Rebecca C H

2017-03-01

Financial incentives may provide a way of reducing the burden of chronic diseases by motivating people to adopt healthy behaviours. While it is still uncertain how effective such incentives could be for promoting health, some argue that, even if effective, there are ethical objections that preclude their use. One such argument is made by Michael Sandel, who suggests that monetary transactions can have a corrupting effect on the norms and values that ordinarily regulate exchange and behaviour in previously non-monetised contexts. In this paper, I outline Sandel's corruption argument and consider its validity in the context of health incentives. I distinguish between two forms of corruption that are implied by Sandel's argument: efficiency corruption and value corruption While Sandel's thought-provoking discussion provides a valuable contribution to debates about health policies generally and health incentives specifically, I suggest the force of his criticism of health incentives is limited: further empirical evidence and theoretical reasoning are required to support the suggestion that health incentives are an inappropriate tool for promoting health. While I do not find Sandel's corruption argument compelling, this only constitutes a partial defence of health incentives, since other criticisms relating to their use may prove more successful. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Punitive preferences, monetary incentives and tacit coordination in the punishment of defectors promote cooperation in humans

PubMed Central

Diekmann, Andreas; Przepiorka, Wojtek

2015-01-01

Peer-punishment is effective in promoting cooperation, but the costs associated with punishing defectors often exceed the benefits for the group. It has been argued that centralized punishment institutions can overcome the detrimental effects of peer-punishment. However, this argument presupposes the existence of a legitimate authority and leaves an unresolved gap in the transition from peer-punishment to centralized punishment. Here we show that the origins of centralized punishment could lie in individuals’ distinct ability to punish defectors. In our laboratory experiment, we vary the structure of the punishment situation to disentangle the effects of punitive preferences, monetary incentives, and individual punishment costs on the punishment of defectors. We find that actors tacitly coordinate on the strongest group member to punish defectors, even if the strongest individual incurs a net loss from punishment. Such coordination leads to a more effective and more efficient provision of a cooperative environment than we observe in groups of all equals. Our results show that even an arbitrary assignment of an individual to a focal position in the social hierarchy can trigger the endogenous emergence of more centralized forms of punishment. PMID:25988875

Punitive preferences, monetary incentives and tacit coordination in the punishment of defectors promote cooperation in humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diekmann, Andreas; Przepiorka, Wojtek

2015-05-01

Peer-punishment is effective in promoting cooperation, but the costs associated with punishing defectors often exceed the benefits for the group. It has been argued that centralized punishment institutions can overcome the detrimental effects of peer-punishment. However, this argument presupposes the existence of a legitimate authority and leaves an unresolved gap in the transition from peer-punishment to centralized punishment. Here we show that the origins of centralized punishment could lie in individuals’ distinct ability to punish defectors. In our laboratory experiment, we vary the structure of the punishment situation to disentangle the effects of punitive preferences, monetary incentives, and individual punishment costs on the punishment of defectors. We find that actors tacitly coordinate on the strongest group member to punish defectors, even if the strongest individual incurs a net loss from punishment. Such coordination leads to a more effective and more efficient provision of a cooperative environment than we observe in groups of all equals. Our results show that even an arbitrary assignment of an individual to a focal position in the social hierarchy can trigger the endogenous emergence of more centralized forms of punishment.

Punitive preferences, monetary incentives and tacit coordination in the punishment of defectors promote cooperation in humans.

PubMed

Diekmann, Andreas; Przepiorka, Wojtek

2015-05-19

Peer-punishment is effective in promoting cooperation, but the costs associated with punishing defectors often exceed the benefits for the group. It has been argued that centralized punishment institutions can overcome the detrimental effects of peer-punishment. However, this argument presupposes the existence of a legitimate authority and leaves an unresolved gap in the transition from peer-punishment to centralized punishment. Here we show that the origins of centralized punishment could lie in individuals' distinct ability to punish defectors. In our laboratory experiment, we vary the structure of the punishment situation to disentangle the effects of punitive preferences, monetary incentives, and individual punishment costs on the punishment of defectors. We find that actors tacitly coordinate on the strongest group member to punish defectors, even if the strongest individual incurs a net loss from punishment. Such coordination leads to a more effective and more efficient provision of a cooperative environment than we observe in groups of all equals. Our results show that even an arbitrary assignment of an individual to a focal position in the social hierarchy can trigger the endogenous emergence of more centralized forms of punishment.

Human aging reduces the neurobehavioral influence of motivation on episodic memory.

PubMed

Geddes, Maiya R; Mattfeld, Aaron T; Angeles, Carlo de Los; Keshavan, Anisha; Gabrieli, John D E

2018-05-01

The neural circuitry mediating the influence of motivation on long-term declarative or episodic memory formation is delineated in young adults, but its status is unknown in healthy aging. We examined the effect of reward and punishment anticipation on intentional declarative memory formation for words using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) monetary incentive encoding task in twenty-one younger and nineteen older adults. At 24-hour memory retrieval testing, younger adults were significantly more likely to remember words associated with motivational cues than neutral cues. Motivational enhancement of memory in younger adults occurred only for recollection ("remember" responses) and not for familiarity ("familiar" responses). Older adults had overall diminished memory and did not show memory gains in association with motivational cues. Memory encoding associated with monetary rewards or punishments activated motivational (substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area) and memory-related (hippocampus) brain regions in younger, but not older, adults during the target word periods. In contrast, older and younger adults showed similar activation of these brain regions during the anticipatory motivational cue interval. In a separate monetary incentive delay task that did not require learning, we found evidence for relatively preserved striatal reward anticipation in older adults. This supports a potential dissociation between incidental and intentional motivational processes in healthy aging. The finding that motivation to obtain rewards and avoid punishments had reduced behavioral and neural influence on intentional episodic memory formation in older compared to younger adults is relevant to life-span theories of cognitive aging including the dopaminergic vulnerability hypothesis. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Loss anticipation and outcome during the Monetary Incentive Delay Task: a neuroimaging systematic review and meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Dugré, Jules R.; Dumais, Alexandre; Bitar, Nathalie

2018-01-01

Background Reward seeking and avoidance of punishment are key motivational processes. Brain-imaging studies often use the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT) to evaluate motivational processes involved in maladaptive behavior. Although the bulk of research has been done on the MIDT reward events, little is known about the neural basis of avoidance of punishment. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of brain activations during anticipation and receipt of monetary losses in healthy controls. Methods All functional neuro-imaging studies using the MIDT in healthy controls were retrieved using PubMed, Google Scholar & EMBASE databases. Functional neuro-imaging data was analyzed using the Seed-based d Mapping Software. Results Thirty-five studies met the inclusion criteria, comprising 699 healthy adults. In both anticipation and loss outcome phases, participants showed large and robust activations in the bilateral striatum, (anterior) insula, and anterior cingulate gyrus relatively to Loss > Neutral contrast. Although relatively similar activation patterns were observed during the two event types, they differed in the pattern of prefrontal activations: ventro-lateral prefrontal activations were observed during loss anticipation, while medial prefrontal activations were observed during loss receipt. Discussion Considering that previous meta-analyses highlighted activations in the medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior insula and the ventral striatum, the current meta-analysis highlighted the potential specificity of the ventro-lateral prefrontal regions, the median cingulate cortex and the amygdala in the loss events. Future studies can rely on these latter results to examine the neural correlates of loss processing in psychiatric populations characterized by harm avoidance or insensitivity to punishment. PMID:29761060

Loss anticipation and outcome during the Monetary Incentive Delay Task: a neuroimaging systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Dugré, Jules R; Dumais, Alexandre; Bitar, Nathalie; Potvin, Stéphane

2018-01-01

Reward seeking and avoidance of punishment are key motivational processes. Brain-imaging studies often use the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT) to evaluate motivational processes involved in maladaptive behavior. Although the bulk of research has been done on the MIDT reward events, little is known about the neural basis of avoidance of punishment. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of brain activations during anticipation and receipt of monetary losses in healthy controls. All functional neuro-imaging studies using the MIDT in healthy controls were retrieved using PubMed, Google Scholar & EMBASE databases. Functional neuro-imaging data was analyzed using the Seed-based d Mapping Software. Thirty-five studies met the inclusion criteria, comprising 699 healthy adults. In both anticipation and loss outcome phases, participants showed large and robust activations in the bilateral striatum, (anterior) insula, and anterior cingulate gyrus relatively to Loss > Neutral contrast. Although relatively similar activation patterns were observed during the two event types, they differed in the pattern of prefrontal activations: ventro-lateral prefrontal activations were observed during loss anticipation, while medial prefrontal activations were observed during loss receipt. Considering that previous meta-analyses highlighted activations in the medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior insula and the ventral striatum, the current meta-analysis highlighted the potential specificity of the ventro-lateral prefrontal regions, the median cingulate cortex and the amygdala in the loss events. Future studies can rely on these latter results to examine the neural correlates of loss processing in psychiatric populations characterized by harm avoidance or insensitivity to punishment.

Diminished fronto-striatal activity during processing of monetary rewards and losses in pathological gambling

PubMed Central

Balodis, Iris M.; Kober, Hedy; Worhunsky, Patrick D.; Stevens, Michael C.; Pearlson, Godfrey D.; Potenza, Marc N.

2012-01-01

Background Mesocorticolimbic neurocircuitry and impulsivity have both been implicated in pathological gambling (PG) and in reward processing. However, the neural underpinnings of specific phases of reward and loss processing in PG and their relationships to impulsivity remain only partially understood. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined brain activity associated with different phases of reward and loss processing in PG. Given an inverse relationship between ventral striatal recruitment during anticipation of monetary rewards and impulsivity in alcohol dependence, the current study explored whether a similar association might also be present in PG. Methods Fourteen adults with PG and 14 control comparison (CC) participants performed the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT) to identify brain activation changes associated with reward/loss prospect, reward/loss anticipation and reward/loss notification. Impulsivity was assessed separately using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Results Relative to the CC group, the PG group exhibited significantly reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, insula and ventral striatum during several phases, including the prospect and anticipation phases of both gain and losses. Activity in the ventral striatum correlated inversely with levels of impulsivity in PG participants, consistent with prior findings in alcohol dependence. Conclusions Relatively decreased activity in cortico-striatal neurocircuitry during multiple phases of reward processing suggests consistent alterations in neurocircuitry underlying incentive valuation and loss prediction. Together with findings in alcohol dependence, these results suggest that impulsive tendencies in addictions may be reflected in diminished ventral striatal activations to reward anticipation and may represent targets for treatment development in addictions. PMID:22336565

Diminished frontostriatal activity during processing of monetary rewards and losses in pathological gambling.

PubMed

Balodis, Iris M; Kober, Hedy; Worhunsky, Patrick D; Stevens, Michael C; Pearlson, Godfrey D; Potenza, Marc N

2012-04-15

Mesocorticolimbic neurocircuitry and impulsivity have both been implicated in pathological gambling (PG) and in reward processing. However, the neural underpinnings of specific phases of reward and loss processing in PG and their relationships to impulsivity remain only partially understood. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined brain activity associated with different phases of reward and loss processing in PG. Given an inverse relationship between ventral striatal recruitment during anticipation of monetary rewards and impulsivity in alcohol dependence, the current study explored whether a similar association might also be present in PG. Fourteen adults with PG and 14 control comparison participants performed the Monetary Incentive Delay Task to identify brain activation changes associated with reward/loss prospect, reward/loss anticipation, and reward/loss notification. Impulsivity was assessed separately using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Relative to the control comparison group, the PG group exhibited significantly reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, insula, and ventral striatum during several phases, including the prospect and anticipation phases of both gains and losses. Activity in the ventral striatum correlated inversely with levels of impulsivity in PG participants, consistent with prior findings in alcohol dependence. Relatively decreased activity in corticostriatal neurocircuitry during multiple phases of reward processing suggests consistent alterations in neurocircuitry underlying incentive valuation and loss prediction. Together with findings in alcohol dependence, these results suggest that impulsive tendencies in addictions may be reflected in diminished ventral striatal activations to reward anticipation and may represent targets for treatment development in addictions. Copyright © 2012 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Spared and impaired aspects of motivated cognitive control in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Mann, Claire L; Footer, Owen; Chung, Yu Sun; Driscoll, Lori L; Barch, Deanna M

2013-08-01

The ability to upregulate cognitive control in motivationally salient situations was examined in individuals with schizophrenia (patients) and healthy controls. Fifty-four patients and 39 healthy controls were recruited. A computerized monetary response conflict task required participants to identity a picture, over which was printed a matching (congruent), neutral, or incongruent word. This baseline condition was followed by an incentive condition, in which participants were given the opportunity to win money on reward-cued trials. These reward-cued trials were interleaved with nonreward cued trials. Reaction times (RT) were examined for both incentive context effects (difference in RT between baseline and nonreward cue trials in the incentive condition) and incentive cue effects (difference in RT between nonreward and reward cue trials in the incentive condition). Compared with baseline, controls showed a speeding of responses during both the nonreward (incentive context effect) and reward cued (incentive cue effect) trials during the incentive condition, but with a larger incentive context than incentive cue effect, suggesting a reliance on proactive control strategies. Although patients also showed a speeding of responses to both nonreward and reward cued trials, they showed a significantly smaller incentive context effect than controls, suggesting a reduction in the use of proactive control and a greater reliance on the use of "just-in-time," reactive control strategies. These results are discussed in light of the relationship between motivation and cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, and the potential role of impairments in prefrontally mediated active maintenance mechanisms. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

The error-related negativity as a state and trait measure: motivation, personality, and ERPs in response to errors.

PubMed

Pailing, Patricia E; Segalowitz, Sidney J

2004-01-01

This study examines changes in the error-related negativity (ERN/Ne) related to motivational incentives and personality traits. ERPs were gathered while adults completed a four-choice letter task during four motivational conditions. Monetary incentives for finger and hand accuracy were altered across motivation conditions to either be equal or favor one type of accuracy over the other in a 3:1 ratio. Larger ERN/Ne amplitudes were predicted with increased incentives, with personality moderating this effect. Results were as expected: Individuals higher on conscientiousness displayed smaller motivation-related changes in the ERN/Ne. Similarly, those low on neuroticism had smaller effects, with the effect of Conscientiousness absent after accounting for Neuroticism. These results emphasize an emotional/evaluative function for the ERN/Ne, and suggest that the ability to selectively invest in error monitoring is moderated by underlying personality.

Blood donors’ attitudes towards incentives: influence on motivation to donate

PubMed Central

Kasraian, Leila; Maghsudlu, Mahtab

2012-01-01

Background Understanding the factors that motivate donors to donate will facilitate improvements in recruitment programmes. Donation incentives are often used to improve the effect of recruitment programmes. This cross-sectional study was designed to understand donors’ attitudes toward incentives. Material and methods Participants (n=421) were recruited among volunteer donors at the Shiraz Blood Transfusion Centre when they registered for blood donation. They completed a questionnaire with items regarding demographic characteristics, donation status (first-time donor or regular donor), and their motivation for donating, their attitude towards incentives, and the best type of incentives. Multiple logistic regression and chi-squared tests were used to analyse the data with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Results The majority of donors (85.6%) donated blood for altruistic reasons. One quarter of the donors (25.3%) believed that incentives should be offered to encourage them to donate. Most donors (84.5%) believed that the most effective incentive was offering specific blood tests. Donors who had donated for non-altruistic reasons were more interested in receiving incentives. The desire to receive incentives was more widespread among younger, married, first-time donors, donors with a lower educational level and donors with a history of more than five donations. The desire to receive incentives decreased as age increased. Discussion Most of the donors (74.7%) had no desire to receive incentives, and this was even more apparent among donors who donated for altruistic reasons. Non-monetary incentives may be effective in attracting younger, married, first-time donors, donors with a lower educational level and donors with a history of more than five donations. PMID:22044949

"Bird in the hand" cash was more effective than prize draws in increasing physician questionnaire response.

PubMed

Drummond, Frances J; O'Leary, Eamonn; O'Neill, Ciaran; Burns, Richeal; Sharp, Linda

2014-02-01

To investigate the effects of two monetary incentives on response rates to postal questionnaires from primary care physicians (PCPs). The PCPs were randomized into three arms (n=550 per arm), namely (1) €5 sent with the questionnaire (cash); (2) entry into a draw on return of completed questionnaire (prize); or (3) no incentive. Effects of incentives on response rates and item nonresponse were examined, as was cost-effectiveness. Response rates were significantly higher in the cash (66.1%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 61.9, 70.4%) and prize arms (44.8%; 95% CI: 40.1, 49.3%) compared with the no-incentive arm (39.9%; 95% CI: 35.4, 44.3%). Adjusted relative risk of response was 1.17 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.35) and 1.68 (95% CI: 1.48, 1.91) in the prize and cash arms, respectively, compared with the no-incentive group. Costs per completed questionnaire were €9.85, €11.15, and €6.31 for the cash, prize, and no-incentive arms, respectively. Compared with the no-incentive arm, costs per additional questionnaire returned in the cash and prize arms were €14.72 and €37.20, respectively. Both a modest cash incentive and entry into a prize draw were effective in increasing response rates. The cash incentive was most effective and the most cost-effective. Where it is important to maximize response, a modest cash incentive may be cost-effective. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BOLD responses in reward regions to hypothetical and imaginary monetary rewards

PubMed Central

Miyapuram, Krishna P.; Tobler, Philippe N.; Gregorios-Pippas, Lucy; Schultz, Wolfram

2015-01-01

Monetary rewards are uniquely human. Because money is easy to quantify and present visually, it is the reward of choice for most fMRI studies, even though it cannot be handed over to participants inside the scanner. A typical fMRI study requires hundreds of trials and thus small amounts of monetary rewards per trial (e.g. 5p) if all trials are to be treated equally. However, small payoffs can have detrimental effects on performance due to their limited buying power. Hypothetical monetary rewards can overcome the limitations of smaller monetary rewards but it is less well known whether predictors of hypothetical rewards activate reward regions. In two experiments, visual stimuli were associated with hypothetical monetary rewards. In Experiment 1, we used stimuli predicting either visually presented or imagined hypothetical monetary rewards, together with non-rewarding control pictures. Activations to reward predictive stimuli occurred in reward regions, namely the medial orbitofrontal cortex and midbrain. In Experiment 2, we parametrically varied the amount of visually presented hypothetical monetary reward keeping constant the amount of actually received reward. Graded activation in midbrain was observed to stimuli predicting increasing hypothetical rewards. The results demonstrate the efficacy of using hypothetical monetary rewards in fMRI studies. PMID:21985912

BOLD responses in reward regions to hypothetical and imaginary monetary rewards.

PubMed

Miyapuram, Krishna P; Tobler, Philippe N; Gregorios-Pippas, Lucy; Schultz, Wolfram

2012-01-16

Monetary rewards are uniquely human. Because money is easy to quantify and present visually, it is the reward of choice for most fMRI studies, even though it cannot be handed over to participants inside the scanner. A typical fMRI study requires hundreds of trials and thus small amounts of monetary rewards per trial (e.g. 5p) if all trials are to be treated equally. However, small payoffs can have detrimental effects on performance due to their limited buying power. Hypothetical monetary rewards can overcome the limitations of smaller monetary rewards but it is less well known whether predictors of hypothetical rewards activate reward regions. In two experiments, visual stimuli were associated with hypothetical monetary rewards. In Experiment 1, we used stimuli predicting either visually presented or imagined hypothetical monetary rewards, together with non-rewarding control pictures. Activations to reward predictive stimuli occurred in reward regions, namely the medial orbitofrontal cortex and midbrain. In Experiment 2, we parametrically varied the amount of visually presented hypothetical monetary reward keeping constant the amount of actually received reward. Graded activation in midbrain was observed to stimuli predicting increasing hypothetical rewards. The results demonstrate the efficacy of using hypothetical monetary rewards in fMRI studies. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nutrition interventions at point-of-sale to encourage healthier food purchasing: a systematic review.

PubMed

Liberato, Selma C; Bailie, Ross; Brimblecombe, Julie

2014-09-05

Point-of-sale is a potentially important opportunity to promote healthy eating through nutrition education and environment modification. The aim of this review was to describe and review the evidence of effectiveness of various types of interventions that have been used at point-of-sale to encourage purchase and/or eating of healthier food and to improve health outcomes, and the extent to which effectiveness was related to intensity, duration and intervention setting. Records from searches in databases were screened and assessed against inclusion criteria. Included studies had risk of bias assessed. Intervention effectiveness was assessed for two outcomes: i) purchase and/or intake of healthier food options and/or nutrient intake; and ii) mediating factors that might effect the primary outcome. The search identified 5635 references. Thirty-two papers met the inclusion criteria. Twelve studies had low risk of bias and were classified as strong, nine were moderate and 11 were weak. Six intervention types and a range of different outcome measures were described in these papers: i) nutrition education and promotion alone through supermarkets/stores; ii) nutrition education plus enhanced availability of healthy food; iii) monetary incentive alone; iv) nutrition education plus monetary incentives; v) nutrition intervention through vending machines; and vi) nutrition intervention through shopping online. The evidence of this review indicates that monetary incentives offered to customers for a short-term look promising in increasing purchase of healthier food options when the intervention is applied by itself in stores or supermarkets. There was a lack of good quality studies addressing all other types of relevant point-of-sale interventions examining change in purchase and/or intake of healthier food options. There were few studies that examined mediating factors that might mediate the effect on the primary outcomes of relevant interventions. A range of intervention types have been used at point-of-sale to encourage healthy purchasing and/or intake of healthier food options and to improve health outcomes. There is a need for more well designed studies on the effectiveness of a range of point-of-sale interventions to encourage healthier eating and improve health outcomes, and of the mediating factors that might impact these interventions.

Age-related influence of contingencies on a saccade task

PubMed Central

Jazbec, Sandra; Hardin, Michael G.; Schroth, Elizabeth; McClure, Erin; Pine, Daniel S.; Ernst, Monique

2009-01-01

Adolescence is characterized by increased risk-taking and sensation-seeking, presumably brought about by developmental changes within reward-mediating brain circuits. A better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying reward-seeking during adolescence can have critical implications for the development of strategies to enhance adolescent performance in potentially dangerous situations. Yet little research has investigated the influence of age on the modulation of behavior by incentives with neuroscience-based methods. A monetary reward antisaccade task (the RST) was used with 23 healthy adolescents and 30 healthy adults. Performance accuracy, latency and peak velocity of saccade responses (prosaccades and antisaccades) were analyzed. Performance accuracy across all groups was improved by incentives (obtain reward, avoid punishment) for both, prosaccades and antisaccades. However, modulation of antisaccade errors (direction errors) by incentives differed between groups: adolescents modulated saccade latency and peak velocity depending on contingencies, with incentives aligning their performance to that of adults; adults did not show a modulation by incentives. These findings suggest that incentives modulate a global measure of performance (percent direction errors) in adults and adolescents, and exert a more powerful influence on the control of incorrect motor responses in adolescents than in adults. These findings suggest that this task can be used in neuroimaging studies as a probe of the influence of incentives on cognitive control from a developmental perspective as well as in health and disease. PMID:16733706

Age-related influence of contingencies on a saccade task.

PubMed

Jazbec, Sandra; Hardin, Michael G; Schroth, Elizabeth; McClure, Erin; Pine, Daniel S; Ernst, Monique

2006-10-01

Adolescence is characterized by increased risk-taking and sensation-seeking, presumably brought about by developmental changes within reward-mediating brain circuits. A better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying reward-seeking during adolescence can have critical implications for the development of strategies to enhance adolescent performance in potentially dangerous situations. Yet little research has investigated the influence of age on the modulation of behavior by incentives with neuroscience-based methods. A monetary reward antisaccade task (the RST) was used with 23 healthy adolescents and 30 healthy adults. Performance accuracy, latency and peak velocity of saccade responses (prosaccades and antisaccades) were analyzed. Performance accuracy across all groups was improved by incentives (obtain reward, avoid punishment) for both, prosaccades and antisaccades. However, modulation of antisaccade errors (direction errors) by incentives differed between groups: adolescents modulated saccade latency and peak velocity depending on contingencies, with incentives aligning their performance to that of adults; adults did not show a modulation by incentives. These findings suggest that incentives modulate a global measure of performance (percent direction errors) in adults and adolescents, and exert a more powerful influence on the control of incorrect motor responses in adolescents than in adults. These findings suggest that this task can be used in neuroimaging studies as a probe of the influence of incentives on cognitive control from a developmental perspective as well as in health and disease.

Mesolimbic recruitment by nondrug rewards in detoxified alcoholics: effort anticipation, reward anticipation, and reward delivery.

PubMed

Bjork, James M; Smith, Ashley R; Chen, Gang; Hommer, Daniel W

2012-09-01

Aberrant sensitivity of incentive neurocircuitry to nondrug rewards has been suggested as either a risk factor for or consequence of drug addiction. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether alcohol-dependent patients (ADP: n = 29) showed altered recruitment of ventral striatal (VS) incentive neurocircuitry compared to controls (n = 23) by: (1) cues to respond for monetary rewards, (2) post-response anticipation of rewards, or (3) delivery of rewards. Using an instrumental task with two-stage presentation of reward-predictive information, subjects saw cues signaling opportunities to win $0, $1, or $10 for responding to a target. Following this response, subjects were notified whether their success would be indicated by a lexical notification (“Hit?”) or by delivery of a monetary reward (“Win?”). After a variable interval, subjects then viewed the trial outcome. We found no significant group differences in voxelwise activation by task contrasts, or in signal change extracted from VS. Both ADP and controls showed significant VS and other limbic recruitment by pre-response reward anticipation. In addition, controls also showed VS recruitment by post-response reward-anticipation, and ADP had appreciable subthreshold VS activation. Both groups also showed similar mesolimbic responses to reward deliveries. Across all subjects, a questionnaire measure of “hot” impulsivity correlated with VS recruitment by post-response anticipation of low rewards and with VS recruitment by delivery of low rewards. These findings indicate that incentive-motivational processing of nondrug rewards is substantially maintained in recovering alcoholics, and that reward-elicited VS recruitment correlates more with individual differences in trait impulsivity irrespective of addiction.

Incentives and Barriers That Influence Clinical Computerization in Hong Kong: A Population-based Physician Survey

PubMed Central

Leung, Gabriel M.; Yu, Philip L. H.; Wong, Irene O. L.; Johnston, Janice M.; Tin, Keith Y. K.

2003-01-01

Objective: Given the slow adoption of medical informatics in Hong Kong and Asia, we sought to understand the contributory barriers and potential incentives associated with information technology implementation. Design and Measurements: A representative sample of 949 doctors (response rate = 77.0%) was asked through a postal survey to rank a list of nine barriers associated with clinical computerization according to self-perceived importance. They ranked seven incentives or catalysts that may influence computerization. We generated mean rank scores and used multidimensional preference analysis to explore key explanatory dimensions of these variables. A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to identify homogenous subgroups of respondents. We further determined the relationships between the sets of barriers and incentives/catalysts collectively using canonical correlation. Results: Time costs, lack of technical support and large capital investments were the biggest barriers to computerization, whereas improved office efficiency and better-quality care were ranked highest as potential incentives to computerize. Cost vs. noncost, physician-related vs. patient-related, and monetary vs. nonmonetary factors were the key dimensions explaining the barrier variables. Similarly, within-practice vs external and “push” vs “pull” factors accounted for the incentive variables. Four clusters were identified for barriers and three for incentives/catalysts. Canonical correlation revealed that respondents who were concerned with the costs of computerization also perceived financial incentives and government regulation to be important incentives/catalysts toward computerization. Those who found the potential interference with communication important also believed that the promise of improved care from computerization to be a significant incentive. Conclusion: This study provided evidence regarding common barriers associated with clinical computerization. Our findings also identified possible incentive strategies that may be employed to accelerate uptake of computer systems. PMID:12595409

Evidence accumulation in obsessive-compulsive disorder: the role of uncertainty and monetary reward on perceptual decision-making thresholds.

PubMed

Banca, Paula; Vestergaard, Martin D; Rankov, Vladan; Baek, Kwangyeol; Mitchell, Simon; Lapa, Tatyana; Castelo-Branco, Miguel; Voon, Valerie

2015-03-13

The compulsive behaviour underlying obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be related to abnormalities in decision-making. The inability to commit to ultimate decisions, for example, patients unable to decide whether their hands are sufficiently clean, may reflect failures in accumulating sufficient evidence before a decision. Here we investigate the process of evidence accumulation in OCD in perceptual discrimination, hypothesizing enhanced evidence accumulation relative to healthy volunteers. Twenty-eight OCD patients and thirty-five controls were tested with a low-level visual perceptual task (random-dot-motion task, RDMT) and two response conflict control tasks. Regression analysis across different motion coherence levels and Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Modelling (HDDM) were used to characterize response strategies between groups in the RDMT. Patients required more evidence under high uncertainty perceptual contexts, as indexed by longer response time and higher decision boundaries. HDDM, which defines a decision when accumulated noisy evidence reaches a decision boundary, further showed slower drift rate towards the decision boundary reflecting poorer quality of evidence entering the decision process in patients under low uncertainty. With monetary incentives emphasizing speed and penalty for slower responses, patients decreased the decision thresholds relative to controls, accumulating less evidence in low uncertainty. These findings were unrelated to visual perceptual deficits and response conflict. This study provides evidence for impaired decision-formation processes in OCD, with a differential influence of high and low uncertainty contexts on evidence accumulation (decision threshold) and on the quality of evidence gathered (drift rates). It further emphasizes that OCD patients are sensitive to monetary incentives heightening speed in the speed-accuracy tradeoff, improving evidence accumulation.

Monetary Incentives Improve Recall of Research Consent Information: A Randomized Pilot Study

PubMed Central

Festinger, David S.; Marlowe, Douglas B.; Croft, Jason R.; Dugosh, Karen L.; Arabia, Patricia L.; Benasutti, Kathleen M.

2011-01-01

Research participants often fail to recall substantial amounts of informed consent information after delays of only a few days. Numerous interventions have proven effective at improving consent recall; however, virtually all have focused on compensating for potential cognitive deficits and have ignored motivational factors. In this pilot study, we randomly assigned 31 drug court clients participating in a clinical research trial to a standard consent procedure or to the same procedure plus incentives for correctly recalling consent information. The incentive group was told they would receive $5 for each of the 15 consent items they could answer correctly 1-week later. At the follow-up, the incentive group recalled a significantly greater percentage of consent information overall than the standard group (65% vs. 42%; p < .01). Similar findings were observed for specific categories of consent information, including study purpose and design, risks and benefits, and human subject protections. Effect sizes were all large (d = 0.89 to 1.25). Findings suggest that motivation plays a key role in recall of consent information and should be considered in the development of future interventions. PMID:19331486

A new perspective on the incentive-blood donation relationship: partnership, congruency, and affirmation of competence.

PubMed

Chmielewski, Danielle; Bove, Liliana L; Lei, Jing; Neville, Ben; Nagpal, Anish

2012-09-01

The Motivation Crowding-out Theory suggests that incentives undermine intrinsic motivation and thus blood donation behavior. While there is strong evidence showing the negative relationship between monetary incentives and blood donation, findings on the effect of nonmonetary incentives are mixed. Set in a voluntary, nonremunerated environment, this study explores aspects of the nonmonetary incentive-blood donation relationship not captured by the crowding-out hypothesis. In-depth interviews were conducted to explore donors' attitudes toward nonmonetary incentives currently used or considered by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Blood Service). Transcripts were analyzed using an inductive, thematic approach. Of the nonmonetary incentives examined (i.e., health screening tests, branded tokens, paid time off work, recognition of key milestones, and postdonation refreshments), none were found to crowd out intrinsic motivation, although not all were viewed favorably. Donors who viewed branded tokens negatively considered the cost implications for the Blood Service, while donors who responded positively considered the public benefit of tokens in raising the profile of the Blood Service. Other nonmonetary incentives-paid time off work, postdonation refreshments, and health screening tests-were viewed positively because donors perceived them to be congruent to the effort expended in donating blood. Finally, donors expressed a preference for private over public recognition when acknowledging significant contributions. When operating in a voluntary, nonremunerated environment, blood services should view donors as supply partners rather than customers, only consider nonmonetary incentives that are congruent with the act of donation, and provide private rather than public recognition of key milestones. © 2012 American Association of Blood Banks.

The Impact of Resource Wealth On Economic Growth, Governance, and Conflict in Afghanistan

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

charged with developing the mining sector . While analysis of aid programs in the country shows flaws in governance and monetary policies, there are...indications that the incentives induced by the emerging mining sector have triggered a shift toward a future-oriented development strategy amongst...the realization of the country’s economic potential has positively affected government institutions charged with developing the mining sector . While

Identifying the Cost of Non-monetary Incentives (ICONIC)

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-12-01

topics. a. Inspection Optimization Model The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed a linear programming model designed for a state air...and other special pays that can distort the environment and amenities that the next assignment offers.23 The primary objective of this work is to...Government Printing Office, 2005). http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06125.pdf (accessed September 28, 2008). Van Boening, Mark, Tanja F. Blackstone

Reward circuitry in resilience to severe trauma: An fMRI investigation of resilient special forces soldiers

PubMed Central

Vythilingam, Meena; Nelson, Eric E.; Scaramozza, Matthew; Waldeck, Tracy; Hazlett, Gary; Southwick, Steven M.; Pine, Daniel S.; Drevets, Wayne; Charney, Dennis S.; Ernst, Monique

2008-01-01

Enhanced brain reward function could contribute to resilience to trauma. Reward circuitry in active duty, resilient special forces (SF) soldiers was evaluated using fMRI during a monetary incentive delay task. Findings in this group of resilient individuals revealed unique patterns of activation during expectation of reward in the subgenual prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens area; regions pivotal to reward processes. PMID:19243926

The neural transfer effect of working memory training to enhance hedonic processing in individuals with social anhedonia

PubMed Central

Li, Xu; Li, Zhi; Li, Ke; Zeng, Ya-wei; Shi, Hai-song; Xie, Wen-lan; Yang, Zhuo-ya; Lui, Simon S. Y.; Cheung, Eric F. C.; Leung, Ada W. S.; Chan, Raymond C. K.

2016-01-01

Anhedonia, the diminished ability to experience pleasure, is a challenging negative symptom in patients with schizophrenia and can be observed in at-risk individuals with schizotypy. Deficits in hedonic processing have been postulated to be related to decreased motivation to engage in potentially rewarding events. It remains unclear whether non-pharmacological interventions, such as cognitive training, could improve anhedonia. The present study aimed to examine the neural mechanism for alleviating hedonic deficits with working memory (WM) training in individuals with social anhedonia. Fifteen individuals with social anhedonia were recruited and received 20 sessions of training on a dual n-back task, five sessions a week. Functional imaging paradigms of the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) and the Affective Incentive Delay (AID) tasks were administered both before and after the training to evaluate the neural transfer effects on hedonic processing ability. Enhanced brain activations related to anticipation were observed at the anterior cingulate cortex, the left dorsal striatum and the left precuneus with the AID task, and at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the supramarginal gyrus with the MID task. The present findings support that WM training may improve monetary-based and affective-based hedonic processing in individuals with social anhedonia. PMID:27752140

The effect of professional culture on intrinsic motivation among physicians in an academic medical center.

PubMed

Janus, Katharina

2014-01-01

Today, most healthcare organizations aim to manage professionals' motivation through monetary incentives, such as pay for performance. However, addressing motivation extrinsically can involve negative effects, such as disturbed teamwork, gaming the system, and crowd-out of intrinsic motivation. To offset these side effects, it is crucial to support professionals' intrinsic motivation actively, which is largely determined by enjoyment- and obligation-based social norms that derive from professionals' culture. For this study, a professional culture questionnaire was designed and validated, the results of which uncovered three factors: relationship to work, relationship to colleagues, and relationship to organization. These factors served as independent variables for regression analyses. Second, Amabile's validated work preference inventory was used to measure intrinsic motivation as a dependent variable. The regression analysis was controlled for sex, age, and experience. The study revealed that relationship to work had the strongest (and a positive) impact on intrinsic motivation in general and on Amabile's intrinsic subscales, enjoyment and challenge. Relationship to organization had a negative impact on intrinsic motivation and both subscales, and relationship to colleagues showed a low positive significance for the intrinsic scale only. Healthcare organizations have mostly focused on targeting professionals' extrinsic motivation. However, managing dimensions of professional culture can help support professionals' intrinsic motivation without incurring the side effects of monetary incentives.

Carrots and sticks: compliance provisions in state competitive food laws-examples for state and local implementation of the updated USDA standards.

PubMed

Gourdet, Camille K; Chriqui, Jamie F; Piekarz, Elizabeth; Dang, Quang; Chaloupka, Frank J

2014-07-01

Competitive foods remain prevalent in schools even though the majority of states' laws have addressed this for several years. Whereas updated federal standards take effect during school year 2014-2015, aspects of competitive food regulation will remain relegated to the states and districts and concerns exist about compliance with the federal standards. This study examined compliance provisions codified into state law that focused on incentives, monetary penalties, or contracts which could provide examples for other jurisdictions. Codified statutory and administrative laws effective as of January 2013 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia were compiled using Boolean searches in Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw. All laws were analyzed by 2 study authors to determine the presence and components of relevant provisions. Eighteen states' laws contained compliance mechanisms including financial and/or programmatic incentives (5 states), contract provisions (11 states), and monetary penalties for noncompliance (7 states). Five states' laws contained a combination of approaches. Compliance measures help to strengthen competitive food laws by providing state agencies with an enforcement mechanism. Enforcing such provisions will help to create healthier school environments. This study will provide useful insight for governments at all levels as they implement competitive food laws. © 2014, American School Health Association.

Perceived stress predicts altered reward and loss feedback processing in medial prefrontal cortex

PubMed Central

Treadway, Michael T.; Buckholtz, Joshua W.; Zald, David H.

2013-01-01

Stress is a significant risk factor for the development of psychopathology, particularly symptoms related to reward processing. Importantly, individuals display marked variation in how they perceive and cope with stressful events, and such differences are strongly linked to risk for developing psychiatric symptoms following stress exposure. However, many questions remain regarding the neural architecture that underlies inter-subject variability in perceptions of stressors. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) paradigm, we examined the effects of self-reported perceived stress levels on neural activity during reward anticipation and feedback in a sample of healthy individuals. We found that subjects reporting more uncontrollable and overwhelming stressors displayed blunted neural responses in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) following feedback related to monetary gains as well monetary losses. This is consistent with preclinical models that implicate the mPFC as a key site of vulnerability to the noxious effects of uncontrollable stressors. Our data help translate these findings to humans, and elucidate some of the neural mechanisms that may underlie stress-linked risk for developing reward-related psychiatric symptoms. PMID:23730277

Peacocks, Picasso, and parental investment: The effects of romantic motives on creativity.

PubMed

Griskevicius, Vladas; Cialdini, Robert B; Kenrick, Douglas T

2006-07-01

Four experiments explored the effects of mating motivation on creativity. Even without other incentives to be creative, romantic motives enhanced creativity on subjective and objective measures. For men, any cue designed to activate a short-term or a long-term mating goal increased creative displays; however, women displayed more creativity only when primed to attract a high-quality long-term mate. These creative boosts were unrelated to increased effort on creative tasks or to changes in mood or arousal. Furthermore, results were unaffected by the application of monetary incentives for creativity. These findings align with the view that creative displays in both sexes may be linked to sexual selection, qualified by unique exigencies of human parental investment. Copyright 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

Attitudes toward strategies to increase organ donation: views of the general public and health professionals.

PubMed

Barnieh, Lianne; Klarenbach, Scott; Gill, John S; Caulfield, Tim; Manns, Braden

2012-12-01

The acceptability of financial incentives for organ donation is contentious. This study sought to determine (1) the acceptability of expense reimbursement or financial incentives by the general public, health professionals involved with organ donation and transplantation, and those with or affected by kidney disease and (2) for the public, whether financial incentives would alter their willingness to consider donation. Web-based survey administered to members of the Canadian public, health professionals, and people with or affected by kidney disease asking questions regarding acceptability of strategies to increase living and deceased kidney donation and willingness to donate a kidney under various financial incentives. Responses were collected from 2004 members of the Canadian public October 11-18, 2011; responses from health professionals (n=339) and people with or affected by kidney disease (n=268) were collected during a 4-week period commencing October 11, 2011. Acceptability of one or more financial incentives to increase deceased and living donation was noted in >70% and 40% of all groups, respectively. Support for monetary payment for living donors was 45%, 14%, and 27% for the public, health professionals, and people with or affected by kidney disease, respectively. Overall, reimbursement of funeral expenses for deceased donors and a tax break for living donors were the most acceptable. The general public views regulated financial incentives for living and deceased donation to be acceptable. Future research needs to examine the impact of financial incentives on rates of deceased and living donors.

Getting a Valid Survey Response From 662 Plastic Surgeons in the 21st Century.

PubMed

Reinisch, John F; Yu, Daniel C; Li, Wai-Yee

2016-01-01

Web-based surveys save time and money. As electronic questionnaires have increased in popularity, telephone and mailed surveys have declined. With any survey, a response rate of 75% or greater is critical for the validity of any study. We wanted to determine which survey method achieved the highest response among academic plastic surgeons. All American Association of Plastic Surgeons members were surveyed regarding authorship issues. They were randomly assigned to receive the questionnaire through 1 of 4 methods: (A) emailed with a link to an online survey; (B) regular mail; (C) regular mail + $1 bill, and (D) regular mail + $5 bill. Two weeks after the initial mailing, the number of responses was collected, and nonresponders were contacted to remind them to participate. The study was closed after 10 weeks. Survey costs were calculated based on the actual cost of sending the initial survey, including stationary, printing, postage (groups B-D), labor, and cost of any financial incentives. Cost of reminders to nonresponders was calculated at $5 per reminder, giving a total survey cost. Of 662 surveys sent, 54 were returned because of incorrect address/email, retirement, or death. Four hundred seventeen of the remaining 608 surveys were returned and analyzed. The response rate was lowest in the online group and highest in those mailed with a monetary incentive. Despite the convenience and low initial cost of web-based surveys, this generated the lowest response. We obtained statistically significant response rates (79% and 84%) only by using postal mail with monetary incentives and reminders. The inclusion of a $1 bill represented the greatest value and cost-effective survey method, based on cost per response.

Mesolimbic recruitment by nondrug rewards in detoxified alcoholics: effort anticipation, reward anticipation and reward delivery

PubMed Central

Bjork, James M.; Smith, Ashley R.; Chen, Gang; Hommer, Daniel W.

2011-01-01

Aberrant sensitivity of incentive neurocircuitry to nondrug rewards has been suggested as either a risk factor for or consequence of drug addiction. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether alcohol-dependent patients (ADP: n = 29) showed altered recruitment of ventral striatal (VS) incentive neurocircuitry compared to controls (n = 23) by: 1) cues to respond for monetary rewards, 2) post-response anticipation of rewards, or 3) delivery of rewards. Using an instrumental task with two-stage presentation of reward-predictive information, subjects saw cues signaling opportunities to win $0, $1, or $10 for responding to a target. Following this response, subjects were notified whether their success would be indicated by a lexical notification (“Hit?”) or by delivery of a monetary reward (“Win?”). After a variable interval, subjects then viewed the trial outcome. We found no significant group differences in voxelwise activation by task contrasts, or in signal change extracted from VS. Both ADP and controls showed significant VS and other limbic recruitment by pre-response reward anticipation. In addition, controls also showed VS recruitment by post-response reward-anticipation, and ADP had appreciable subthreshold VS activation. Both groups also showed similar mesolimbic responses to reward deliveries. Across all subjects, a questionnaire measure of “hot” impulsivity correlated with VS recruitment by post-response anticipation of low rewards and with VS recruitment by delivery of low rewards. These findings indicate that incentive-motivational processing of nondrug rewards is substantially maintained in recovering alcoholics, and that reward-elicited VS recruitment correlates more with individual differences in trait impulsivity irrespective of addiction. PMID:22281932

Factors associated with continued participation in a matched monetary incentive programme at local farmers' markets in low-income neighbourhoods in San Diego, California.

PubMed

Ratigan, Amanda R; Lindsay, Suzanne; Lemus, Hector; Chambers, Christina D; Anderson, Cheryl Am; Cronan, Terry A; Browner, Deirdre K; Wooten, Wilma J

2017-10-01

The Farmers' Market Fresh Fund Incentive Program is a policy, systems and environmental intervention to improve access to fresh produce for participants on governmental assistance in the USA. The current study examined factors associated with ongoing participation in this matched monetary incentive programme. Relationship of baseline factors with number of Fresh Fund visits was assessed using Poisson regression. Mixed-effects modelling was used to explore changes in consumption of fruits and vegetables and diet quality. San Diego, California. Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) who attended participating farmers' markets from 2010 to 2012 (n 7298). Among those with participation for ≤6 months, factors associated with increased visits included reporting more daily servings of fruits and vegetables (F&V) at baseline, being Vietnamese or Asian/Pacific Islander, and eligibility because of SNAP/CalFresh or SSI (v. WIC). Among those who came for 6-12 months, being Asian/Pacific Islander, eligibility because of SNAP/CalFresh and enrolling in the autumn, winter or spring were associated with a greater number of Fresh Fund visits. Among those who came for >12 months, being male and eligibility because of SSI were associated with a greater number of visits. Overall, the odds of increasing number of servings of F&V consumed increased by 2 % per month, and the odds of improved perception of diet quality increased by 10 % per month. Sustaining and increasing Fresh Fund-type programme operations should be a top priority for future policy decisions concerning farmers' market use in low-income neighbourhoods.

Monetary matched incentives to encourage the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets in underserved communities.

PubMed

Lindsay, Suzanne; Lambert, Jennifer; Penn, Tanya; Hedges, Susan; Ortwine, Kristine; Mei, Anchi; Delaney, Tracy; Wooten, Wilma J

2013-11-14

Farmers market programs may increase access to more healthful foods and reduce the high prevalence of obesity in low-income communities. The objective of this study was to examine outcomes of the Fresh Fund farmers market program serving low-income neighborhoods in San Diego, California. Through its Farmers Market Fresh Fund Incentive Program, the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency offered monetary incentives to government nutrition assistance recipients to purchase fresh produce at 5 farmers markets. Participants enrolled at participating markets from June 1, 2010, through December 31, 2011; they completed baseline and follow-up surveys of daily consumption and weekly spending on fruits and vegetables. We examined enrollment, participation, participant health perceptions, and vendor revenue. During the study period, 7,298 eligible participants enrolled in Fresh Fund; most (82%) had previously never been to a farmers market. Among 252 participants with matched surveys at baseline and 12-month follow-up, the proportion who reported their diet to be "healthy" or "very healthy" increased from 4% to 63% (P < .001); nearly all (93%) stated that Fresh Fund was "important" or "very important" in their decision to shop at the farmers market. Vendors reported that 48% of all market revenue they received was received through the Fresh Fund program. At 2 markets, revenue from June 1, 2011, through January 31, 2012, increased by 74% and 68% compared with revenue from June 1, 2010, through January 31, 2011. Participants in the Fresh Fund program self-reported increases in daily consumption and weekly spending on fruits and vegetables, and vendors at participating farmers markets also increased their revenue.

Act No. 89-905 of 19 December 1989 promoting the return to employment and the struggle against professional exclusion.

PubMed

1989-01-01

Among other things, this Act establishes 2 employment incentives to induce employers to hire various categories of the unemployed. The 1st incentive is aimed at persons facing special difficulties in access to employment, in particular, persons out of work for a long period of time and beneficiaries of a "solidarity" allowance or minimum income of work force insertion, with preference given to single women, especially widows. This incentive gives an employer the right to monetary payments, to having the state pay for training, and to exemption from payment of contributions for social insurance, accidents in the workplace, and family allowances if the employer enters into a contract with the State to promote the professional work force insertion of targeted persons. The 2nd incentive is aimed at the same categories of persons, as well as persons out of work over the age of 50 and young persons from 16 to 25 years old, with preference again given to single women, particularly widows. This incentive obligates the state to pay all or part of salaries, training costs, and social service contributions associated with employees given work by certain employers in the public sector and nonprofit employers in the private sector.

Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

sector budget cuts, and decreasing remittances to Mexico from immigrants in the United States increase monetary incentives for rural dwellers to...coercion of rural populations to enlist them in the drug trade.24 Another may focus on killings, as used to be the case with Los Zetas, the hired...Caracas under the Spanish name Banco Internacional de Desarrollo C.A., an independent subsidiary of the Export Bank of Iran. In October of that year, the

The Impact of Supported Employment Versus Standard Vocational Rehabilitation in Veterans with PTSD

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-08-01

Compensated Work Therapy/Veterans Industries ( CWT ) and provides a work regimen with monetary incentives derived from contracts whereby participants are...Compensated Work Therapy ( CWT ) programs, found that the rate of competitive employment at discharge was only 30% for Veterans with PTSD and 36% for...adaptation to CWT programming and personnel, and so clear substantial evidence is needed to support such a dramatic change. Such modifications in the VA

Incentive Processing in Persistent Disruptive Behavior and Psychopathic Traits: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study in Adolescents.

PubMed

Cohn, Moran D; Veltman, Dick J; Pape, Louise E; van Lith, Koen; Vermeiren, Robert R J M; van den Brink, Wim; Doreleijers, Theo A H; Popma, Arne

2015-11-01

Children with early-onset disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), especially those with callous-unemotional traits, are at risk of developing persistent and severe adult antisocial behavior. One possible underlying mechanism for persistence is deficient reward and loss sensitivity, i.e., deficient incentive processing. However, little is known about the relation between deficient incentive processing and persistence of antisocial behavior into adulthood or its relation with callous-unemotional and other psychopathic traits. In this study, we investigate the relationship between the neural correlates of incentive processing and both DBD persistence and psychopathic traits. In a sample of 128 adolescents (mean age 17.7) with a history of criminal offending before age 12, functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed during a monetary incentive delay task designed to assess neural responses during incentive processing. Neural activation during incentive processing was then associated with DBD persistence and psychopathic traits, measured with the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory. Compared with both healthy control subjects and youths who had desisted from DBD, persistent DBD subjects showed lower neural responses in the ventral striatum during reward outcomes and higher neural responses in the amygdala during loss outcomes. Callous-unemotional traits were related to lower neural responses in the amygdala during reward outcomes, while other psychopathic traits were not related to incentive processing. In the current study, aberrant incentive processing is related to persistence of childhood antisocial behavior into late adolescence and to callous-unemotional traits. This mechanism may underlie treatment resistance in a subgroup of antisocial youth and provide a target for intervention. Copyright © 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Misestimating betting behavior: the role of negative asymmetries in emotional self prediction.

PubMed

Andrade, Eduardo B; Claro, Danny P; Islam, Gazi

2014-12-01

This paper addresses the role of negative asymmetries in emotional self-prediction by looking at the extent to which individuals misestimate their own betting behavior in sequential gambles. In a series of three experimental studies, we demonstrate that losses lead to higher than planned bets whereas bets are on average carried over after gains. Such asymmetric deviations from the plan emerge (1) when monetary and non-monetary incentives are used, and (2) when participants face fair and unfair gambles. The asymmetry is based on people's inability to predict how much the negative emotions generated by a bad experience (e.g. the loss) will influence them to put more effort (e.g. bet more) than planned in an attempt to re-establish a homeostatic state in the prospect of a good experience (e.g. winning).

Improving control over the impulse for reward: sensitivity of harmful alcohol drinkers to delayed reward but not immediate punishment.

PubMed

Rossiter, Sarah; Thompson, Julian; Hester, Robert

2012-09-01

Cognitive control dysfunction has been identified in dependent alcohol users and implicated in the transition from abuse to dependence, although evidence of dyscontrol in chronic but non-dependent 'harmful' alcohol abusers is mixed. The current study examined harmful alcohol users response inhibition over rewarding stimuli in the presence of monetary reward and punishment, to determine whether changes in sensitivity to these factors, noted in imaging studies of dependent users, influences impulse control. Harmful (n=30) and non-hazardous (n=55) alcohol users were administered a Monetary Incentive Go/No-go task that required participants to inhibit a prepotent motor response associated with reward. Harmful alcohol users showed a significantly poorer ability to withhold their impulse for a rewarding stimulus in the presence of immediate monetary punishment for failure, while retaining equivalent response inhibition performance under neutral conditions (associated with neither monetary loss or gain), and significantly better performance under delayed reward conditions. The results of the present study suggest that non-dependent alcohol abusers have altered sensitivity to reward and punishment that influences their impulse control for reward, in the absence of gross dyscontrol that is consistent with past findings in which such performance contingencies were not used. The ability of delayed monetary reward, but not punishment, to increase sustained impulse control in this sample has implications for the mechanism that might underlie the transition from alcohol abuse to dependence, as well as intervention strategies aimed at preventing this transition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The monetary approach to the balance of payments: The case of the oil-based, small, open, developing economies of Libya, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Buzakuk, M.R.

1988-01-01

This study explores the determinants of foreign reserves flow in light of the oil-based small open economies of Libya, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The period of study encompasses the major oil price increases of the 1970s and early 1980s, which had led to the huge transfers of foreign exchanges towards these, among other, developing economies. The framework of analysis is basically a monetary approach to the balance of payments. This study is of both a theoretical and empirical nature. It utilizes the monetary forces in the domestic money market to derive a basic balance of payments (BOP) equation that explainsmore » the monetary nature of the balance of payments. The study found that the data from those countries support the monetary relationships as hypothesized by the monetary approach, especially the negative one-to-one relation between domestic credit (DC) and the BOP. Results from the simultaneous estimations of the BOP and DC reported better estimates than the single-equation model. Findings from the reaction function indicated that the monetary authorities of these oil-based economies were actively sterilizing the effect of foreign reserve flows. Findings supported the integrated market hypothesis in Kuwait and Libya, but not in the Saudi case.« less

Cognitive capacity limitations and Need for Cognition differentially predict reward-induced cognitive effort expenditure.

PubMed

Sandra, Dasha A; Otto, A Ross

2018-03-01

While psychological, economic, and neuroscientific accounts of behavior broadly maintain that people minimize expenditure of cognitive effort, empirical work reveals how reward incentives can mobilize increased cognitive effort expenditure. Recent theories posit that the decision to expend effort is governed, in part, by a cost-benefit tradeoff whereby the potential benefits of mental effort can offset the perceived costs of effort exertion. Taking an individual differences approach, the present study examined whether one's executive function capacity, as measured by Stroop interference, predicts the extent to which reward incentives reduce switch costs in a task-switching paradigm, which indexes additional expenditure of cognitive effort. In accordance with the predictions of a cost-benefit account of effort, we found that a low executive function capacity-and, relatedly, a low intrinsic motivation to expend effort (measured by Need for Cognition)-predicted larger increase in cognitive effort expenditure in response to monetary reward incentives, while individuals with greater executive function capacity-and greater intrinsic motivation to expend effort-were less responsive to reward incentives. These findings suggest that an individual's cost-benefit tradeoff is constrained by the perceived costs of exerting cognitive effort. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Who responds to financial incentives for weight loss? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Paloyo, Alfredo R; Reichert, Arndt R; Reuss-Borst, Monika; Tauchmann, Harald

2015-11-01

There is a paucity of evidence on the heterogeneous impacts of financial incentives on weight loss. Between March 2010 and January 2012, in a randomized controlled trial, we assigned 700 obese persons to three experimental arms. We test whether particular subgroups react differently to financial incentives for weight loss. Two treatment groups obtained a cash reward (€150 and €300 with 237 and 229 participants, respectively) for achieving an individually-assigned target weight within four months; the control group (234 participants) was not incentivized. Participants and administrators were not blinded to the intervention. We find that monetary rewards effectively induced obese individuals to reduce weight across all subgroups. However, there is no evidence for treatment-effect heterogeneity for those groups that were incentivized. Among those who were in the €300 group, statistically significant and large weight losses were observed for women, singles, and those who are not working (all above 4 kg in four months). In addition, the magnitude of the reward matters only for women and migrants. The effectiveness of financial incentives to reduce weight nevertheless raises sensitive ethical issues that should be taken into consideration by policymakers. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

R&D investments for neglected diseases can be sensitive to the economic goal of pharmaceutical companies.

PubMed

Dimitri, Nicola

2012-08-01

A fundamental problem with neglected diseases is how to induce pharmaceutical companies to invest resources for developing effective treatments. A recent debate focused on the role of economic incentives represented by monetary transfers to the firms. In this article I focus on the economic goals of pharmaceutical companies, as determinants for R&D effort. In particular, within a stylized framework, the work compares expected profit and expected productivity maximization, arguing that the former in general induces higher R&D investments than the latter. Therefore, as it is currently the case, when pharmaceutical firms focus on productivity, appropriate economic incentives might be needed for them to invest in R&D for neglected diseases. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Increased neural responses to reward in adolescents and young adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and their unaffected siblings.

PubMed

von Rhein, Daniel; Cools, Roshan; Zwiers, Marcel P; van der Schaaf, Marieke; Franke, Barbara; Luman, Marjolein; Oosterlaan, Jaap; Heslenfeld, Dirk J; Hoekstra, Pieter J; Hartman, Catharina A; Faraone, Stephen V; van Rooij, Daan; van Dongen, Eelco V; Lojowska, Maria; Mennes, Maarten; Buitelaar, Jan

2015-05-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heritable neuropsychiatric disorder associated with abnormal reward processing. Limited and inconsistent data exist about the neural mechanisms underlying this abnormality. Furthermore, it is not known whether reward processing is abnormal in unaffected siblings of participants with ADHD. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain responses during reward anticipation and receipt with an adapted monetary incentive delay task in a large sample of adolescents and young adults with ADHD (n = 150), their unaffected siblings (n = 92), and control participants (n = 108), all of the same age. Participants with ADHD showed, relative to control participants, increased responses in the anterior cingulate, anterior frontal cortex, and cerebellum during reward anticipation, and in the orbitofrontal, occipital cortex and ventral striatum. Responses of unaffected siblings were increased in these regions as well, except for the cerebellum during anticipation and ventral striatum during receipt. ADHD in adolescents and young adults is associated with enhanced neural responses in frontostriatal circuitry to anticipation and receipt of reward. The findings support models emphasizing aberrant reward processing in ADHD, and suggest that processing of reward is subject to familial influences. Future studies using standard monetary incentive delay task parameters are needed to replicate our findings. Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Examining youth and program predictors of engagement in out-of-school time programs.

PubMed

Greene, Kaylin M; Lee, Bora; Constance, Nicole; Hynes, Kathryn

2013-10-01

Prior research suggests that youths' engagement in out-of-school time programs may be a crucial factor linking program participation to positive outcomes during adolescence. Guided by the theoretical concept of flow and by stage-environment fit theory, the present study explored correlates of engagement in youth programs. Engagement was conceptualized as the extent to which youth found the program activities enjoyable, interesting, and challenging. The current study examined how program content, monetary incentives, and youth demographic characteristics were linked to youth engagement among a sample of primarily low-income middle and high school youth attending 30 out-of-school programs (n = 435, 51 % female). Results from multilevel models suggested that program content and staff quality were strongly associated with youth engagement. Youth who reported learning new skills, learning about college, and learning about jobs through activities in the program were more engaged, as were youth who found the staff caring and competent. Results demonstrated that the link between learning content for the future and engagement was stronger for older youth than younger youth. In addition, there was a trend suggesting that providing a monetary incentive was associated negatively with youth engagement. Taken as a whole, these findings have important implications for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in understanding the characteristics of out-of-school time programs that engage older youth.

Attitudes Toward Strategies to Increase Organ Donation: Views of the General Public and Health Professionals

PubMed Central

Klarenbach, Scott; Gill, John S.; Caulfield, Tim; Manns, Braden

2012-01-01

Summary Background and objective The acceptability of financial incentives for organ donation is contentious. This study sought to determine (1) the acceptability of expense reimbursement or financial incentives by the general public, health professionals involved with organ donation and transplantation, and those with or affected by kidney disease and (2) for the public, whether financial incentives would alter their willingness to consider donation. Design, setting, participants, & measurements Web-based survey administered to members of the Canadian public, health professionals, and people with or affected by kidney disease asking questions regarding acceptability of strategies to increase living and deceased kidney donation and willingness to donate a kidney under various financial incentives. Results Responses were collected from 2004 members of the Canadian public October 11–18, 2011; responses from health professionals (n=339) and people with or affected by kidney disease (n=268) were collected during a 4-week period commencing October 11, 2011. Acceptability of one or more financial incentives to increase deceased and living donation was noted in >70% and 40% of all groups, respectively. Support for monetary payment for living donors was 45%, 14%, and 27% for the public, health professionals, and people with or affected by kidney disease, respectively. Overall, reimbursement of funeral expenses for deceased donors and a tax break for living donors were the most acceptable. Conclusion The general public views regulated financial incentives for living and deceased donation to be acceptable. Future research needs to examine the impact of financial incentives on rates of deceased and living donors. PMID:23024166

The impact of alternative incentive schemes on completion of health risk assessments.

PubMed

Haisley, Emily; Volpp, Kevin G; Pellathy, Thomas; Loewenstein, George

2012-01-01

The biggest challenge for corporate wellness initiatives is low rates of employee participation. We test whether a behavioral economic approach to incentive design (i.e., a lottery) is more effective than a direct economic payment of equivalent monetary value (i.e., a grocery gift certificate) in encouraging employees to complete health risk assessments (HRAs). Employees were assigned to one of three arms. Assignment to a treatment arm versus the nontreatment arm was determined by management. Assignment to an arm among those eligible for treatment was randomized by office. A large health care management and information technology consulting company. A total of 1299 employees across 14 offices participated. All employees were eligible to receive $25 for completing the HRA. Those in the lottery condition were assigned to teams of four to eight people and, conditional on HRA completion, were entered into a lottery with a prize of $100 (expected value, $25) and a bonus value of an additional $25 if 80% of team members participated. Those in the grocery gift certificate condition who completed an HRA received a $25 grocery gift certificate. Those in the comparison condition received no additional incentive. HRA completion rates. Logistic regression analysis. HRA completion rates were significantly higher among participations in the lottery incentive condition (64%) than in both the grocery gift certificate condition (44%) and the comparison condition (40%). Effects were larger for lower-income employees, as indicated by a significant interaction between income and the lottery incentive. Lottery incentives that incorporate regret aversion and social pressure can provide higher impact for the same amount of money as simple economic incentives.

The effect of $1, $5 and $10 stakes in an online dictator game.

PubMed

Raihani, Nichola J; Mace, Ruth; Lamba, Shakti

2013-01-01

The decision rules underpinning human cooperative behaviour are often investigated under laboratory conditions using monetary incentives. A major concern with this approach is that stake size may bias subjects' decisions. This concern is particularly acute in online studies, where stakes are often far lower than those used in laboratory or field settings. We address this concern by conducting a Dictator Game using Amazon Mechanical Turk. In this two-player game, one player (the dictator) determines the division of an endowment between himself and the other player. We recruited subjects from India and the USA to play an online Dictator Game. Dictators received endowments of $1, $5 or $10. We collected two batches of data over two consecutive years. We found that players from India were less generous when playing with a $10 stake. By contrast, the effect of stake size among players from the USA was very small. This study indicates that the effects of stake size on decision making in economic games may vary across populations.

Two-week administration of the combined serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor duloxetine augments functioning of mesolimbic incentive processing circuits.

PubMed

Ossewaarde, Lindsey; Verkes, Robbert J; Hermans, Erno J; Kooijman, Sabine C; Urner, Maren; Tendolkar, Indira; van Wingen, Guido A; Fernández, Guillén

2011-09-15

Anhedonia and lack of motivation are core symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD). Neuroimaging studies in MDD patients have shown reductions in reward-related activity in terminal regions of the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system, such as the ventral striatum. Monoamines have been implicated in both mesolimbic incentive processing and the mechanism of action of antidepressant drugs. However, not much is known about antidepressant effects on mesolimbic incentive processing in humans, which might be related to the effects on anhedonia. To investigate the short-term effects of antidepressants on reward-related activity in the ventral striatum, we investigated the effect of the combined serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor duloxetine. Healthy volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. After taking duloxetine (60 mg once a day) or placebo for 14 days, participants completed a monetary incentive delay task that activates the ventral striatum during reward anticipation. Our results (n = 19) show enhanced ventral striatal responses after duloxetine administration compared with placebo. Moreover, this increase in ventral striatal activity was positively correlated with duloxetine plasma levels. This is the first study to demonstrate that antidepressants augment neural activity in mesolimbic DA incentive processing circuits in healthy volunteers. These effects are likely caused by the increase in monoamine neurotransmission in the ventral striatum. Our findings suggest that antidepressants may alleviate anhedonia by stimulating incentive processing. Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lower neighborhood quality in adolescence predicts higher mesolimbic sensitivity to reward anticipation in adulthood

PubMed Central

Gonzalez, Marlen Z.; Allen, Joseph P.; Coan, James A.

2016-01-01

Life history theory suggests that adult reward sensitivity should be best explained by childhood, but not current, socioeconomic conditions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 83 participants from a larger longitudinal sample completed the monetary incentive delay (MID) task in adulthood (~25 years old). Parent-reports of neighborhood quality and parental SES were collected when participants were 13 years of age. Current income level was collected concurrently with scanning. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality, but neither lower current income nor parental SES, was associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary gain in putative mesolimbic reward areas. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality was also associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary loss activation in visuo-motor areas. Lower current income was associated with heightened sensitivity to anticipated loss in occipital areas and the operculum. We tested whether externalizing behaviors in childhood or adulthood could better account for neighborhood quality findings, but they did not. Findings suggest that neighborhood ecology in adolescence is associated with greater neural reward sensitivity in adulthood above the influence of parental SES or current income and not mediated through impulsivity and externalizing behaviors. PMID:27838595

A specific role for serotonin in overcoming effort cost.

PubMed

Meyniel, Florent; Goodwin, Guy M; Deakin, Jf William; Klinge, Corinna; MacFadyen, Christine; Milligan, Holly; Mullings, Emma; Pessiglione, Mathias; Gaillard, Raphaël

2016-11-08

Serotonin is implicated in many aspects of behavioral regulation. Theoretical attempts to unify the multiple roles assigned to serotonin proposed that it regulates the impact of costs, such as delay or punishment, on action selection. Here, we show that serotonin also regulates other types of action costs such as effort. We compared behavioral performance in 58 healthy humans treated during 8 weeks with either placebo or the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor escitalopram. The task involved trading handgrip force production against monetary benefits. Participants in the escitalopram group produced more effort and thereby achieved a higher payoff. Crucially, our computational analysis showed that this effect was underpinned by a specific reduction of effort cost, and not by any change in the weight of monetary incentives. This specific computational effect sheds new light on the physiological role of serotonin in behavioral regulation and on the clinical effect of drugs for depression. ISRCTN75872983.

Paying for antiretroviral adherence: is it unethical when the patient is an adolescent?

PubMed

Healy, Justin; Hope, Rebecca; Bhabha, Jacqueline; Eyal, Nir

2017-03-01

With the expansion of antiretroviral treatment programmes, many children and adolescents with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa could expect to live healthy lives. Yet adolescents have the highest levels of poor antiretroviral adherence and of loss to follow-up compared with other age groups. This can lead to increased morbidity and mortality, to the development of drug-resistant strains, and to high societal costs. While financial incentives have been extensively used to promote medication adherence among adults, their use among adolescents remains rare. And while there is a large body of ethical literature exploring financial incentives among adults, little philosophical thought has gone into their use among adolescents. This paper explores three oft-mentioned ethical worries about financial incentives for health behaviours and it asks whether these concerns are more serious in the context of incentives for improving adolescent adherence. The three worries are that such incentives would unduly coerce adolescents' decision-making, would compromise distributive justice and would crowd out intrinsic motivations and non-monetary values. Our tentative conclusion is that more empirical investigation of these concerns is necessary, and that at this point they are not compelling enough to rule out trials in which adolescents are incentivised for antiretroviral adherence. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Can Pornography be Addictive? An fMRI Study of Men Seeking Treatment for Problematic Pornography Use.

PubMed

Gola, Mateusz; Wordecha, Małgorzata; Sescousse, Guillaume; Lew-Starowicz, Michał; Kossowski, Bartosz; Wypych, Marek; Makeig, Scott; Potenza, Marc N; Marchewka, Artur

2017-09-01

Pornography consumption is highly prevalent, particularly among young adult males. For some individuals, problematic pornography use (PPU) is a reason for seeking treatment. Despite the pervasiveness of pornography, PPU appears under-investigated, including with respect to the underlying neural mechanisms. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined ventral striatal responses to erotic and monetary stimuli, disentangling cue-related 'wanting' from reward-related 'liking' among 28 heterosexual males seeking treatment for PPU and 24 heterosexual males without PPU. Subjects engaged in an incentive delay task in the scanner, in which they received erotic or monetary rewards preceded by predictive cues. Blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses to erotic and monetary cues were analyzed and examined with respect to self-reported data on sexual activity collected over the 2 preceding months. Men with and without PPU differed in their striatal responses to cues predicting erotic pictures but not in their responses to erotic pictures. PPU subjects when compared with control subjects showed increased activation of ventral striatum specifically for cues predicting erotic pictures but not for cues predicting monetary gains. Relative sensitivity to cues predicting erotic pictures vs monetary gains was significantly related to the increased behavioral motivation to view erotic images (suggestive of higher 'wanting'), severity of PPU, amount of pornography use per week, and number of weekly masturbations. Our findings suggest that, similar to what is observed in substance and gambling addictions, the neural and behavioral mechanisms associated with the anticipatory processing of cues specifically predicting erotic rewards relate importantly to clinically relevant features of PPU. These findings suggest that PPU may represent a behavioral addiction and that interventions helpful in targeting behavioral and substance addictions warrant consideration for adaptation and use in helping men with PPU.

Beyond the Washington Consensus: Promoting Economic Growth and Minimizing the Threat of Violence in Latin America through Social Development

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-01

International Economics, 1990). 3 Consensus principles .3 Finally, Rodrik fails to analyze the role of social spending and social development in both...Washington Consensus. Table 1 lists Rodrik’s economic first principles . 1. Protection of Property Rights 4. Appropriate Incentives 2. Contract...The Role of Macroeconomic Factors in Growth,” Journal of Monetary Economics 32, no. 3 (Dec. 1993): 485–512; Robert E. Lucas Jr., “Inflation and

Best practice guidance for the use of strategies to improve retention in randomized trials developed from two consensus workshops

PubMed Central

Brueton, Valerie; Stenning, Sally P.; Stevenson, Fiona; Tierney, Jayne; Rait, Greta

2017-01-01

Objectives To develop best practice guidance for the use of retention strategies in randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Study Design and Setting Consensus development workshops conducted at two UK Clinical Trials Units. Sixty-six statisticians, clinicians, RCT coordinators, research scientists, research assistants, and data managers associated with RCTs participated. The consensus development workshops were based on the consensus development conference method used to develop best practice for treatment of medical conditions. Workshops commenced with a presentation of the evidence for incentives, communication, questionnaire format, behavioral, case management, and methodological retention strategies identified by a Cochrane review and associated qualitative study. Three simultaneous group discussions followed focused on (1) how convinced the workshop participants were by the evidence for retention strategies, (2) barriers to the use of effective retention strategies, (3) types of RCT follow-up that retention strategies could be used for, and (4) strategies for future research. Summaries of each group discussion were fed back to the workshop. Coded content for both workshops was compared for agreement and disagreement. Agreed consensus on best practice guidance for retention was identified. Results Workshop participants agreed best practice guidance for the use of small financial incentives to improve response to postal questionnaires in RCTs. Use of second-class post was thought to be adequate for postal communication with RCT participants. The most relevant validated questionnaire was considered best practice for collecting RCT data. Barriers identified for the use of effective retention strategies were: the small improvements seen in questionnaire response for the addition of monetary incentives, and perceptions among trialists that some communication strategies are outdated. Furthermore, there was resistance to change existing retention practices thought to be effective. Face-to-face and electronic follow-up technologies were identified as retention strategies for further research. Conclusions We developed best practice guidance for the use of retention strategies in RCTs and identified potential barriers to the use of effective strategies. The extent of agreement on best practice is limited by the variability in the currently available evidence. This guidance will need updating as new retention strategies are developed and evaluated. PMID:28546093

Best practice guidance for the use of strategies to improve retention in randomized trials developed from two consensus workshops.

PubMed

Brueton, Valerie; Stenning, Sally P; Stevenson, Fiona; Tierney, Jayne; Rait, Greta

2017-08-01

To develop best practice guidance for the use of retention strategies in randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Consensus development workshops conducted at two UK Clinical Trials Units. Sixty-six statisticians, clinicians, RCT coordinators, research scientists, research assistants, and data managers associated with RCTs participated. The consensus development workshops were based on the consensus development conference method used to develop best practice for treatment of medical conditions. Workshops commenced with a presentation of the evidence for incentives, communication, questionnaire format, behavioral, case management, and methodological retention strategies identified by a Cochrane review and associated qualitative study. Three simultaneous group discussions followed focused on (1) how convinced the workshop participants were by the evidence for retention strategies, (2) barriers to the use of effective retention strategies, (3) types of RCT follow-up that retention strategies could be used for, and (4) strategies for future research. Summaries of each group discussion were fed back to the workshop. Coded content for both workshops was compared for agreement and disagreement. Agreed consensus on best practice guidance for retention was identified. Workshop participants agreed best practice guidance for the use of small financial incentives to improve response to postal questionnaires in RCTs. Use of second-class post was thought to be adequate for postal communication with RCT participants. The most relevant validated questionnaire was considered best practice for collecting RCT data. Barriers identified for the use of effective retention strategies were: the small improvements seen in questionnaire response for the addition of monetary incentives, and perceptions among trialists that some communication strategies are outdated. Furthermore, there was resistance to change existing retention practices thought to be effective. Face-to-face and electronic follow-up technologies were identified as retention strategies for further research. We developed best practice guidance for the use of retention strategies in RCTs and identified potential barriers to the use of effective strategies. The extent of agreement on best practice is limited by the variability in the currently available evidence. This guidance will need updating as new retention strategies are developed and evaluated. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neural evidence for enhanced error detection in major depressive disorder.

PubMed

Chiu, Pearl H; Deldin, Patricia J

2007-04-01

Anomalies in error processing have been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of major depressive disorder. In particular, depressed individuals exhibit heightened sensitivity to error-related information and negative environmental cues, along with reduced responsivity to positive reinforcers. The authors examined the neural activation associated with error processing in individuals diagnosed with and without major depression and the sensitivity of these processes to modulation by monetary task contingencies. The error-related negativity and error-related positivity components of the event-related potential were used to characterize error monitoring in individuals with major depressive disorder and the degree to which these processes are sensitive to modulation by monetary reinforcement. Nondepressed comparison subjects (N=17) and depressed individuals (N=18) performed a flanker task under two external motivation conditions (i.e., monetary reward for correct responses and monetary loss for incorrect responses) and a nonmonetary condition. After each response, accuracy feedback was provided. The error-related negativity component assessed the degree of anomaly in initial error detection, and the error positivity component indexed recognition of errors. Across all conditions, the depressed participants exhibited greater amplitude of the error-related negativity component, relative to the comparison subjects, and equivalent error positivity amplitude. In addition, the two groups showed differential modulation by task incentives in both components. These data implicate exaggerated early error-detection processes in the etiology and maintenance of major depressive disorder. Such processes may then recruit excessive neural and cognitive resources that manifest as symptoms of depression.

Weak ventral striatal responses to monetary outcomes predict an unwillingness to resist cigarette smoking.

PubMed

Wilson, Stephen J; Delgado, Mauricio R; McKee, Sherry A; Grigson, Patricia S; MacLean, R Ross; Nichols, Travis T; Henry, Shannon L

2014-12-01

As a group, cigarette smokers exhibit blunted subjective, behavioral, and neurobiological responses to nondrug incentives and rewards, relative to nonsmokers. Findings from recent studies suggest, however, that there are large individual differences in the devaluation of nondrug rewards among smokers. Moreover, this variability appears to have significant clinical implications, since reduced sensitivity to nondrug rewards is associated with poorer smoking cessation outcomes. Currently, little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie these individual differences in the responsiveness to nondrug rewards. Here, we tested the hypothesis that individual variability in reward devaluation among smokers is linked to the functioning of the striatum. Specifically, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine variability in the neural response to monetary outcomes in nicotine-deprived smokers anticipating an opportunity to smoke-circumstances found to heighten the devaluation of nondrug rewards by smokers in prior work. We also investigated whether individual differences in reward-related brain activity in those expecting to have access to cigarettes were associated with the degree to which the same individuals subsequently were willing to resist smoking in order to earn additional money. Our key finding was that deprived smokers who exhibited the weakest response to rewards (i.e., monetary gains) in the ventral striatum were least willing to refrain from smoking for monetary reinforcement. These results provide evidence that outcome-related signals in the ventral striatum serve as a marker for clinically meaningful individual differences in reward-motivated behavior among nicotine-deprived smokers.

Financial incentives for a healthy life style and disease prevention among older people: a systematic literature review.

PubMed

Tambor, Marzena; Pavlova, Milena; Golinowska, Stanisława; Arsenijevic, Jelena; Groot, Wim

2016-09-05

To motivate people to lead a healthier life and to engage in disease prevention, explicit financial incentives, such as monetary rewards for attaining health-related targets (e.g. smoking cessation, weight loss or increased physical activity) or disincentives for reverting to unhealthy habits, are applied. A review focused on financial incentives for health promotion among older people is lacking. Attention to this group is necessary because older people may respond differently to financial incentives, e.g. because of differences in opportunity costs and health perceptions. To outline how explicit financial incentives for healthy lifestyle and disease prevention work among older persons, this study reviews the recent evidence on this topic. We applied the method of systematic literature review and we searched in PUBMED, ECONLIT and COCHRANE LIBRARY for studies focused on explicit financial incentives targeted at older adults to promote health and stimulate primary prevention as well as screening. The publications selected as relevant were analyzed based on directed (relational) content analysis. The results are presented in a narrative manner complemented with an appendix table that describes the study details. We assessed the design of the studies reported in the publications in a qualitative manner. We also checked the quality of our review using the PRISMA 2009 checklist. We identified 15 studies on the role of explicit financial incentives in changing health-related behavior of older people. They include both, quantitative studies on the effectiveness of financial rewards as well as qualitative studies on the acceptability of financial incentives. The quantitative studies are characterized by a great diversity of designs and provide mixed results on the effects of explicit financial incentives. The results of the qualitative studies indicate limited trust of older people in the use of explicit financial incentives for health promotion and prevention. More research is needed on the effects of explicit financial incentives for prevention and promotion among older people before their broader use can be recommended. Overall, the design of the financial incentive system may be a crucial element in their acceptability.

Living kidney donation: the importance of public education.

PubMed

Tumin, Makmor; Rasiah, Rajah; Noh, Abdillah; Satar, NurulHuda Mohd; Chong, Chin-Sieng; Lim, Soo-Kun; Ng, Kok-Peng

2014-04-01

A sample of Malaysians in the Klang Valley indicating their decision on becoming unrelated living kidney donors was surveyed regarding huge amounts of financial incentives to be rewarded to them. From the 1310 respondents, 72.1% said "no" on becoming a living donor. The reason "I don't think humans can live with only one kidney" scored the highest (35.6%), and from the 27.9% of the respondents who are willing to donate their organ with the right financial incentive, most of the respondents picked the reasons "I want to do something noble in life" (50%), and monetary reason scored the lowest (6.2%), indicating that financial incentive is not a major reason guiding individuals' decision on becoming living donors. We suggest that the government should put priority at targeting public education to raise the understanding on the risk, safety and the quality of life of donation and transplantation, and improving the public trust on the donation and the surgical methods to carry out transplantation. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[How do Prevention Projects Reach their Target Groups? Results of a Survey with Prevention Projects].

PubMed

Brand, T; Böttcher, S; Jahn, I

2015-12-01

 The aim of this study was to assess methods used to access target groups in prevention projects funded within the prevention research framework by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.  A survey with prevention projects was conducted. Access strategies, communication channels, incentives, programme reach, and successful practical recruitment strategies were explored.  38 out of 60 projects took part in the survey. Most projects accessed their target group within structured settings (e. g., child day-care centers, schools, workplaces). Multiple communication channels and incentives were used, with written information and monetary incentives being used most frequently. Only few projects were able to report their programme reach adequately; programme reach was highest for programmes accessing the target groups in structured settings. The respondents viewed active recruitment via personal communication with the target group and key persons in the settings as the most successful strategy.  The paper provides an overview on recruitment strategies used in current preven-tion projects. More systematic research on programme reach is necessary. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Acceptability of financial incentives for maintenance of weight loss in mid-older adults: a mixed methods study.

PubMed

McGill, Bronwyn; O'Hara, Blythe J; Grunseit, Anne C; Bauman, Adrian; Osborne, Dale; Lawler, Luke; Phongsavan, Philayrath

2018-02-13

Health insurers worldwide implement financial incentive schemes to encourage health-related behaviours, including to facilitate weight loss. The maintenance of weight loss is a public health challenge, and as non-communicable diseases become more prevalent with increasing age, mid-older adults could benefit from programs which motivate weight loss maintenance. However, little is understood about their perceptions of using financial incentives to maintain weight loss. We used mixed methods to explore the attitudes and views of participants who had completed an Australian weight loss and lifestyle modification program offered to overweight and obese health insurance members with weight-related chronic diseases, about the acceptability and usefulness of different types of financial incentives to support weight loss maintenance. An online survey was completed by 130 respondents (mean age = 64 years); and a further 28 participants (mean age = 65 years) attended six focus groups. Both independent samples of participants supported a formalised maintenance program. Online survey respondents reported that non-cash (85.2%) and cash (77%) incentives would be potentially motivating; but only 40.5% reported that deposit contracts would motivate weight loss maintenance. Results of in-depth discussions found overall low support for any type of financial incentive, but particularly deposit contracts and lotteries. Some participants expressed that improved health was of more value than a monetary incentive and that they felt personally responsible for their own health, which was at odds with the idea of financial incentives. Others suggested ongoing program and peer support as potentially useful for weight loss maintenance. If financial incentives are considered for mid-older Australian adults in the health insurance setting, program planners will need to balance the discordance between participant beliefs about the individual responsibility for health and their desire for external supports to motivate and sustain weight loss maintenance.

A strategic gaming model for health information exchange markets.

PubMed

Martinez, Diego A; Feijoo, Felipe; Zayas-Castro, Jose L; Levin, Scott; Das, Tapas K

2018-03-01

Current market conditions create incentives for some providers to exercise control over patient data in ways that unreasonably limit its availability and use. Here we develop a game theoretic model for estimating the willingness of healthcare organizations to join a health information exchange (HIE) network and demonstrate its use in HIE policy design. We formulated the model as a bi-level integer program. A quasi-Newton method is proposed to obtain a strategy Nash equilibrium. We applied our modeling and solution technique to 1,093,177 encounters for exchanging information over a 7.5-year period in 9 hospitals located within a three-county region in Florida. Under a set of assumptions, we found that a proposed federal penalty of up to $2,000,000 has a higher impact on increasing HIE adoption than current federal monetary incentives. Medium-sized hospitals were more reticent to adopt HIE than large-sized hospitals. In the presence of collusion among multiple hospitals to not adopt HIE, neither federal incentives nor proposed penalties increase hospitals' willingness to adopt. Hospitals' apathy toward HIE adoption may threaten the value of inter-connectivity even with federal incentives in place. Competition among hospitals, coupled with volume-based payment systems, creates no incentives for smaller hospitals to exchange data with competitors. Medium-sized hospitals need targeted actions (e.g., outside technological assistance, group purchasing arrangements) to mitigate market incentives to not adopt HIE. Strategic game theoretic models help to clarify HIE adoption decisions under market conditions at play in an extremely complex technology environment.

Influence of subthalamic deep-brain stimulation on cognitive action control in incentive context.

PubMed

Houvenaghel, Jean-François; Duprez, Joan; Argaud, Soizic; Naudet, Florian; Dondaine, Thibaut; Robert, Gabriel Hadrien; Drapier, Sophie; Haegelen, Claire; Jannin, Pierre; Drapier, Dominique; Vérin, Marc; Sauleau, Paul

2016-10-01

Subthalamic nucleus deep-brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is an effective treatment in Parkinson's disease (PD), but can have cognitive side effects, such as increasing the difficulty of producing appropriate responses when a habitual but inappropriate responses represent strong alternatives. STN-DBS also appears to modulate representations of incentives such as monetary rewards. Furthermore, conflict resolution can be modulated by incentive context. We therefore used a rewarded Simon Task to assess the influence of promised rewards on cognitive action control in 50 patients with PD, half of whom were being treated with STN-DBS. Results were analyzed according to the activation-suppression model. We showed that STN-DBS (i) favored the expression of motor impulsivity, as measured with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, (ii) facilitated the expression of incentive actions as observed with a greater increase in speed according to promised reward in patients with versus without DBS and (iii) may increase impulsive action selection in an incentive context. In addition, analysis of subgroups of implanted patients suggested that those who exhibited the most impulsive action selection had the least severe disease. This may indicate that patients with less marked disease are more at risk of developing impulsivity postoperatively. Finally, in these patients, incentive context increased the difficulty of resolving conflict situations. As a whole, the current study revealed that in patients with PD, STN-DBS affects the cognitive processes involved in conflict resolution, reward processing and the influence of promised rewards on conflict resolution. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Role of contingency in striatal response to incentive in adolescents with anxiety.

PubMed

Benson, Brenda E; Guyer, Amanda E; Nelson, Eric E; Pine, Daniel S; Ernst, Monique

2015-03-01

This study examines the effect of contingency on reward function in anxiety. We define contingency as the aspect of a situation in which the outcome is determined by one's action-that is, when there is a direct link between one's action and the outcome of the action. Past findings in adolescents with anxiety or at risk for anxiety have revealed hypersensitive behavioral and neural responses to higher value rewards with correct performance. This hypersensitivity to highly valued (salient) actions suggests that the value of actions is determined not only by outcome magnitude, but also by the degree to which the outcome is contingent on correct performance. Thus, contingency and incentive value might each modulate reward responses in unique ways in anxiety. Using fMRI with a monetary reward task, striatal response to cue anticipation is compared in 18 clinically anxious and 20 healthy adolescents. This task manipulates orthogonally reward contingency and incentive value. Findings suggest that contingency modulates the neural response to incentive magnitude differently in the two groups. Specifically, during the contingent condition, right-striatal response tracks incentive value in anxious, but not healthy, adolescents. During the noncontingent condition, striatal response is bilaterally stronger to low than to high incentive in anxious adolescents, while healthy adolescents exhibit the expected opposite pattern. Both contingency and reward magnitude differentiate striatal activation in anxious versus healthy adolescents. These findings may reflect exaggerated concern about performance and/or alterations of striatal coding of reward value in anxious adolescents. Abnormalities in reward function in anxiety may have treatment implications.

The anticipation and outcome phases of reward and loss processing: A neuroimaging meta-analysis of the monetary incentive delay task.

PubMed

Oldham, Stuart; Murawski, Carsten; Fornito, Alex; Youssef, George; Yücel, Murat; Lorenzetti, Valentina

2018-04-25

The processing of rewards and losses are crucial to everyday functioning. Considerable interest has been attached to investigating the anticipation and outcome phases of reward and loss processing, but results to date have been inconsistent. It is unclear if anticipation and outcome of a reward or loss recruit similar or distinct brain regions. In particular, while the striatum has widely been found to be active when anticipating a reward, whether it activates in response to the anticipation of losses as well remains ambiguous. Furthermore, concerning the orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal regions, activation is often observed during reward receipt. However, it is unclear if this area is active during reward anticipation as well. We ran an Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis of 50 fMRI studies, which used the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT), to identify which brain regions are implicated in the anticipation of rewards, anticipation of losses, and the receipt of reward. Anticipating rewards and losses recruits overlapping areas including the striatum, insula, amygdala and thalamus, suggesting that a generalised neural system initiates motivational processes independent of valence. The orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal regions were recruited only during the reward outcome, likely representing the value of the reward received. Our findings help to clarify the neural substrates of the different phases of reward and loss processing, and advance neurobiological models of these processes. © 2018 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Identifying important motivational factors for professionals in Greek hospitals

PubMed Central

Kontodimopoulos, Nick; Paleologou, Victoria; Niakas, Dimitris

2009-01-01

Background The purpose of this study was to identify important motivational factors according to the views of health-care professionals in Greek hospitals and particularly to determine if these might differ in the public and private sectors. Methods A previously developed -and validated- instrument addressing four work-related motivators (job attributes, remuneration, co-workers and achievements) was used. Three categories of health care professionals, doctors (N = 354), nurses (N = 581) and office workers (N = 418), working in public and private hospitals, participated and motivation was compared across socio-demographic and occupational variables. Results The range of reported motivational factors was mixed and Maslow's conclusions that lower level motivational factors must be met before ascending to the next level were not confirmed. The highest ranked motivator for the entire sample, and by professional subgroup, was achievements (P < 0.001). Within subgroups, motivators were similar, and only one significant difference was observed, namely between doctors and nurses in respect to co-workers (P < 0.05). Remuneration (and salary in particular) was reported as a significant incentive only for professionals in managerial positions. Health professionals in private hospitals were motivated by all factors significantly more than their public-hospital counterparts. Conclusion The results are in agreement with the literature which focuses attention to management approaches employing both monetary and non-monetary incentives to motivate health care workers. This study showed that intrinsic factors are particularly important and should become a target for effective employee motivation. PMID:19754968

Frontal theta and beta synchronizations for monetary reward increase visual working memory capacity

PubMed Central

Yamaguchi, Yoko

2013-01-01

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity is affected by motivational influences; however, little is known about how reward-related brain activities facilitate the VWM systems. To investigate the dynamic relationship between VWM- and reward-related brain activities, we conducted time–frequency analyses using electroencephalograph (EEG) data obtained during a monetary-incentive delayed-response task that required participants to memorize the position of colored disks. In case of a correct answer, participants received a monetary reward (0, 10 or 50 Japanese yen) announced at the beginning of each trial. Behavioral results showed that VWM capacity under high-reward condition significantly increased compared with that under low- or no-reward condition. EEG results showed that frontal theta (6 Hz) amplitudes enhanced during delay periods and positively correlated with VWM capacity, indicating involvement of theta local synchronizations in VWM. Moreover, frontal beta activities (24 Hz) were identified as reward-related activities, because delay-period amplitudes correlated with increases in VWM capacity between high-reward and no-reward conditions. Interestingly, cross-frequency couplings between frontal theta and beta phases were observed only under high-reward conditions. These findings suggest that the functional dynamic linking between VWM-related theta and reward-related beta activities on the frontal regions plays an integral role in facilitating increases in VWM capacity. PMID:22349800

Gender-specific modulation of neural mechanisms underlying social reward processing by Autism Quotient

PubMed Central

Barman, Adriana; Richter, Sylvia; Soch, Joram; Deibele, Anna; Richter, Anni; Assmann, Anne; Wüstenberg, Torsten; Walter, Henrik; Seidenbecher, Constanze I.

2015-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder refers to a neurodevelopmental condition primarily characterized by deficits in social cognition and behavior. Subclinically, autistic features are supposed to be present in healthy humans and can be quantified using the Autism Quotient (AQ). Here, we investigated a potential relationship between AQ and neural correlates of social and monetary reward processing, using functional magnetic resonance imaging in young, healthy participants. In an incentive delay task with either monetary or social reward, reward anticipation elicited increased ventral striatal activation, which was more pronounced during monetary reward anticipation. Anticipation of social reward elicited activation in the default mode network (DMN), a network previously implicated in social processing. Social reward feedback was associated with bilateral amygdala and fusiform face area activation. The relationship between AQ and neural correlates of social reward processing varied in a gender-dependent manner. In women and, to a lesser extent in men, higher AQ was associated with increased posterior DMN activation during social reward anticipation. During feedback, we observed a negative correlation of AQ and right amygdala activation in men only. Our results suggest that social reward processing might constitute an endophenotype for autism-related traits in healthy humans that manifests in a gender-specific way. PMID:25944965

Striatal activation and frontostriatal connectivity during non-drug reward anticipation in alcohol dependence.

PubMed

Becker, Alena; Kirsch, Martina; Gerchen, Martin Fungisai; Kiefer, Falk; Kirsch, Peter

2017-05-01

According to prevailing neurobiological theories of addiction, altered function in neural reward circuitry is a central mechanism of alcohol dependence. Growing evidence postulates that the ventral striatum (VS), as well as areas of the prefrontal cortex, contribute to the increased incentive salience of alcohol-associated cues, diminished motivation to pursue non-drug rewards and weakened strength of inhibitory cognitive control, which are central to addiction. The present study aims to investigate the neural response and functional connectivity underlying monetary, non-drug reward processing in alcohol dependence. We utilized a reward paradigm to investigate the anticipation of monetary reward in 32 alcohol-dependent inpatients and 35 healthy controls. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure task-related brain activation and connectivity. Alcohol-dependent patients showed increased activation of the VS during anticipation of monetary gain compared with healthy controls. Generalized psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed decreased functional connectivity between the VS and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in alcohol dependent patients relative to controls. Increased activation of the VS and reduced frontostriatal connectivity were associated with increased craving. These findings provide evidence that alcohol dependence is rather associated with disrupted integration of striatal and prefrontal processes than with a global reward anticipation deficit. © 2016 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Differential patterns of nucleus accumbens activation during anticipation of monetary and social reward in young and older adults

PubMed Central

Salama, Aallaa; Gründer, Gerhard; Spreckelmeyer, Katja N.

2014-01-01

Recent studies have reported inconsistent results regarding the loss of reward sensitivity in the aging brain. Although such an age effect might be due to a decline of physiological processes, it may also be a consequence of age-related changes in motivational preference for different rewards. Here, we examined whether the age effects on neural correlates of reward anticipation are modulated by the type of expected reward. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired in 24 older (60–78 years) and 24 young participants (20–28 years) while they performed an incentive delay task offering monetary or social rewards. Anticipation of either reward type recruited brain structures associated with reward, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Region of interest analysis revealed an interaction effect of reward type and age group in the right NAcc: enhanced activation to cues of social reward was detected in the older subsample while enhanced activation to cues of monetary reward was detected in the younger subsample. Our results suggest that neural sensitivity to reward-predicting cues does not generally decrease with age. Rather, neural responses in the NAcc appear to be modulated by the type of reward, presumably reflecting age-related changes in motivational value attributed to different types of reward. PMID:23547243

Frontal theta and beta synchronizations for monetary reward increase visual working memory capacity.

PubMed

Kawasaki, Masahiro; Yamaguchi, Yoko

2013-06-01

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity is affected by motivational influences; however, little is known about how reward-related brain activities facilitate the VWM systems. To investigate the dynamic relationship between VWM- and reward-related brain activities, we conducted time-frequency analyses using electroencephalograph (EEG) data obtained during a monetary-incentive delayed-response task that required participants to memorize the position of colored disks. In case of a correct answer, participants received a monetary reward (0, 10 or 50 Japanese yen) announced at the beginning of each trial. Behavioral results showed that VWM capacity under high-reward condition significantly increased compared with that under low- or no-reward condition. EEG results showed that frontal theta (6 Hz) amplitudes enhanced during delay periods and positively correlated with VWM capacity, indicating involvement of theta local synchronizations in VWM. Moreover, frontal beta activities (24 Hz) were identified as reward-related activities, because delay-period amplitudes correlated with increases in VWM capacity between high-reward and no-reward conditions. Interestingly, cross-frequency couplings between frontal theta and beta phases were observed only under high-reward conditions. These findings suggest that the functional dynamic linking between VWM-related theta and reward-related beta activities on the frontal regions plays an integral role in facilitating increases in VWM capacity.

Financial incentives and coverage of child health interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Bassani, Diego G; Arora, Paul; Wazny, Kerri; Gaffey, Michelle F; Lenters, Lindsey; Bhutta, Zulfiqar A

2013-01-01

Financial incentives are widely used strategies to alleviate poverty, foster development, and improve health. Cash transfer programs, microcredit, user fee removal policies and voucher schemes that provide direct or indirect monetary incentives to households have been used for decades in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and more recently in Southeast Asia. Until now, no systematic review of the impact of financial incentives on coverage and uptake of health interventions targeting children under 5 years of age has been conducted. The objective of this review is to provide estimates on the effect of six types of financial incentive programs: (i) Unconditional cash transfers (CT), (ii) Conditional cash transfers (CCT), (iii) Microcredit (MC), (iv) Conditional Microcredit (CMC), (v) Voucher schemes (VS) and (vi) User fee removal (UFR) on the uptake and coverage of health interventions targeting children under the age of five years. We conducted systematic searches of a series of databases until September 1st, 2012, to identify relevant studies reporting on the impact of financial incentives on coverage of health interventions and behaviors targeting children under 5 years of age. The quality of the studies was assessed using the CHERG criteria. Meta-analyses were undertaken to estimate the effect when multiple studies meeting our inclusion criteria were available. Our searches resulted in 1671 titles identified 25 studies reporting on the impact of financial incentive programs on 5 groups of coverage indicators: breastfeeding practices (breastfeeding incidence, proportion of children receiving colostrum and early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and duration of breastfeeding); vaccination (coverage of full immunization, partial immunization and specific antigens); health care use (seeking healthcare when child was ill, visits to health facilities for preventive reasons, visits to health facilities for any reason, visits for health check-up including growth control); management of diarrhoeal disease (ORS use during diarrhea episode, continued feeding during diarrhea, healthcare during diarrhea episode) and other preventive health interventions (iron supplementation, vitamin A, zinc supplementation, preventive deworming). The quality of evidence on the effect of financial incentives on breastfeeding practices was low but seems to indicate a potential positive impact on receiving colostrum, early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding and mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding. There is no effect of financial incentives on immunization coverage although there was moderate quality evidence of conditional cash transfers leading to a small but non-significant increase in coverage of age-appropriate immunization. There was low quality evidence of impact of CCT on healthcare use by children under age 5 (Risk difference: 0.14 [95%CI: 0.03; 0.26]) as well as low quality evidence of an effect of user fee removal on use of curative health services (RD=0.62 [0.41; 0.82]). Financial incentives may have potential to promote increased coverage of several important child health interventions, but the quality of evidence available is low. The more pronounced effects seem to be achieved by programs that directly removed user fees for access to health services. Some indication of effect were also observed for programs that conditioned financial incentives on participation in health education and attendance to health care visits. This finding suggest that the measured effect may be less a consequence of the financial incentive and more due to conditionalities addressing important informational barriers.

Financial incentives and coverage of child health interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Financial incentives are widely used strategies to alleviate poverty, foster development, and improve health. Cash transfer programs, microcredit, user fee removal policies and voucher schemes that provide direct or indirect monetary incentives to households have been used for decades in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and more recently in Southeast Asia. Until now, no systematic review of the impact of financial incentives on coverage and uptake of health interventions targeting children under 5 years of age has been conducted. The objective of this review is to provide estimates on the effect of six types of financial incentive programs: (i) Unconditional cash transfers (CT), (ii) Conditional cash transfers (CCT), (iii) Microcredit (MC), (iv) Conditional Microcredit (CMC), (v) Voucher schemes (VS) and (vi) User fee removal (UFR) on the uptake and coverage of health interventions targeting children under the age of five years. Methods We conducted systematic searches of a series of databases until September 1st, 2012, to identify relevant studies reporting on the impact of financial incentives on coverage of health interventions and behaviors targeting children under 5 years of age. The quality of the studies was assessed using the CHERG criteria. Meta-analyses were undertaken to estimate the effect when multiple studies meeting our inclusion criteria were available. Results Our searches resulted in 1671 titles identified 25 studies reporting on the impact of financial incentive programs on 5 groups of coverage indicators: breastfeeding practices (breastfeeding incidence, proportion of children receiving colostrum and early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and duration of breastfeeding); vaccination (coverage of full immunization, partial immunization and specific antigens); health care use (seeking healthcare when child was ill, visits to health facilities for preventive reasons, visits to health facilities for any reason, visits for health check-up including growth control); management of diarrhoeal disease (ORS use during diarrhea episode, continued feeding during diarrhea, healthcare during diarrhea episode) and other preventive health interventions (iron supplementation, vitamin A, zinc supplementation, preventive deworming). The quality of evidence on the effect of financial incentives on breastfeeding practices was low but seems to indicate a potential positive impact on receiving colostrum, early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding and mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding. There is no effect of financial incentives on immunization coverage although there was moderate quality evidence of conditional cash transfers leading to a small but non-significant increase in coverage of age-appropriate immunization. There was low quality evidence of impact of CCT on healthcare use by children under age 5 (Risk difference: 0.14 [95%CI: 0.03; 0.26]) as well as low quality evidence of an effect of user fee removal on use of curative health services (RD=0.62 [0.41; 0.82]). Conclusions Financial incentives may have potential to promote increased coverage of several important child health interventions, but the quality of evidence available is low. The more pronounced effects seem to be achieved by programs that directly removed user fees for access to health services. Some indication of effect were also observed for programs that conditioned financial incentives on participation in health education and attendance to health care visits. This finding suggest that the measured effect may be less a consequence of the financial incentive and more due to conditionalities addressing important informational barriers. PMID:24564520

Reward Contingencies Improve Goal-Directed Behavior by Enhancing Posterior Brain Attentional Regions and Increasing Corticostriatal Connectivity in Cocaine Addicts.

PubMed

Rosell-Negre, Patricia; Bustamante, Juan-Carlos; Fuentes-Claramonte, Paola; Costumero, Víctor; Llopis-Llacer, Juan-José; Barrós-Loscertales, Alfonso

2016-01-01

The dopaminergic system provides the basis for the interaction between motivation and cognition. It is triggered by the possibility of obtaining rewards to initiate the neurobehavioral adaptations necessary to achieve them by directing the information from motivational circuits to cognitive and action circuits. In drug addiction, the altered dopamine (DA) modulation of the meso-cortico-limbic reward circuitry, such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), underlies the disproportionate motivational value of drug use at the expense of other non-drug reinforcers and the user's loss of control over his/her drug intake. We examine how the magnitude of the reward affects goal-directed processes in healthy control (HC) subjects and abstinent cocaine dependent (ACD) patients by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a counting Stroop task with blocked levels of monetary incentives of different magnitudes (€0, €0.01, €0.5, €1 or €1.5). Our results showed that increasing reward magnitude enhances (1) performance facilitation in both groups; (2) left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity in HC and left superior occipital cortex activity in ACD; and (3) left DLPFC and left putamen connectivity in ACD compared to HC. Moreover, we observed that (4) dorsal striatal and pallidum activity was associated with craving and addiction severity during the parametric increases in the monetary reward. In conclusion, the brain response to gradients in monetary value was different in HC and ACD, but both groups showed improved task performance due to the possibility of obtaining greater monetary rewards.

Reward Contingencies Improve Goal-Directed Behavior by Enhancing Posterior Brain Attentional Regions and Increasing Corticostriatal Connectivity in Cocaine Addicts

PubMed Central

Rosell-Negre, Patricia; Bustamante, Juan-Carlos; Fuentes-Claramonte, Paola; Costumero, Víctor; Llopis-Llacer, Juan-José; Barrós-Loscertales, Alfonso

2016-01-01

The dopaminergic system provides the basis for the interaction between motivation and cognition. It is triggered by the possibility of obtaining rewards to initiate the neurobehavioral adaptations necessary to achieve them by directing the information from motivational circuits to cognitive and action circuits. In drug addiction, the altered dopamine (DA) modulation of the meso-cortico-limbic reward circuitry, such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), underlies the disproportionate motivational value of drug use at the expense of other non-drug reinforcers and the user’s loss of control over his/her drug intake. We examine how the magnitude of the reward affects goal-directed processes in healthy control (HC) subjects and abstinent cocaine dependent (ACD) patients by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a counting Stroop task with blocked levels of monetary incentives of different magnitudes (€0, €0.01, €0.5, €1 or €1.5). Our results showed that increasing reward magnitude enhances (1) performance facilitation in both groups; (2) left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity in HC and left superior occipital cortex activity in ACD; and (3) left DLPFC and left putamen connectivity in ACD compared to HC. Moreover, we observed that (4) dorsal striatal and pallidum activity was associated with craving and addiction severity during the parametric increases in the monetary reward. In conclusion, the brain response to gradients in monetary value was different in HC and ACD, but both groups showed improved task performance due to the possibility of obtaining greater monetary rewards. PMID:27907134

The influence of monetary punishment on cognitive control in abstinent cocaine-users*

PubMed Central

Hester, Robert; Bell, Ryan P.; Foxe, John J.; Garavan, Hugh

2013-01-01

Background Dependent drug users show a diminished neural response to punishment, in both limbic and cortical regions, though it remains unclear how such changes influence cognitive processes critical to addiction. To assess this relationship, we examined the influence of monetary punishment on inhibitory control and adaptive post-error behaviour in abstinent cocaine dependent (CD) participants. Methods 15 abstinent CD and 15 matched control participants performed a Go/No-go response inhibition task, which administered monetary fines for failed response inhibition, during collection of fMRI data. Results CD participants showed reduced inhibitory control and significantly less adaptive post-error slowing in response to punishment, when compared to controls. The diminished behavioural punishment sensitivity shown by CD participants was associated with significant hypoactive error-related BOLD responses in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), right insula and right prefrontal regions. Specifically, CD participants’ error-related response in these regions was not modulated by the presence of punishment, whereas control participants’ response showed a significant BOLD increase during punished errors. Conclusions CD participants showed a blunted response to failed control (errors) that was not modulated by punishment. Consistent with previous findings of reduced sensitivity to monetary loss in cocaine users, we further demonstrate that such insensitivity is associated with an inability to increase cognitive control in the face of negative consequences, a core symptom of addiction. The pattern of deficits in the CD group may have implications for interventions that attempt to improve cognitive control in drug dependent groups via positive/negative incentives. PMID:23791040

The influence of monetary punishment on cognitive control in abstinent cocaine-users.

PubMed

Hester, Robert; Bell, Ryan P; Foxe, John J; Garavan, Hugh

2013-11-01

Dependent drug users show a diminished neural response to punishment, in both limbic and cortical regions, though it remains unclear how such changes influence cognitive processes critical to addiction. To assess this relationship, we examined the influence of monetary punishment on inhibitory control and adaptive post-error behavior in abstinent cocaine dependent (CD) participants. 15 abstinent CD and 15 matched control participants performed a Go/No-go response inhibition task, which administered monetary fines for failed response inhibition, during collection of fMRI data. CD participants showed reduced inhibitory control and significantly less adaptive post-error slowing in response to punishment, when compared to controls. The diminished behavioral punishment sensitivity shown by CD participants was associated with significant hypoactive error-related BOLD responses in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), right insula and right prefrontal regions. Specifically, CD participants' error-related response in these regions was not modulated by the presence of punishment, whereas control participants' response showed a significant BOLD increase during punished errors. CD participants showed a blunted response to failed control (errors) that was not modulated by punishment. Consistent with previous findings of reduced sensitivity to monetary loss in cocaine users, we further demonstrate that such insensitivity is associated with an inability to increase cognitive control in the face of negative consequences, a core symptom of addiction. The pattern of deficits in the CD group may have implications for interventions that attempt to improve cognitive control in drug dependent groups via positive/negative incentives. Crown Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Determining Preferences Related to HIV Counselling and Testing Services Among High School Learners in KwaZulu-Natal: A Discrete Choice Experiment.

PubMed

Strauss, Michael; George, Gavin L; Rhodes, Bruce D

2018-01-01

A key strategy of the South African national response to HIV is the scale-up of HIV counselling and testing (HCT) in the 15-49 years age group. The integrated school health policy aims to guide the roll out of youth-friendly health services including the provision of HCT in schools. Using a discrete choice experiment to examine preferences regarding the attributes of HCT service packages, this study identifies barriers to and facilitators of HCT among high school learners. Monetary considerations were found to have the strongest effect of any attribute on choice, whilst confidentiality was found to be a primary concern for learners considering HCT. Policy makers and service providers must ensure that confidentiality is maintained, and could consider using monetary incentives as a way of increasing uptake of HCT. Programmes designed to reduce social stigma and improve education and knowledge dissemination around HCT and HIV, are vital in creating demand for HCT and changing attitudes among young people.

Delay discounting as emotional processing: an electrophysiological study.

PubMed

Blackburn, Marianna; Mason, Liam; Hoeksma, Marco; Zandstra, Elizabeth H; El-Deredy, Wael

2012-01-01

Both theoretical models and functional imaging studies implicate the involvement of emotions within the delay discounting process. However, defining this role has been difficult to establish with neuroimaging techniques given the automaticity of emotional responses. To address this, the current study examined electrophysiological correlates involved in the detection and evaluation of immediate and delayed monetary outcomes. Our results showed that modulation of both early and later ERP components previously associated with affective stimuli processing are sensitive to the signalling of delayed rewards. Together with behavioural reaction times that favoured immediacy, we demonstrated, for the first time, that time delays modify the incentive value of monetary rewards via mechanisms of emotional bias and selective visual attention. Furthermore, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that delayed and thus intangible rewards are perceived less saliently, and rely on emotion as a common currency within decision making. This study provides a new approach to delay discounting and highlights a potential novel route through which delay discounting may be investigated.

Financial incentives for cadaver organ donation: an ethical reappraisal.

PubMed

Arnold, Robert; Bartlett, Steven; Bernat, James; Colonna, John; Dafoe, Donald; Dubler, Nancy; Gruber, Scott; Kahn, Jeffrey; Luskin, Richard; Nathan, Howard; Orloff, Susan; Prottas, Jeffrey; Shapiro, Robyn; Ricordi, Camillo; Youngner, Stuart; Delmonico, Francis L

2002-04-27

A panel of ethicists, organ procurement organization executives, physicians, and surgeons was convened by the sponsorship of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons to determine whether an ethically acceptable pilot trial could be proposed to provide a financial incentive for a family to consent to the donation of organs from a deceased relative. An ethical methodology was developed that could be applied to any proposal for monetary compensation to elucidate its ethical acceptability. An inverse relationship between financial incentives for increasing the families' consent for cadaver donation that clearly would be ethically acceptable (e.g., a contribution to a charity chosen by the family or a reimbursement for funeral expenses) and those approaches that would more likely increase the rate of donation (e.g., direct payment or tax incentive) was evident. The panel was unanimously opposed to the exchange of money for cadaver donor organs because either a direct payment or tax incentive would violate the ideal standard of altruism in organ donation and unacceptably commercialize the value of human life by commodifying donated organs. However, a majority of the panel members supported reimbursement for funeral expenses or a charitable contribution as an ethically permissible approach. The panel concluded that the concept of the organ as a gift could be sustained by a funeral reimbursement or charitable contribution that conveyed the appreciation of society to the family for their donation. Depending on the amount of reimbursement provided for funeral expenses, this approach could be ethically distinguished from a direct payment, by their intrusion into the realm of altruism and voluntariness. We suggest that a pilot project be conducted to determine whether this kind of a financial incentive would be acceptable to the public and successful in increasing organ donation.

Reduced Sensitivity to Sooner Reward During Intertemporal Decision-Making Following Insula Damage in Humans

PubMed Central

Sellitto, Manuela; Ciaramelli, Elisa; Mattioli, Flavia; di Pellegrino, Giuseppe

2016-01-01

During intertemporal choice, humans tend to prefer small-sooner rewards over larger-delayed rewards, reflecting temporal discounting (TD) of delayed outcomes. Functional neuroimaging (fMRI) evidence has implicated the insular cortex in time-sensitive decisions, yet it is not clear whether activity in this brain region is crucial for, or merely associated with, TD behavior. Here, patients with damage to the insula (Insular patients), control patients with lesions outside the insula, and healthy individuals chose between smaller-sooner and larger-later monetary rewards. Insular patients were less sensitive to sooner rewards than were the control groups, exhibiting reduced TD. A Voxel-based Lesion-Symptom Mapping (VLSM) analysis confirmed a statistically significant association between insular damage and reduced TD. These results indicate that the insular cortex is crucial for intertemporal choice. We suggest that he insula may be necessary to anticipate the bodily/emotional effects of receiving rewards at different delays, influencing the computation of their incentive value. Devoid of such input, insular patients’ choices would be governed by a heuristic of quantity, allowing patients to wait for larger options. PMID:26793084

Ethical issues in research with homeless youths.

PubMed

Ensign, Josephine; Ammerman, Seth

2008-05-01

This paper is a report of a study to document researcher, healthcare provider and programme administrators' experiences with ethical issues in research with homeless youths in North America. While there are legal and ethical guidelines for research with adolescents and with vulnerable populations in general, there are no specific guidelines for the ethical conduct of research with homeless youths. Using a web-based questionnaire, healthcare and social service providers, programme administrators and researchers working with homeless young people throughout the United States of America and Canada were surveyed in 2005. The survey group consisted of 120 individuals; a total of 72 individuals completed the survey. Survey questions included experiences with using incentives in research with homeless youths, consent and experiences with ethics review boards. Numerical data were analysed using frequencies and cross-tabulations. Text data were analysed qualitatively. Researchers doing mental health and/or substance use research tended to use money as a research incentive, whereas healthcare providers and programme administrators tended to use non-monetary incentives. The majority of respondents reported using written consent for research from homeless youths, including minors. Respondents reporting difficulties with ethics review boards were mainly involved with intervention research. Consensus is needed from a variety of stakeholders, including homeless youths and service providers, on use of various types of research incentives for different types of research, as well as use of consent for homeless youths who are minors.

Community health workers in rural India: analysing the opportunities and challenges Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) face in realising their multiple roles.

PubMed

Saprii, Lipekho; Richards, Esther; Kokho, Puni; Theobald, Sally

2015-12-09

Globally, there is increasing interest in community health worker's (CHW) performance; however, there are gaps in the evidence with respect to CHWs' role in community participation and empowerment. Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), whose roles include social activism, are the key cadre in India's CHW programme which is designed to improve maternal and child health. In a diverse country like India, there is a need to understand how the ASHA programme operates in different underserved Indian contexts, such as rural Manipur. We undertook qualitative research to explore stakeholders' perceptions and experiences of the ASHA scheme in strengthening maternal health and uncover the opportunities and challenges ASHAs face in realising their multiple roles in rural Manipur, India. Data was collected through in-depth interviews (n = 18) and focus group discussions (n = 3 FGDs, 18 participants). Participants included ASHAs, key stakeholders and community members. They were purposively sampled based on remoteness of villages and primary health centres to capture diverse and relevant constituencies, as we believed experiences of ASHAs can be shaped by remoteness. Data were analysed using the thematic framework approach. Findings suggested that ASHAs are mostly understood as link workers. ASHA's ability to address the immediate needs of rural and marginalised communities meant that they were valued as service providers. The programme is perceived to be beneficial as it improves awareness and behaviour change towards maternal care. However, there are a number of challenges; the selection of ASHAs is influenced by power structures and poor community sensitisation of the ASHA programme presents a major risk to success and sustainability. The primary health centres which ASHAs link to are ill-equipped. Thus, ASHAs experience adverse consequences in their ability to inspire trust and credibility in the community. Small and irregular monetary incentives demotivate ASHAs. Finally, ASHAs had limited knowledge about their role as an 'activist' and how to realise this. ASHAs are valued for their contribution towards maternal health education and for their ability to provide basic biomedical care, but their role as social activists is much less visible as envisioned in the ASHA operational guideline. Access by ASHAs to fair monetary incentives commensurate with effort coupled with the poor functionality of the health system are critical elements limiting the role of ASHAs both within the health system and within communities in rural Manipur.

Neural substrates of social facilitation effects on incentive-based performance

PubMed Central

Chib, Vikram S; Adachi, Ryo; O’Doherty, John P

2018-01-01

Abstract Throughout our lives we must perform tasks while being observed by others. Previous studies have shown that the presence of an audience can cause increases in an individual’s performance as compared to when they are not being observed—a phenomenon called ‘social facilitation’. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this effect, in the context of skilled-task performance for monetary incentives, are not well understood. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain activity while healthy human participants performed a skilled-task during conditions in which they were paid based on their performance and observed and not observed by an audience. We found that during social facilitation, social signals represented in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) enhanced reward value computations in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). We also found that functional connectivity between dmPFC and ventral striatum was enhanced when participants exhibited social facilitation effects, indicative of a means by which social signals serve to modulate brain regions involved in regulating behavioral motivation. These findings illustrate how neural processing of social judgments gives rise to the enhanced motivational state that results in social facilitation of incentive-based performance. PMID:29648653

Monetary payments for the procurement of oocytes for stem cell research: In search of ethical and political consistency.

PubMed

Isasi, Rosario M; Knoppers, Bartha M

2007-10-01

The debate on both the appropriateness of allowing healthy women to provide oocytes for research use and the use of financial incentives is increasingly reduced to a confrontation between ethics, science, and the welfare of women. It is plausible that the expansion of national and international research efforts, paired with the growing trend toward liberalizing stem cell research policies, will inevitably result in increased demand for the materials needed to conduct such research. The scarcity of human reproductive materials that are available for research generates concerns over, the emergence of a "black market", an increase in financial incentives for donors, and the appropriateness of current regulatory frameworks that aim to safeguard donors. In this article we explore the conceptual models for categorizing oocyte donors and analyze the use of financial incentives as well as the compensation models proposed and implemented in various jurisdictions. Finally, we propose the adoption of a mixed model that both respects altruism and provides a feasible solution to an issue that could be situated only in the context of the overall acceptability of providing financial rewards to donors of human reproductive materials for assisted reproductive technologies.

Cognitive control under contingencies in anxious and depressed adolescents: an antisaccade task.

PubMed

Jazbec, Sandra; McClure, Erin; Hardin, Michael; Pine, Daniel S; Ernst, Monique

2005-10-15

Emotion-related perturbations in cognitive control characterize adult mood and anxiety disorders. Fewer data are available to confirm such deficits in youth. Studies of cognitive control and error processing can provide an ideal template to examine these perturbations. Antisaccade paradigms are particularly well suited for this endeavor because they provide exquisite behavioral measures of modulation of response errors. A new monetary reward antisaccade task was used with 28 healthy, 11 anxious, and 12 depressed adolescents. Performance accuracy, saccade latency, and peak velocity of incorrect responses were analyzed. Performance accuracy across all groups was improved by incentives (obtain reward, avoid punishment). However, modulation of saccade errors by incentives differed by groups. In incentive trials relative to neutral trials, inhibitory efficiency (saccade latency) was enhanced in healthy, unaffected in depressed, and diminished in anxious adolescents. Modulation of errant actions (saccade peak velocity) was improved in the healthy group and unchanged in both the anxious and depressed groups. These findings provide grounds for testing hypotheses related to the impact of motivation deficits and emotional interference on directed action in adolescents with mood and anxiety disorders. Furthermore, neural mechanisms can now be examined by using this task paired with functional neuroimaging.

Smiling faces and cash bonuses: Exploring common affective coding across positive and negative emotional and motivational stimuli using fMRI.

PubMed

Park, Haeme R P; Kostandyan, Mariam; Boehler, C Nico; Krebs, Ruth M

2018-06-01

Although it is clear that emotional and motivational manipulations yield a strong influence on cognition and behaviour, these domains have mostly been investigated in independent research lines. Therefore, it remains poorly understood how far these affective manipulations overlap in terms of their underlying neural activations, especially in light of previous findings that suggest a shared valence mechanism across multiple affective processing domains (e.g., monetary incentives, primary rewards, emotional events). This is particularly interesting considering the commonality between emotional and motivational constructs in terms of their basic affective nature (positive vs. negative), but dissociations in terms of instrumentality, in that only reward-related stimuli are typically associated with performance-contingent outcomes. Here, we aimed to examine potential common neural processes triggered by emotional and motivational stimuli in matched tasks within participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Across tasks, we found shared valence effects in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus (part of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), with increased activity for positive and negative stimuli, respectively. Despite this commonality, emotion and reward tasks featured differential behavioural patterns in that negative valence effects (performance costs) were exclusive to emotional stimuli, while positive valence effects (performance benefits) were only observed for reward-related stimuli. Overall, our data suggest a common affective coding mechanism across different task domains and support the idea that monetary incentives entail signed basic valence signals, above and beyond the instruction to perform both gain and loss trials as accurately as possible to maximise the outcome.

Anticipatory Reward Processing in Addicted Populations: A Focus on the Monetary Incentive Delay Task

PubMed Central

Balodis, Iris M.; Potenza, Marc N.

2014-01-01

Advances in brain imaging techniques have allowed neurobiological research to temporally analyze signals coding for the anticipation of rewards. In addicted populations, both hypo- and hyper-responsiveness of brain regions (e.g., ventral striatum) implicated in drug effects and reward system processing have been reported during anticipation of generalized reward. Here, we discuss the current state of knowledge of reward processing in addictive disorders from a widely used and validated task: the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT). The current paper constrains review to those studies applying the MIDT in addicted and at-risk adult populations, with a focus on anticipatory processing and striatal regions activated during task performance, as well as the relationship of these regions with individual difference (e.g., impulsivity) and treatment outcome variables. We further review drug influences in challenge studies as a means to examine acute influences on reward processing in abstinent, recreationally using and addicted populations. Here, we discuss that generalized reward processing in addicted and at-risk populations is often characterized by divergent anticipatory signaling in the ventral striatum. Although methodological/task variations may underlie some discrepant findings, anticipatory signaling in the ventral striatum may also be influenced by smoking status, drug metabolites and treatment status in addicted populations. Divergent results across abstinent, recreationally using and addicted populations demonstrate complexities in interpreting findings. Future studies will benefit from focusing on characterizing how impulsivity and other addiction-related features relate to anticipatory striatal signaling over time. Additionally, identifying how anticipatory signals recover/adjust following protracted abstinence will be important in understanding recovery processes. PMID:25481621

Satisfaction, motivation, and future of community preceptors: what are the current trends?

PubMed

Latessa, Robyn; Colvin, Gaye; Beaty, Norma; Steiner, Beat D; Pathman, Donald E

2013-08-01

To measure overall satisfaction of community-based preceptors, their anticipated likelihood of continuing to teach, professional satisfaction, influence of having students, motivation for teaching, satisfaction with professional practice, and satisfaction with and value of incentives, and to compare results with those of a similar 2005 statewide survey. In 2011, the authors distributed a 25-item survey to all 2,359 community-based primary care preceptors (physicians, pharmacists, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants) served by the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers system's Offices of Regional Primary Care Education. The survey targeted the same items and pool of eligible respondents as did the North Carolina Area Health Education Center 2005 Preceptor Survey. Of 2,359 preceptors contacted, 1,278 (54.2%) completed questionnaires. The data from 2011 did not differ significantly from the 2005 data. In 2011, respondents were satisfied with precepting (91.7%), anticipated continuing to precept for the next five years (88.7%), and were satisfied overall with their professional life (93.7%). Intrinsic reasons (e.g., enjoyment of teaching) remained an important motivation for teaching students. Physicians reported significantly lower overall satisfaction with extrinsic incentives (e.g., monetary compensation) and felt more negativity about the influence of students on their practices. This study found that preceptors continue to be satisfied with teaching students. Intrinsic reasons remain an important motivation to precept, but monetary compensation may have increasing importance. Physicians responded more negatively than other health provider groups to several questions, suggesting that their needs might be better met by redesigned teaching models.

Greening academia: Use and disposal of mobile phones among university students

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ongondo, F.O.; Williams, I.D., E-mail: idw@soton.ac.uk

Research highlights: > Students use/disposal of mobile phones was assessed via a large-scale survey and a takeback trial. > We estimate 3.7 m phones stockpiled by UK students; 29.3 and 28.1 m stockpiled for Europe and USA. > Many students replace phones at least once a year; only a small number have used a takeback service. > Monetary incentives have greatest influence over willingness to utilise takeback services. > Universities should partner with established operators to conduct targeted takeback services. - Abstract: Mobile phones have relatively short lifecycles and are rapidly seen as obsolete by many users within little overmore » a year. However, the reusability of these devices as well as their material composition means that in terms of mass and volume, mobile phones represent the most valuable electronic products that are currently found in large numbers in waste streams. End-of-life mobile phones are a high value (from a reuse and resource perspective), high volume (quantity), low cost (residual monetary value) and transient (short lifecycle) electronic product. There are very large numbers of higher education (mainly university) students in the world - there are >2.4 million in the UK alone, 19 million in Europe and 18.2 million in the USA - and they often replace their mobile phones several times before graduation. Thus, because of the potentially significant environmental and economic impacts, a large scale survey of students at 5 UK universities was conducted to assess the behaviour of students with regard to their use and disposal of mobile phones. Additionally, a small scale trial mobile phone takeback service at one of the universities was carried out. The findings indicate that many students replace their phones at least once a year; replacing broken phones, getting upgrades from network operators, remaining 'fashionable' and a desire to have a handset with a longer battery life are the main reasons for such rapid replacement. Almost 60% of replaced phones are not sent to reuse or recycling operations but are stockpiled by students mainly as spare/backup phones. Approximately 61% of students own an extra mobile phone with male students replacing their phones more often than females. In particular, the results highlight the potentially huge stockpile of mobile phones - and consequently valuable supplies of rare metals - being held by the public; we estimate that there are 3.7 million phones stockpiled by students in UK higher education alone (29.3 and 28.1 million stockpiled, respectively, for Europe and USA). Although many students are aware of UK mobile phone takeback services, only a moderate number have previously used the services. Students' recycling of other waste materials such as paper and glass did not have a significant impact on their disposal actions for their unwanted mobile phones, although students who often recycled these waste materials were also the most willing to participate in mobile phone takeback services. Monetary incentives such as cash payments and vouchers have the greatest influence over students' willingness to utilise takeback services, followed by convenience and ease of use of the services. The paper discusses these findings as well as the outcome of the trial mobile phone takeback. It is suggested that universities should partner with established takeback operators to conduct event-based mobile phone takeback services primarily targeting students. Lessons from mobile phone takeback applicable to takeback services for end-of-life gadgets similar to mobile phones are also discussed.« less

Incentives for increasing prenatal care use by women in order to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.

PubMed

Till, Sara R; Everetts, David; Haas, David M

2015-12-15

Prenatal care is recommended during pregnancy as a method to improve neonatal and maternal outcomes. Improving the use of prenatal care is important, particularly for women at moderate to high risk of adverse outcomes. Incentives are sometimes utilized to encourage women to attend prenatal care visits. To determine whether incentives are an effective tool to increase utilization of timely prenatal care among women. We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (31 January 2015) and the reference lists of all retrieved studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-RCTs, and cluster-RCTs that utilized direct incentives to pregnant women explicitly linked to initiation and frequency of prenatal care were included. Incentives could include cash, vouchers, coupons or products not generally offered to women as a standard of prenatal care. Comparisons were to no incentives and to incentives not linked directly to utilization of care. We also planned to compare different types of interventions, i.e. monetary versus products or services. Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion and methodological quality. Two review authors independently extracted data. Data were checked for accuracy. We identified 11 studies (19 reports), six of which we excluded. Five studies, involving 11,935 pregnancies were included, but only 1893 pregnancies contributed data regarding our specified outcomes. Incentives in the studies included cash, gift card, baby carrier, baby blanket or taxicab voucher and were compared with no incentives. Meta-analysis was performed for only one outcome 'Return for postpartum care' and this outcome was not pre-specified in our protocol. Other analyses were restricted to data from single studies.Trials were at a moderate risk of bias overall. Randomization and allocation were adequate and risk of selection bias was low in three studies and unclear in two studies. None of the studies were blinded to the participants. Blinding of outcome assessors was adequate in one study, but was limited or not described in the remaining four studies. Risk of attrition was deemed to be low in all studies that contributed data to the review. Two of the studies reported or analyzed data in a manner that was not consistent with the predetermined protocol and thus were deemed to be at high risk. The other three studies were low risk for reporting bias. The largest two of the five studies comprising the majority of participants took place in rural, low-income, homogenously Hispanic communities in Central America. This setting introduces a number of confounding factors that may affect generalizability of these findings to ethnically and economically diverse urban communities in developed countries.The five included studies of incentive programs did not report any of this review's primary outcomes: preterm birth, small-for-gestational age, or perinatal death.In terms of this review's secondary outcomes, pregnant women receiving incentives were no more likely to initiate prenatal care (risk ratio (RR) 1.04, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78 to 1.38, one study, 104 pregnancies). Pregnant women receiving incentives were more likely to attend prenatal visits on a frequent basis (RR 1.18, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.38, one study, 606 pregnancies) and obtain adequate prenatal care defined by number of "procedures" such as testing blood sugar or blood pressure, vaccinations and counseling about breastfeeding and birth control (mean difference (MD) 5.84, 95% CI 1.88 to 9.80, one study, 892 pregnancies). In contrast, women who received incentives were more likely to deliver by cesarean section (RR 1.97, 95% CI 1.18 to 3.30, one study, 979 pregnancies) compared to those women who did not receive incentives.Women who received incentives were no more likely to return for postpartum care based on results of meta-analysis (average RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.21 to 2.64, two studies, 833 pregnancies, Tau² = 0.81, I² = 98%). However, there was substantial heterogeneity in this analysis so a subgroup analysis was performed and this identified a clear difference between subgroups based on the type of incentive being offered. In one study, women receiving non-cash incentives were more likely to return for postpartum care (RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.47, 240 pregnancies) than women who did not receive non-cash incentives. In another study, women receiving cash incentives were less likely to return for postpartum care (RR 0.43, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.62, 593 pregnancies) than women who did not receive cash incentives.No data were identified for the following secondary outcomes: frequency of prenatal care; pre-eclampsia; satisfaction with birth experience; maternal mortality; low birthweight (less than 2500 g); infant macrosomia (birthweight greater than 4000 g); or five-minute Apgar less than seven. The included studies did not report on this review's main outcomes: preterm birth, small-for-gestational age, or perinatal death. There is limited evidence that incentives may increase utilization and quality of prenatal care, but may also increase cesarean rate. Overall, there is insufficient evidence to fully evaluate the impact of incentives on prenatal care initiation. There are conflicting data as to the impact of incentives on return for postpartum care. Two of the five studies which accounted for the majority of women in this review were conducted in rural, low-income, overwhelmingly Hispanic communities in Central America, thus limiting the external validity of these results.There is a need for high-quality RCTs to determine whether incentive program increase prenatal care use and improve maternal and neonatal outcomes. Incentive programs, in particular cash-based programs, as suggested in this review and in several observational studies may improve the frequency and ensure adequate quality of prenatal care. No peer-reviewed data have been made publicly available for one of the largest incentive-based prenatal programs - the statewide Medicaid-based programs within the United States. These observational data represent an important starting point for future research with significant implications for policy development and allocation of healthcare resources. The disparate findings related to attending postpartum care should also be further explored as the findings were limited by the number of studies. Future large RCTs are needed to focus on the outcomes of preterm birth, small-for-gestational age and perinatal outcomes.

Teacher's Guide for "Tightrope," a Simulation Game in Economics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baskind, Larry; And Others

"Tightrope" is a simulation based on economic stability and growth in a country. Several small groups of students, acting as Economic Advisory Councils, make fiscal and monetary policy decisions for their country based on their knowledge of business cycles, monetary policy, and fiscal policy. In each of the four rounds the Advisory Councils study…

How Cultural Alignment and the Use of Incentives Can Promote a Culture of Health: Stakeholder Perspectives.

PubMed

Laurie T, Martin; Linnea Warren, May; Sarah, Weilant; Joie D, Acosta; Anita, Chandra

2018-01-01

In 2013, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation embarked on a pioneering effort to advance a Culture of Health. This report focuses on two questions that are central to understanding how individuals and sectors think about health and are motivated to promote it: How can the commonly understood concepts of cultural identity (e.g., ethnic or religious; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender plus; military) and organizational culture be harnessed to develop a Culture of Health? How can incentives be used to promote individual health and engage investors and leaders within organizations or governments to promote health and well-being broadly? This study draws on 43 one-hour semistructured interviews that RAND researchers conducted with stakeholders whose work focused on cultural alignment, incentives, or both to learn how organizations are addressing and leveraging culture and incentives to promote health and well-being, as well as to identify facilitators, barriers, potential best practices, and lessons learned. Key findings include the following: Equity is often addressed in silos, which impedes progress toward a unified goal of health equity for all; members of specific cultural groups need to be given a voice in health-related activities; systems are built around prevailing cultural norms, making it challenging for those working with specific cultures to make cultural adaptations; and not all incentives are monetary. Recommendations include institutionalizing practices that ensure ongoing input from marginalized populations, identifying ways to help smaller organizations overcome structural inequalities, and institutionalizing health promotion efforts in sectors other than public health or health care to sustain collaborative efforts.

A Study of China s Explosive Growth in the Plug-in Electric Vehicle Market

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ou, Shawn; Lin, Zhenhong; Wu, Zhixin

The year 2015 marks a turning point in China s plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) or new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, with an explosive growth in both productions and sales, following the gloomy period of 2009-2012. The PEV production in 2015 reached a record level of nearly 380,000 units, a 352 % increase from 2014, making China the largest PEV market in the world. For the potential implications on energy and the environment, it is worth studying the driving forces of China s PEV market and understanding its future trajectory and dynamics. The key findings of this report are listed inmore » the following. Though controversial, the government monetary incentives have played a significant role to impel China to be the largest light PEV (191,100 units) market in the world. Chinese vehicle buyers appear more price sensitive on PEVs. Inexpensive low-cost micro electric vehicles are the most popular vehicle model in China s PEV market (38.9 % of the PEV market in 2015). In contrast, the premium or luxury vehicles are more popular in the gasoline vehicle segment. In fact, China is expected to be the largest premium car market in 2016. The PEV sales growth is primarily possible because of the young domestic private-owned auto manufacturers, which are mostly located in south China. Top-tier conventional vehicle automakers in China appear to be less proactive in the PEV market, based on market shares. This is in clear contrast to the U.S. market, where major automakers are generally the primary players in the PEV market. The PEVs produced by the domestic automakers are concentrated in the low-end market segment, while the high-end vehicle segment is dominated by the foreign brands. At present, the substantial market growth and government subsidies afford the domestic entrants to quickly gain profits in the low-end segment. The PEV consumers in China are very sensitive to the vehicle price, thus prefer the PEVs with cheaper prices after government subsidies, and care less about the driving quality and comfort. In contrast, most PEV consumers in the United States (U.S.) have higher incomes, view the PEVs as a high-status symbol, and care less about the vehicle prices, and therefore welcome the premium PEVs more in the U.S. The PEV financial subsidies by the Chinese government are divided into three stages based on the strategic directions and policies. In 2009 2012, government incentives concentrated on the public fleet vehicles, while excluding the individual consumers from the subsidies in most cities. In 2013 2015, comprehensive central/local government incentives were extended to all vehicle purchasers including the individual buyers in most cities, which was conducive to the phenomenal growth of the PEV sales. For years 2016 to 2020, monetary incentives are being phased out and will be substituted by other non-monetary incentives (such as the standards for Chinese Cooperate Average Fuel Consumption and New Energy Vehicle Credits) for the sustainable development of the PEV market. The PEV subsidy fraud has drawn attention by the central government, which prompts the government to be more prudent about monetary incentives. With the advantage of high acceptance in the PEV market and integrated EV charging infrastructure, the region with better economic development brings a more aggressive PEV roll-out plan to the municipalities who are more willing to solve the local urban pollution while keeping the automotive market in sustainable growth. On the one hand, the local automakers are offered abundant subsidies from the Chinese government to those who intend to help the Chinese automotive industry seize the industrial upgrading opportunity to transform its manufacturing sector, and they have taken most shares of the PEV market. On the other hand, facing the trade barriers, the foreign automakers have dominated the premium PEV sales in China, although their total market shares in the PEV market are much less than the domestic automakers. In diverse selectable alternative fuel vehicle technologies, China has put its focus on the PEV technologies for the technological modernization in the automotive industry; the research and development in fuel cell vehicle technologies in China is less competitive compared with other countries such as Japan and the U.S. With the demand of batteries from the PEV automakers, the Chinese EV battery industry is aggressively expanding. It has risks in excessive production capacity, and faces the challenges from the competitors from Japan and South Korea.« less

Association between the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and mesolimbic responses to rewards.

PubMed

Damiano, Cara R; Aloi, Joseph; Dunlap, Kaitlyn; Burrus, Caley J; Mosner, Maya G; Kozink, Rachel V; McLaurin, Ralph Edward; Mullette-Gillman, O'Dhaniel A; Carter, Ronald McKell; Huettel, Scott A; McClernon, Francis Joseph; Ashley-Koch, Allison; Dichter, Gabriel S

2014-01-31

There has been significant progress in identifying genes that confer risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, the heterogeneity of symptom presentation in ASDs impedes the detection of ASD risk genes. One approach to understanding genetic influences on ASD symptom expression is to evaluate relations between variants of ASD candidate genes and neural endophenotypes in unaffected samples. Allelic variations in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene confer small but significant risk for ASDs for which the underlying mechanisms may involve associations between variability in oxytocin signaling pathways and neural response to rewards. The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate the influence of allelic variability in the OXTR gene on neural responses to monetary rewards in healthy adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The moderating effects of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs1042778, rs2268493 and rs237887) of the OXTR gene on mesolimbic responses to rewards were evaluated using a monetary incentive delay fMRI task. T homozygotes of the rs2268493 SNP demonstrated relatively decreased activation in mesolimbic reward circuitry (including the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, insula, thalamus and prefrontal cortical regions) during the anticipation of rewards but not during the outcome phase of the task. Allelic variation of the rs1042778 and rs237887 SNPs did not moderate mesolimbic activation during either reward anticipation or outcomes. This preliminary study suggests that the OXTR SNP rs2268493, which has been previously identified as an ASD risk gene, moderates mesolimbic responses during reward anticipation. Given previous findings of decreased mesolimbic activation during reward anticipation in ASD, the present results suggest that OXTR may confer ASD risk via influences on the neural systems that support reward anticipation.

The Impact of Region, Nitrogen Use Efficiency, and Grower Incentives on Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Canola (Brassica napus) Production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hammac, W. A.; Pan, W.; Koenig, R. T.; McCracken, V.

2012-12-01

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has mandated through the second renewable fuel standard (RFS2) that biodiesel meet a minimum threshold requirement (50% reduction) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction compared to fossil diesel. This designation is determined by life cycle assessment (LCA) and carries with it potential for monetary incentives for biodiesel feedstock growers (Biomass Crop Assistance Program) and biodiesel processors (Renewable Identification Numbers). A national LCA was carried out for canola (Brassica napus) biodiesel feedstock by the EPA and it did meet the minimum threshold requirement. However, EPA's national LCA does not provide insight into regional variation in GHG mitigation. The authors propose for full GHG reduction potential of biofuels to be realized, LCA results must have regional specificity and should inform incentives for growers and processors on a regional basis. The objectives of this work were to determine (1) variation in biofuel feedstock production related GHG emissions between three agroecological zones (AEZs) in eastern Washington State (2) the impact of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) on GHG mitigation potential for each AEZ and (3) the impact of incentives on adoption of oilseed production. Results from objective (1) revealed there is wide variability in range for GHG estimates both across and within AEZs based on variation in farming practices and environment. It is expected that results for objective (2) will show further GHG mitigation potential due to minimizing N use and therefore fertilizer transport and soil related GHG emission while potentially increasing biodiesel production per hectare. Regional based incentives may allow more timely achievement of goals for bio-based fuels production. Additionally, incentives may further increase GHG offsetting by promoting nitrogen conserving best management practices implementation. This research highlights the need for regional assessment/incentive based strategies for maximizing GHG mitigation potential of biofuel feedstocks.

Sensitivity to monetary reward is most severely compromised in recently abstaining cocaine addicted individuals: A cross-sectional ERP study

PubMed Central

Parvaz, Muhammad A.; Maloney, Thomas; Moeller, Scott J.; Woicik, Patricia A.; Alia-Klein, Nelly; Telang, Frank; Wang, Gene-Jack; Squires, Nancy K.; Volkow, Nora D.; Goldstein, Rita Z.

2012-01-01

Recent studies suggest that drug addicted individuals have a dampened cortical response to non-drug rewards. However, it remains unclear whether recency of drug use impacts this impairment. Therefore, in this study, recency of cocaine use was objectively determined by measuring cocaine in urine on study day. Thirty-five individuals with current cocaine use disorder [CUD: 21 testing positive (CUD+) and 14 testing negative (CUD−) for cocaine in urine] and 23 healthy controls completed a sustained attention task with graded monetary incentives (0¢, 1¢ and 45¢). Unlike in controls, in both CUD subgroups P300 amplitude was not modulated by the varying amounts of money and the CUD− showed the most severe impairment as documented by the lowest P300 amplitudes and task accuracy. Moreover, while recency of drug use was associated with better accuracy and higher P300 amplitudes, chronic drug use was associated with lower sensitivity to money. These results extend our previous findings of decreased sustained sensitivity to monetary reward in CUD+ to recently abstaining individuals, where level of impairment was most severe. Taken together, these results support the self-medication hypothesis, where CUD may be self-administering cocaine to avoid or compensate for underlying cognitive and emotional difficulties albeit with a long-term detrimental effect on sensitivity to non-drug reward. PMID:22841343

Comparing the neural basis of monetary reward and cognitive feedback during information-integration category learning.

PubMed

Daniel, Reka; Pollmann, Stefan

2010-01-06

The dopaminergic system is known to play a central role in reward-based learning (Schultz, 2006), yet it was also observed to be involved when only cognitive feedback is given (Aron et al., 2004). Within the domain of information-integration category learning, in which information from several stimulus dimensions has to be integrated predecisionally (Ashby and Maddox, 2005), the importance of contingent feedback is well established (Maddox et al., 2003). We examined the common neural correlates of reward anticipation and prediction error in this task. Sixteen subjects performed two parallel information-integration tasks within a single event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging session but received a monetary reward only for one of them. Similar functional areas including basal ganglia structures were activated in both task versions. In contrast, a single structure, the nucleus accumbens, showed higher activation during monetary reward anticipation compared with the anticipation of cognitive feedback in information-integration learning. Additionally, this activation was predicted by measures of intrinsic motivation in the cognitive feedback task and by measures of extrinsic motivation in the rewarded task. Our results indicate that, although all other structures implicated in category learning are not significantly affected by altering the type of reward, the nucleus accumbens responds to the positive incentive properties of an expected reward depending on the specific type of the reward.

Differential patterns of nucleus accumbens activation during anticipation of monetary and social reward in young and older adults.

PubMed

Rademacher, Lena; Salama, Aallaa; Gründer, Gerhard; Spreckelmeyer, Katja N

2014-06-01

Recent studies have reported inconsistent results regarding the loss of reward sensitivity in the aging brain. Although such an age effect might be due to a decline of physiological processes, it may also be a consequence of age-related changes in motivational preference for different rewards. Here, we examined whether the age effects on neural correlates of reward anticipation are modulated by the type of expected reward. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired in 24 older (60-78 years) and 24 young participants (20-28 years) while they performed an incentive delay task offering monetary or social rewards. Anticipation of either reward type recruited brain structures associated with reward, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Region of interest analysis revealed an interaction effect of reward type and age group in the right NAcc: enhanced activation to cues of social reward was detected in the older subsample while enhanced activation to cues of monetary reward was detected in the younger subsample. Our results suggest that neural sensitivity to reward-predicting cues does not generally decrease with age. Rather, neural responses in the NAcc appear to be modulated by the type of reward, presumably reflecting age-related changes in motivational value attributed to different types of reward. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Neural dissociation of food- and money-related reward processing using an abstract incentive delay task.

PubMed

Simon, Joe J; Skunde, Mandy; Wu, Mudan; Schnell, Knut; Herpertz, Sabine C; Bendszus, Martin; Herzog, Wolfgang; Friederich, Hans-Christoph

2015-08-01

Food is an innate reward stimulus related to energy homeostasis and survival, whereas money is considered a more general reward stimulus that gains a rewarding value through learning experiences. Although the underlying neural processing for both modalities of reward has been investigated independently from one another, a more detailed investigation of neural similarities and/or differences between food and monetary reward is still missing. Here, we investigated the neural processing of food compared with monetary-related rewards in 27 healthy, normal-weight women using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We developed a task distinguishing between the anticipation and the receipt of either abstract food or monetary reward. Both tasks activated the ventral striatum during the expectation of a reward. Compared with money, greater food-related activations were observed in prefrontal, parietal and central midline structures during the anticipation and lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) during the receipt of food reward. Furthermore, during the receipt of food reward, brain activation in the secondary taste cortex was positively related to the body mass index. These results indicate that food-dependent activations encompass to a greater extent brain regions involved in self-control and self-reflection during the anticipation and phylogenetically older parts of the lOFC during the receipt of reward. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Abnormal Reward System Activation in Mania

PubMed Central

Abler, Birgit; Greenhouse, Ian; Ongur, Dost; Walter, Henrik; Heckers, Stephan

2008-01-01

Transmission of reward signals is a function of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known to be involved in the mechanism of psychosis. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated how expectation and receipt of monetary rewards modulate brain activation in patients with bipolar mania and schizophrenia. We studied 12 acutely manic patients with a history of bipolar disorder, 12 patients with a current episode of schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia and 12 healthy subjects. All patients were treated with dopamine antagonists at the time of the study. Subjects performed a delayed incentive paradigm with monetary reward in the scanner that allowed for investigating effects of expectation, receipt, and omission of rewards. Patients with schizophrenia and healthy control subjects showed the expected activation of dopaminergic brain areas, that is, ventral tegmentum activation upon expectation of monetary rewards and nucleus accumbens activation during receipt vs omission of rewards. In manic patients, however, we did not find a similar pattern of brain activation and the differential signal in the nucleus accumbens upon receipt vs omission of rewards was significantly lower compared to the healthy control subjects. Our findings provide evidence for abnormal function of the dopamine system during receipt or omission of expected rewards in bipolar disorder. These deficits in prediction error processing in acute mania may help to explain symptoms of disinhibition and abnormal goal pursuit regulation. PMID:17987058

48 CFR 52.219-26 - Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program-Incentive Subcontracting.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... CONTRACT CLAUSES Text of Provisions and Clauses 52.219-26 Small Disadvantaged Business Participation... the following: Small Disadvantaged Business Participation Program—Incentive Subcontracting (OCT 2000... its offer to try to award a certain amount to small disadvantaged business concerns in the North...

Abstinence duration modulates striatal functioning during monetary reward processing in cocaine patients.

PubMed

Bustamante, Juan-Carlos; Barrós-Loscertales, Alfonso; Costumero, Víctor; Fuentes-Claramonte, Paola; Rosell-Negre, Patricia; Ventura-Campos, Noelia; Llopis, Juan-José; Ávila, César

2014-09-01

Pre-clinical and clinical studies in cocaine addiction highlight alterations in the striatal dopaminergic reward system that subserve maintenance of cocaine use. Using an instrumental conditioning paradigm with monetary reinforcement, we studied striatal functional alterations in long-term abstinent cocaine-dependent patients and striatal functioning as a function of abstinence and treatment duration. Eighteen patients and 20 controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a Monetary Incentive Delay task. Region of interest analyses based on masks of the dorsal and ventral striatum were conducted to test between-group differences and the functional effects in the cocaine group of time (in months) with no more than two lapses from the first time patients visited the clinical service to seek treatment at the scanning time (duration of treatment), and the functional effects of the number of months with no lapses or relapses at the scanning session time (length of abstinence). We applied a voxel-wise and a cluster-wise FWE-corrected level (pFWE) at a threshold of P < 0.05. The patient group showed lower activation in the right caudate during reward anticipation than the control group. The regression analyses in the patients group revealed a positive correlation between duration of treatment and brain activity in the left caudate during reward anticipation. Likewise, length of abstinence negatively correlated with brain activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens during monetary outcome processing. In conclusion, caudate and nucleus accumbens show a different brain response pattern to non-drug rewards during cocaine addiction, which can be modulated by treatment success. © 2013 The Authors, Addiction Biology © 2013 Society for the Study of Addiction.

A target sample of adolescents and reward processing: same neural and behavioral correlates engaged in common paradigms?

PubMed

Nees, Frauke; Vollstädt-Klein, Sabine; Fauth-Bühler, Mira; Steiner, Sabina; Mann, Karl; Poustka, Luise; Banaschewski, Tobias; Büchel, Christian; Conrod, Patricia J; Garavan, Hugh; Heinz, Andreas; Ittermann, Bernd; Artiges, Eric; Paus, Tomas; Pausova, Zdenka; Rietschel, Marcella; Smolka, Michael N; Struve, Maren; Loth, Eva; Schumann, Gunter; Flor, Herta

2012-11-01

Adolescence is a transition period that is assumed to be characterized by increased sensitivity to reward. While there is growing research on reward processing in adolescents, investigations into the engagement of brain regions under different reward-related conditions in one sample of healthy adolescents, especially in a target age group, are missing. We aimed to identify brain regions preferentially activated in a reaction time task (monetary incentive delay (MID) task) and a simple guessing task (SGT) in a sample of 14-year-old adolescents (N = 54) using two commonly used reward paradigms. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was employed during the MID with big versus small versus no win conditions and the SGT with big versus small win and big versus small loss conditions. Analyses focused on changes in blood oxygen level-dependent contrasts during reward and punishment processing in anticipation and feedback phases. We found clear magnitude-sensitive response in reward-related brain regions such as the ventral striatum during anticipation in the MID task, but not in the SGT. This was also true for reaction times. The feedback phase showed clear reward-related, but magnitude-independent, response patterns, for example in the anterior cingulate cortex, in both tasks. Our findings highlight neural and behavioral response patterns engaged in two different reward paradigms in one sample of 14-year-old healthy adolescents and might be important for reference in future studies investigating reward and punishment processing in a target age group.

Rationality and drug use: an experimental approach.

PubMed

Blondel, Serge; Lohéac, Youenn; Rinaudo, Stéphane

2007-05-01

In rational addiction theory, higher discount rates encourage drug use. We test this hypothesis in the general framework of rationality and behaviour under risk. We do so using an experimental design with real monetary incentives. The decisions of 34 drug addicts are compared with those of a control group. The decisions of drug users (DU) are not any less consistent with standard theories of behaviour over time and under risk. Further, there is no difference in the estimated discount rate between drug users and the control group, but the former do appear to be more risk-seeking.

Neuroimaging Data Sharing on the Neuroinformatics Database Platform

PubMed Central

Book, Gregory A; Stevens, Michael; Assaf, Michal; Glahn, David; Pearlson, Godfrey D

2015-01-01

We describe the Neuroinformatics Database (NiDB), an open-source database platform for archiving, analysis, and sharing of neuroimaging data. Data from the multi-site projects Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE), Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes parts one and two (B-SNIP1, B-SNIP2), and Monetary Incentive Delay task (MID) are available for download from the public instance of NiDB, with more projects sharing data as it becomes available. As demonstrated by making several large datasets available, NiDB is an extensible platform appropriately suited to archive and distribute shared neuroimaging data. PMID:25888923

Challenges to the Israeli healthcare system: attracting medical students to primary care and to the periphery.

PubMed

Weissman, Charles; Zisk-Rony, Rachel Yaffa; Avidan, Alexander; Elchalal, Uriel; Tandeter, Howard

2018-05-29

The greatest challenges facing healthcare systems include ensuring a sufficient supply of primary care physicians and physicians willing to work in rural or peripheral areas. Especially challenging is enticing young physicians to practice primary care in rural/peripheral areas. Identifying medical students interested in primary care and in residencies in Israel's periphery should aid the healthcare leadership. It may be particularly important to do so during the clinical years, as this is the stage at which many future physicians begin to crystallize their specialty and location preferences. Questionnaires, distributed to 6 consecutive 5th-year classes of the Hebrew University - Hadassah School of Medicine, from 2010 to 2016, elicited information on criteria for choosing a career specialty, criteria for choosing a residency program and whether one-time monetary grants authorized in the 2011 physicians' union contract would attract students to residencies in the periphery. Completed questionnaires were returned by 511 of 740 (69%) students. Ninety-eight (19%) were interested in a primary care residency, 184 (36%) were unsure and 229 (45%) were not interested. Students interested in primary care were significantly less interested in specialties that perform procedures/surgeries and in joining a medical school faculty, while being more inclined towards specialties dealing with social problems, controllable lifestyles and working limited hours. The percentage of students interested in primary care was stable during the study period. Forty-eight of the students indicated interest in residencies in the country's periphery, and 42% of them were also interested in primary care residencies. Overall, only 3.7% of students were interested in both a primary care residency and a residency in the periphery. Thirty percent of the students indicated that the monetary incentives tempted them to consider a residency in the periphery. Fifty-three percent of these students reported that they did not yet know the geographic area where they wished to do their residency, as compared to only 22% among those not interested in incentives. This study provides the healthcare leadership with information on the characteristics of the students at a centrally-located medical school who tend to be more interested in primary care and in working in the periphery. Specifically, the study found that students interested in primary care desire a positive life/work balance, something that Israeli non-hospital primary care practice provides. Students considering residencies in the periphery were similarly inclined. Moreover, about a third of students had positive thoughts about monetary incentives for residencies in peripheral hospitals. These students should be identified early during their clinical experience so that attempts to recruit them to the periphery can commence before their specialty and location preferences have fully crystallized. Parallel studies should be performed at additional Israeli medical schools.

Motivation and satisfaction among community health workers in Morogoro Region, Tanzania: nuanced needs and varied ambitions.

PubMed

Mpembeni, Rose N M; Bhatnagar, Aarushi; LeFevre, Amnesty; Chitama, Dereck; Urassa, David P; Kilewo, Charles; Mdee, Rebecca M; Semu, Helen; Winch, Peter J; Killewo, Japhet; Baqui, Abdullah H; George, Asha

2015-06-05

In 2012, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW), Tanzania, approved national guidelines and training materials for community health workers (CHWs) in integrated maternal, newborn and child health (Integrated MNCH), with CHWs trained and deployed across five districts of Morogoro Region soon after. To inform future scale up, this study assessed motivation and satisfaction among these CHWs. A survey of all CHWs trained by the Integrated MNCH Programme was conducted in the last quarter of 2013. Motivation and satisfaction were assessed using a five-point Likert scale with 29 and 27 items based on a literature review and discussions with CHW programme stakeholders. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify motivation and satisfaction determinants. Out of 238 eligible CHWs, 96 % were included in the study. Findings showed that respondents were motivated to become CHWs due to altruism (work on MNCH, desire to serve God, work hard) and intrinsic needs (help community, improve health, pride) than due to external stimuli (monetary incentives, skill utilization, community respect or hope for employment). CHWs were satisfied by relationships with health workers and communities, job aids and the capacity to provide services. CHWs were dissatisfied with the lack of transportation, communication devices and financial incentives for carrying out their tasks. Factors influencing motivation and satisfaction did not differ across CHW socio-demographic characteristics. Nonetheless, older and less educated CHWs were more likely to be motivated by altruism, intrinsic needs and skill utilization, community respect and hope for employment. Less educated CHWs were more satisfied with service and quality factors and more wealthy CHWs satisfied with job aids. A combination of financial and non-financial incentives is required to support motivation and satisfaction among CHWs. Although CHWs joined mainly due to their altruistic nature, they became discontented with the lack of monetary compensation, transportation and communication support received. With the planned rollout of the national CHW cadre, improved understanding of CHWs as a heterogeneous group with nuanced needs and varied ambitions is vital for ensuring sustainability.

Fertility trends in Singapore.

PubMed

Singh, K; Viegas, O; Ratnam, S S

1988-10-01

In 1966, the Singapore National Family Planning and Population Program established the goal of reaching replacement fertility by 1990 and zero population growth by the year 2030. To achieve this goal, the government relied on a series of incentives and disincentives to discourage births above the 3rd birth order, including tax relief for the 1st 3 children only, paid medical leave for women undergoing sterilization after the 3rd or subsequent birth, monetary stipends in some cases where the mother is sterilized after the 1st or 2nd birth, and increasing accouchement charges for increasing birth orders. Also important to demographic planning were liberalization of Singapore's abortion legislation and more aggressive promotion of contraception. As a result of these efforts, Singapore's crude birth rate has declined from 29.5/1000 population in 1965 to 16.6/1000 in 1985. Also observed have been dramatic declines in infant mortality in this same period, from 26.2/1000 live births to 9.3/1000, and in maternal mortality, from 52/100,000 live births to 10/100,000. In 1985, 42% of total births were to women in the 25-29-year age group. The numbers of 4th and later births fell by 90% between 1966 and 1985. The total fertility rate has declined from 4.6/woman in 1965 to 3.1 in 1970 to 1.6 in 1986. Below replacement level fertility was achieved in 1975, in part because of government policy but also as a result of cultural and socioeconomic factors such as increasing female labor force participation rates, a break-up of the extended family system, a rise in the age at 1st marriage, and rises in educational attainment. The drop in fertility was contributed mainly by the higher socioeconomic class, more affluent, and educated Singaporeans. Thus, in 1981, the government introduced certain pronatalist policies and incentives to encourage better educated women to produce more children, e.g., tax relief and the elimination of monetary incentives to sterilization acceptors above a median income level.

Context-sensitivity of the feedback-related negativity for zero-value feedback outcomes.

PubMed

Pfabigan, Daniela M; Seidel, Eva-Maria; Paul, Katharina; Grahl, Arvina; Sailer, Uta; Lanzenberger, Rupert; Windischberger, Christian; Lamm, Claus

2015-01-01

The present study investigated whether the same visual stimulus indicating zero-value feedback (€0) elicits feedback-related negativity (FRN) variation, depending on whether the outcomes correspond with expectations or not. Thirty-one volunteers performed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task while EEG was recorded. FRN amplitudes were comparable and more negative when zero-value outcome deviated from expectations than with expected gain or loss, supporting theories emphasising the impact of unexpectedness and salience on FRN amplitudes. Surprisingly, expected zero-value outcomes elicited the most negative FRNs. However, source localisation showed that such outcomes evoked less activation in cingulate areas than unexpected zero-value outcomes. Our study illustrates the context dependency of identical zero-value feedback stimuli. Moreover, the results indicate that the incentive cues in the MID task evoke different reward prediction error signals. These prediction signals differ in FRN amplitude and neuronal sources, and have to be considered in the design and interpretation of future studies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Motivational incentives lead to a strong increase in lateral prefrontal activity after self-control exertion

PubMed Central

Luethi, Matthias S.; Binder, Julia; Boesiger, Peter; Luechinger, Roger; Rasch, Björn

2016-01-01

Self-control is key to success in life. Initial acts of self-control temporarily impair subsequent self-control performance. Why such self-control failures occur is unclear, with prominent models postulating a loss of a limited resource vs a loss of motivation, respectively. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of motivation-induced benefits on self-control. Participants initially exerted or did not exert self-control. In a subsequent Stroop task, participants performed worse after exerting self-control, but not if they were motivated to perform well by monetary incentives. On the neural level, having exerted self-control resulted in decreased activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus. Increasing motivation resulted in a particularly strong activation of this area specifically after exerting self-control. Thus, after self-control exertion participants showed more prefrontal neural activity without improving performance beyond baseline level. These findings suggest that impaired performance after self-control exertion may not exclusively be due to a loss of motivation. PMID:27217108

Individual preferences modulate incentive values: Evidence from functional MRI

PubMed Central

Koeneke, Susan; Pedroni, Andreas F; Dieckmann, Anja; Bosch, Volker; Jäncke, Lutz

2008-01-01

Background In most studies on human reward processing, reward intensity has been manipulated on an objective scale (e.g., varying monetary value). Everyday experience, however, teaches us that objectively equivalent rewards may differ substantially in their subjective incentive values. One factor influencing incentive value in humans is branding. The current study explores the hypothesis that individual brand preferences modulate activity in reward areas similarly to objectively measurable differences in reward intensity. Methods A wheel-of-fortune game comprising an anticipation phase and a subsequent outcome evaluation phase was implemented. Inside a 3 Tesla MRI scanner, 19 participants played for chocolate bars of three different brands that differed in subjective attractiveness. Results Parametrical analysis of the obtained fMRI data demonstrated that the level of activity in anatomically distinct neural networks was linearly associated with the subjective preference hierarchy of the brands played for. During the anticipation phases, preference-dependent neural activity has been registered in premotor areas, insular cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and in the midbrain. During the outcome phases, neural activity in the caudate nucleus, precuneus, lingual gyrus, cerebellum, and in the pallidum was influenced by individual preference. Conclusion Our results suggest a graded effect of differently preferred brands onto the incentive value of objectively equivalent rewards. Regarding the anticipation phase, the results reflect an intensified state of wanting that facilitates action preparation when the participants play for their favorite brand. This mechanism may underlie approach behavior in real-life choice situations. PMID:19032746

The 'donations for decreased ALT (D4D)' prosocial behavior incentive scheme for NAFLD patients.

PubMed

Sumida, Yoshio; Yoshikawa, Toshikazu; Tanaka, Saiyu; Taketani, Hiroyoshi; Kanemasa, Kazuyuki; Nishimura, Tekeshi; Yamaguchi, Kanji; Mitsuyoshi, Hironori; Yasui, Kohichiroh; Minami, Masahito; Naito, Yuji; Itoh, Yoshito

2014-12-01

Physicians often experience difficulties in motivating patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) to undergo lifestyle changes. The aim of this study is to examine whether 'Donations for Decreased alanine aminotransferase (ALT)' (D4D) prosocial behavior incentive can serve as an effective intrinsic motivational factor in comparison with conventional dietary and exercise intervention alone for NAFLD patients. Twenty-five NAFLD patients with elevated ALT were randomly assigned to a control group that received conventional dietary and exercise intervention alone, or a donation group whereby, as an incentive, we would make a monetary donation to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) based on the decrease in their ALT levels achieved over 12 weeks, in addition to receiving control intervention. In a donation group, we would donate US$1 to the WFP for every 1 IU/l of decrease in their ALT levels. There were no differences of pre-treatment clinical characteristics between the two groups. Significant reductions of ALT levels were achieved only in a donation group, although post-treatment ALT levels were not different between the two groups. These patients raised a total of $316 for the WFP. Promoting patients' intrinsic motivation by incorporating 'D4D' prosocial behavior incentive into conventional dietary and exercise intervention may provide a means to improve NAFLD. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Incentive motivation deficits in schizophrenia reflect effort computation impairments during cost-benefit decision-making.

PubMed

Fervaha, Gagan; Graff-Guerrero, Ariel; Zakzanis, Konstantine K; Foussias, George; Agid, Ofer; Remington, Gary

2013-11-01

Motivational impairments are a core feature of schizophrenia and although there are numerous reports studying this feature using clinical rating scales, objective behavioural assessments are lacking. Here, we use a translational paradigm to measure incentive motivation in individuals with schizophrenia. Sixteen stable outpatients with schizophrenia and sixteen matched healthy controls completed a modified version of the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task that accounts for differences in motoric ability. Briefly, subjects were presented with a series of trials where they may choose to expend a greater amount of effort for a larger monetary reward versus less effort for a smaller reward. Additionally, the probability of receiving money for a given trial was varied at 12%, 50% and 88%. Clinical and other reward-related variables were also evaluated. Patients opted to expend greater effort significantly less than controls for trials of high, but uncertain (i.e. 50% and 88% probability) incentive value, which was related to amotivation and neurocognitive deficits. Other abnormalities were also noted but were related to different clinical variables such as impulsivity (low reward and 12% probability). These motivational deficits were not due to group differences in reward learning, reward valuation or hedonic capacity. Our findings offer novel support for incentive motivation deficits in schizophrenia. Clinical amotivation is associated with impairments in the computation of effort during cost-benefit decision-making. This objective translational paradigm may guide future investigations of the neural circuitry underlying these motivational impairments. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Feedback processing in adolescence: an event-related potential study of age and gender differences.

PubMed

Grose-Fifer, Jillian; Migliaccio, Renee; Zottoli, Tina M

2014-01-01

Adolescence has frequently been characterized as a period of increased risk taking, which may be largely driven by maturational changes in neural areas that process incentives. To investigate age- and gender-related differences in reward processing, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 80 participants in a gambling game, in which monetary wins and losses were either large or small. We measured two ERP components: the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the feedback P3 (fP3). The FRN was sensitive to the size of a win in both adult (aged 23-35 years) and adolescent (aged 13-17 years) males, but not in females. Small wins appeared to be less rewarding for males than for females, which may in part explain more approach-driven behavior in males in general. Furthermore, adolescent boys showed both delayed FRNs to high losses and less differentiation in FRN amplitude between wins and losses in comparison to girls. The fP3, which is thought to index the salience of the feedback at a more conscious level than the FRN, was also larger in boys than in girls. Taken together, these results imply that higher levels of risk taking that are commonly reported in adolescent males may be driven both by hypersensitivity to high rewards and insensitivity to punishment or losses. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Susceptibility of elderly Asian immigrants to persuasion with respect to participation in research.

PubMed

Brugge, Doug; Kole, Alison; Lu, Weibo; Must, Aviva

2005-04-01

Familism, respect for authority, and a sense of shame/pride are cultural characteristics that might influence research participation of Asian Americans. We compared 79 elderly Asian immigrants, most of whom immigrated from China or Hong Kong, with 58 elders who were not Asian and mostly not immigrants. Responding to hypothetical situations presented on a self-administered questionnaire, the Asian group professed to be more likely to be influenced by a request from a son/daughter, landlord, physician, or advertisement (p<0.001) and by a monetary incentive (p=0.05). Multivariate adjustment for potential confounders attenuated the strength of these relations, but except in the case of the monetary offer, differences remained statistically significant. Within the Asian group, multivariate logistic regression modeling indicated that years lived in the US was associated with more likelihood of refusing requests to participate in research. We conclude that acculturation or assimilation into American society may build resistance to pressure to participate in research. Our findings also suggest that elderly Asian immigrants may need additional protections to achieve truly informed consent.

Positive Peer-Pressured Productivity (P-QUAD): Novel Use of Increased Transparency and a Weighted Lottery to Increase a Division's Academic Output.

PubMed

Pitt, Michael B; Furnival, Ronald A; Zhang, Lei; Weber-Main, Anne M; Raymond, Nancy C; Jacob, Abraham K

2017-03-01

Evaluate a dual incentive model combining positive peer pressure through increased transparency of peers' academic work with a weighted lottery where entries are earned based on degree of productivity. We developed a dual-incentive peer mentoring model, Positive Peer-Pressured Productivity (P-QUAD), for faculty in the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Division at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital. This model provided relative value-based incentives, with points assigned to different scholarly activities (eg. 1 point for abstract submission, 2 points for poster presentation, 3 points for oral presentation, etc.). These points translated into to lottery tickets for a semi-annual drawing for monetary prizes. Productivity was compared among faculty for P-QUAD year to the preintervention year. Fifteen (83%) of 18 eligible faculty members participated. Overall annual productivity per faculty member as measured by total P-QUAD score increased from a median of 3 (interquartile range [IQR] 0-14) in the preintervention year to 4 (IQR 0-27) in the P-QUAD year (P = .051). Submissions and acceptances increased in all categories except posters which were unchanged. Annual abstract submissions per faculty member significantly increased from a median of 1 (IQR 0-2) to 2 (IQR 0-2; P = .047). Seventy-three percent (8 of 11) of post-survey respondents indicated that the financial incentive motivated them to submit academic work; 100% indicated that increased awareness of their peers' work was a motivator. The combination of increased awareness of peers' academic productivity and a weighted lottery financial incentive appears to be a useful model for stimulating academic productivity in early-career faculty. Copyright © 2016 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dissemination of Technology to Evaluate Healthy Food Incentive Programs.

PubMed

Freedman, Darcy A; Hunt, Alan R; Merritt, Katie; Shon, En-Jung; Pike, Stephanie N

2017-03-01

Federal policy supports increased implementation of monetary incentive interventions for chronic disease prevention among low-income populations. This study describes how a Prevention Research Center, working with a dissemination partner, developed and distributed technology to support nationwide implementation and evaluation of healthy food incentive programming focused on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients. FM Tracks, an iOS-based application and website, was developed to standardize evaluation methods for healthy food incentive program implementation at direct-to-consumer markets. This evaluation examined diffusion and adoption of the technology over 9 months (July 2015-March 2016). Data were analyzed in 2016. FM Tracks was disseminated to 273 markets affiliated with 37 regional networks in 18 states and Washington, DC. All markets adopted the sales transaction data collection feature, with nearly all recording at least one Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (99.3%) and healthy food incentive (97.1%) transaction. A total of 43,493 sales transactions were recorded. By the ninth month of technology dissemination, markets were entering individual sales transactions using the application (34.5%) and website (29.9%) and aggregated transactions via website (35.6%) at similar rates. Use of optional evaluation features like recording a customer ID with individual transactions increased successively with a low of 22.2% during the first month to a high of 69.2% in the ninth month. Systematic and widely used evaluation technology creates possibilities for pragmatic research embedded within ongoing, real-world implementation of food access interventions. Technology dissemination requires supportive technical assistance and continuous refinement that can be advanced through academic-practitioner partnerships. Copyright © 2016 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

48 CFR 719.273-3 - Incentives for prime contractor participation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS The U.S. Agency for International...) Under the Small Business Act, 15 U.S.C. 637(d)(4)(E), USAID is authorized to provide appropriate incentives to encourage subcontracting opportunities for small business consistent with the efficient and...

Challenging recruitment of youth with type 2 diabetes into clinical trials.

PubMed

Nguyen, Tammy T; Jayadeva, Vikas; Cizza, Giovanni; Brown, Rebecca J; Nandagopal, Radha; Rodriguez, Luisa M; Rother, Kristina I

2014-03-01

To better understand and overcome difficulties with recruitment of adolescents with type 2 diabetes into clinical trials at three United States institutions, we reviewed recruitment and retention strategies in clinical trials of youth with various chronic conditions. We explored whether similar strategies might be applicable to pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes. We compiled data on recruitment and retention of adolescents with type 2 diabetes at three centers (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; and Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC) from January 2009 to December 2011. We also conducted a thorough literature review on recruitment and retention in adolescents with chronic health conditions. The number of recruited patients was inadequate for timely completion of ongoing trials. Our review of recruitment strategies in adolescents included monetary and material incentives, technology-based advertising, word-of-mouth referral, and continuous patient-research team contact. Cellular or Internet technology appeared promising in improving participation among youths in studies of various chronic conditions and social behaviors. Adolescents with type 2 diabetes are particularly difficult to engage in clinical trials. Monetary incentives and use of technology do not represent "magic bullets," but may presently be the most effective tools. Future studies should be conducted to explore motivation in this population. We speculate that (1) recruitment into interventional trials that address the main concerns of the affected youth (e.g., weight loss, body image, and stress management) combined with less tangible outcomes (e.g., blood glucose control) may be more successful; and (2) study participation and retention may be improved by accommodating patients' and caregivers' schedules, by scheduling study visits before and after working hours, and in more convenient locations than in medical facilities. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Robust changes in reward circuitry during reward loss in current and former cocaine users during performance of a monetary incentive delay task.

PubMed

Patel, Krishna T; Stevens, Michael C; Meda, Shashwath A; Muska, Christine; Thomas, Andre D; Potenza, Marc N; Pearlson, Godfrey D

2013-10-01

Abnormal function in reward circuitry in cocaine addiction could predate drug use as a risk factor, follow drug use as a consequence of substance-induced alterations, or both. We used a functional magnetic resonance imaging monetary incentive delay task (MIDT) to investigate reward-loss neural response differences among 42 current cocaine users, 35 former cocaine users, and 47 healthy subjects who also completed psychological measures and tasks related to impulsivity and reward. We found various reward processing-related group differences in several MIDT phases. Across task phases we found a control > current user > former user activation pattern, except for loss outcome, where former compared with current cocaine users activated ventral tegmental area more robustly. We also found regional prefrontal activation differences during loss anticipation between cocaine-using groups. Both groups of cocaine users scored higher than control subjects on impulsivity, compulsivity and reward-punishment sensitivity factors. In addition, impulsivity-related factors correlated positively with activation in amygdala and negatively with anterior cingulate activation during loss anticipation. Compared with healthy subjects, both former and current users displayed abnormal brain activation patterns during MIDT performance. Both cocaine groups differed similarly from healthy subjects, but differences between former and current users were localized to the ventral tegmental area during loss outcome and to prefrontal regions during loss anticipation, suggesting that long-term cocaine abstinence does not normalize most reward circuit abnormalities. Elevated impulsivity-related factors that relate to loss processing in current and former users suggest that these tendencies and relationships may pre-exist cocaine addiction. © 2013 Society of Biological Psychiatry.

Is a "wage-payment" model for research participation appropriate for children?

PubMed

Bagley, Stephen J; Reynolds, William W; Nelson, Robert M

2007-01-01

Our goal was to evaluate the applicability of a "wage-payment" model to inducements for children to participate in research. We interviewed 42 children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 16 years who had diabetes, asthma, seizures, or no chronic medical condition. The interview explored hypothetical participation decisions for up to 4 research scenarios. To evaluate factors that would influence children and adolescents' decision-making for research participation, we probed for the impact of monetary and other incentives. The interviews were transcribed and coded for specific themes related to money or other rewards and incentives. Older children, mainly those >9 years of age, showed an appreciation for the role and value of money through (a) an accurate concept of the material value of money in society or (b) asking for a realistic amount of money in exchange for their research participation. Younger children, primarily those <9 years of age, showed an inability to appreciate the role and value of money by: (a) asking for excessive monetary amounts that bore no relationship to the sum warranted by participation; (b) having no concept of what that money could buy; (c) not comprehending the meaning of a wage as earning a reward for working; or (d) justifying proposed amounts with reasons unrelated to the time and effort involved. An age-appropriate token of appreciation as an inducement for research participation is appropriate for the younger child who is <9 years old, because they generally have an inadequate understanding of the value of money and, therefore, the meaning of a wage. A wage-payment model for compensating older children (>9 years of age) and adolescents for the time and effort of research participation is appropriate because they generally understand the meaning and value of a wage.

Challenging Recruitment of Youth With Type 2 Diabetes Into Clinical Trials

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Tammy T.; Jayadeva, Vikas; Cizza, Giovanni; Brown, Rebecca J.; Nandagopal, Radha; Rodriguez, Luisa M.; Rother, Kristina I.

2014-01-01

Purpose To better understand and overcome difficulties with recruitment of adolescents with type 2 diabetes into clinical trials at three United States institutions, we reviewed recruitment and retention strategies in clinical trials of youth with various chronic conditions. We explored whether similar strategies might be applicable to pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods We compiled data on recruitment and retention of adolescents with type 2 diabetes at three centers (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; and Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC) from January 2009 to December 2011. We also conducted a thorough literature review on recruitment and retention in adolescents with chronic health conditions. Results The number of recruited patients was inadequate for timely completion of ongoing trials. Our review of recruitment strategies in adolescents included monetary and material incentives, technology-based advertising, word-of-mouth referral, and continuous patient–research team contact. Cellular or Internet technology appeared promising in improving participation among youths in studies of various chronic conditions and social behaviors. Conclusions Adolescents with type 2 diabetes are particularly difficult to engage in clinical trials. Monetary incentives and use of technology do not represent “magic bullets,” but may presently be the most effective tools. Future studies should be conducted to explore motivation in this population. We speculate that (1) recruitment into interventional trials that address the main concerns of the affected youth (e.g., weight loss, body image, and stress management) combined with less tangible outcomes (e.g., blood glucose control) may be more successful; and (2) study participation and retention may be improved by accommodating patients’ and caregivers’ schedules, by scheduling study visits before and after working hours, and in more convenient locations than in medical facilities. PMID:24161585

Reward sensitivity deficits modulated by dopamine are associated with apathy in Parkinson’s disease

PubMed Central

Manohar, Sanjay; Ben Yehuda, Michael; Chong, Trevor T.-J.; Tofaris, George; Lennox, Graham; Bogdanovic, Marko; Hu, Michele; Husain, Masud

2016-01-01

Abstract Apathy is a debilitating and under-recognized condition that has a significant impact in many neurodegenerative disorders. In Parkinson’s disease, it is now known to contribute to worse outcomes and a reduced quality of life for patients and carers, adding to health costs and extending disease burden. However, despite its clinical importance, there remains limited understanding of mechanisms underlying apathy. Here we investigated if insensitivity to reward might be a contributory factor and examined how this relates to severity of clinical symptoms. To do this we created novel ocular measures that indexed motivation level using pupillary and saccadic response to monetary incentives, allowing reward sensitivity to be evaluated objectively. This approach was tested in 40 patients with Parkinson’s disease, 31 elderly age-matched control participants and 20 young healthy volunteers. Thirty patients were examined ON and OFF their dopaminergic medication in two counterbalanced sessions, so that the effect of dopamine on reward sensitivity could be assessed. Pupillary dilation to increasing levels of monetary reward on offer provided quantifiable metrics of motivation in healthy subjects as well as patients. Moreover, pupillary reward sensitivity declined with age. In Parkinson’s disease, reduced pupillary modulation by incentives was predictive of apathy severity, and independent of motor impairment and autonomic dysfunction as assessed using overnight heart rate variability measures. Reward sensitivity was further modulated by dopaminergic state, with blunted sensitivity when patients were OFF dopaminergic drugs, both in pupillary response and saccadic peak velocity response to reward. These findings suggest that reward insensitivity may be a contributory mechanism to apathy and provide potential new clinical measures for improved diagnosis and monitoring of apathy. 10.1093/brain/aww188_video_abstractaww188_video_abstract PMID:27452600

Perturbed reward processing in pediatric bipolar disorder: an antisaccade study

PubMed Central

Mueller, Sven C; Ng, Pamela; Temple, Veronica; Hardin, Michael G; Pine, Daniel S; Leibenluft, Ellen; Ernst, Monique

2010-01-01

Pediatric bipolar disorder is a severe and impairing illness. Characterizing the impact of pediatric bipolar disorder on cognitive function might aid in understanding the phenomenology of the disorder. While previous studies of pediatric bipolar disorder have reported deficits in cognitive control and reward behavior, little is understood about how affective processes influence behavioral control. Relative to prior studies using manual-response paradigms, eye movement tasks provide a more precise assessment of reward sensitivity and cognitive and motor control. The current study compares 20 youths with bipolar disorder (mean age = 13.9 years ± 2.22) and 23 healthy subjects (mean age = 13.8 years ± 2.49) on a mixed pro–antisaccade task with monetary incentives. On both types of saccades, participants were presented with three types of incentives: those where subjects can win money, lose money, or neither win nor lose money. Impaired reward processing was found in youths with bipolar disorder relative to controls, particularly on antisaccades. This difference was reflected in lower error rates during incentive trials in the control but not in the bipolar disorder group. By comparison, no group differences were found on prosaccade trials. The results provide further evidence for deficits in cognitive and reward processing in bipolar disorder. PMID:20080923

Making a business case for small medical practices to maintain quality while addressing racial healthcare disparities.

PubMed

Dunston, Frances J; Eisenberg, Andrew C; Lewis, Evelyn L; Montgomery, John M; Ramos, Diana; Elster, Arthur

2008-11-01

Various reports have documented variations in quality of care that occur among racial and ethnic populations, even after accounting for socioeconomic factors and health insurance status. Although quality improvement initiatives are often touted as the answer to healthcare disparities, researchers have questioned whether a business case exists that supports this notion. We assess various barriers and incentives for using quality improvement to address racial and ethnic healthcare disparities in small-to-medium-sized practices. We believe that although both indirect and direct cost incentives may exist, a favorable business case for small private practices cannot be made unless there are additional financial incentives. The business community can work with health plans to provide these incentives.

Does the Effort of Processing Potential Incentives Influence the Adaption of Context Updating in Older Adults?

PubMed Central

Schmitt, Hannah; Kray, Jutta; Ferdinand, Nicola K.

2017-01-01

A number of aging studies suggest that older adults process positive and negative information differently. For instance, the socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that older adults preferably process positive information in service of emotional well-being (Reed and Carstensen, 2012). Moreover, recent research has started to investigate whether incentives like gains or losses can influence cognitive control in an ongoing task. In an earlier study (Schmitt et al., 2015), we examined whether incentive cues, indicating potential monetary gains, losses, or neutral outcomes for good performance in the following trial, would influence older adults’ ability to exert cognitive control. Cognitive control was measured in an AX-Continuous-Performance-Task (AX-CPT) in which participants had to select their responses to probe stimuli depending on a preceding context cue. In this study, we did not find support for a positivity effect in older adults, but both gains and losses led to enhanced context processing. As the trial-wise presentation mode may be too demanding on cognitive resources for such a bias to occur, the main goal of the present study was to examine whether motivational mindsets, induced by block-wise presentation of incentives, would result in a positivity effect. For this reason, we examined 17 older participants (65–76 years) in the AX-CPT using a block-wise presentation of incentive cues and compared them to 18 older adults (69–78 years) with the trial-wise presentation mode from our earlier study (Schmitt et al., 2015). Event-related potentials were recorded to the onset of the motivational cue and during the AX-CPT. Our results show that (a) older adults initially process cues signaling potential losses more strongly, but later during the AX-CPT invest more cognitive resources in preparatory processes like context updating in conditions with potential gains, and (b) block-wise and trial-wise presentation of incentive cues differentially influenced cognitive control. When incentives were presented block-wise, the above described valence effects were consistently found. In contrast, when incentives were presented trial-wise, the effects were mixed and salience as well as valence effects can be obtained. Hence, how positive and negative incentive cues influence cognitive control in older adults is dependent on demands of cue processing. PMID:29170649

Does the Effort of Processing Potential Incentives Influence the Adaption of Context Updating in Older Adults?

PubMed

Schmitt, Hannah; Kray, Jutta; Ferdinand, Nicola K

2017-01-01

A number of aging studies suggest that older adults process positive and negative information differently. For instance, the socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that older adults preferably process positive information in service of emotional well-being (Reed and Carstensen, 2012). Moreover, recent research has started to investigate whether incentives like gains or losses can influence cognitive control in an ongoing task. In an earlier study (Schmitt et al., 2015), we examined whether incentive cues, indicating potential monetary gains, losses, or neutral outcomes for good performance in the following trial, would influence older adults' ability to exert cognitive control. Cognitive control was measured in an AX-Continuous-Performance-Task (AX-CPT) in which participants had to select their responses to probe stimuli depending on a preceding context cue. In this study, we did not find support for a positivity effect in older adults, but both gains and losses led to enhanced context processing. As the trial-wise presentation mode may be too demanding on cognitive resources for such a bias to occur, the main goal of the present study was to examine whether motivational mindsets, induced by block-wise presentation of incentives, would result in a positivity effect. For this reason, we examined 17 older participants (65-76 years) in the AX-CPT using a block-wise presentation of incentive cues and compared them to 18 older adults (69-78 years) with the trial-wise presentation mode from our earlier study (Schmitt et al., 2015). Event-related potentials were recorded to the onset of the motivational cue and during the AX-CPT. Our results show that (a) older adults initially process cues signaling potential losses more strongly, but later during the AX-CPT invest more cognitive resources in preparatory processes like context updating in conditions with potential gains, and (b) block-wise and trial-wise presentation of incentive cues differentially influenced cognitive control. When incentives were presented block-wise, the above described valence effects were consistently found. In contrast, when incentives were presented trial-wise, the effects were mixed and salience as well as valence effects can be obtained. Hence, how positive and negative incentive cues influence cognitive control in older adults is dependent on demands of cue processing.

Sensitivity to monetary reward is most severely compromised in recently abstaining cocaine addicted individuals: a cross-sectional ERP study.

PubMed

Parvaz, Muhammad A; Maloney, Thomas; Moeller, Scott J; Woicik, Patricia A; Alia-Klein, Nelly; Telang, Frank; Wang, Gene-Jack; Squires, Nancy K; Volkow, Nora D; Goldstein, Rita Z

2012-07-30

Recent studies suggest that drug-addicted individuals have a dampened cortical response to non-drug rewards. However, it remains unclear whether recency of drug use impacts this impairment. Therefore, in this event-related potential study, recency of cocaine use was objectively determined by measuring cocaine in urine on study day. Thirty-five individuals with current cocaine use disorder [CUD: 21 testing positive (CUD+) and 14 testing negative (CUD-) for cocaine in urine] and 23 healthy controls completed a sustained attention task with graded monetary incentives (0¢, 1¢ and 45¢). Unlike in controls, in both CUD subgroups P300 amplitude was not modulated by the varying amounts of money and the CUD- showed the most severe impairment as documented by the lowest P300 amplitudes and task accuracy. Moreover, while recency of drug use was associated with better accuracy and higher P300 amplitudes, chronic drug use was associated with lower sensitivity to money. These results extend our previous findings of decreased sustained sensitivity to monetary reward in CUD+ to recently abstaining individuals, where level of impairment was most severe. Taken together, these results support the self-medication hypothesis, where CUD may be self-administering cocaine to avoid or compensate for underlying cognitive and emotional difficulties albeit with a long-term detrimental effect on sensitivity to non-drug reward. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intranasal oxytocin enhances neural processing of monetary reward and loss in post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatized controls.

PubMed

Nawijn, Laura; van Zuiden, Mirjam; Koch, Saskia B J; Frijling, Jessie L; Veltman, Dick J; Olff, Miranda

2016-04-01

Anhedonia is a significant clinical problem in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD patients show reduced motivational approach behavior, which may underlie anhedonic symptoms. Oxytocin administration is known to increase reward sensitivity and approach behavior. We therefore investigated whether oxytocin administration affected neural responses during motivational processing in PTSD patients and trauma-exposed controls. 35 police officers with PTSD (21 males) and 37 trauma-exposed police officers without PTSD (19 males) were included in a within-subjects, randomized, placebo-controlled fMRI study. Neural responses during anticipation of monetary reward and loss were investigated with a monetary incentive delay task (MID) after placebo and oxytocin (40 IU) administration. Oxytocin increased neural responses during reward and loss anticipation in PTSD patients and controls in the striatum, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and insula, key regions in the reward pathway. Although PTSD patients did not differ from controls in motivational processing under placebo, anhedonia severity in PTSD patients was negatively related to reward responsiveness in the ventral striatum. Furthermore, oxytocin effects on reward processing in the ventral striatum were positively associated with anhedonia. Oxytocin administration increased reward pathway sensitivity during reward and loss anticipation in PTSD patients and trauma-exposed controls. Thus, oxytocin administration may increase motivation for goal-directed approach behavior in PTSD patients and controls, providing evidence for a neurobiological pathway through which oxytocin could potentially increase motivation and reward sensitivity in PTSD patients. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Use of care management practices in small- and medium-sized physician groups: do public reporting of physician quality and financial incentives matter?

PubMed

Alexander, Jeffrey A; Maeng, Daniel; Casalino, Lawrence P; Rittenhouse, Diane

2013-04-01

To examine the effect of public reporting (PR) and financial incentives tied to quality performance on the use of care management practices (CMPs) among small- and medium-sized physician groups. Survey data from The National Study of Small and Medium-sized Physician Practices were used. Primary data collection was also conducted to assess community-level PR activities. The final sample included 643 practices engaged in quality reporting; about half of these practices were subject to PR. We used a treatment effects model. The instrumental variables were the community-level variables that capture the level of PR activity in each community in which the practices operate. (1) PR is associated with increased use of CMPs, but the estimate is not statistically significant; (2) financial incentives are associated with greater use of CMPs; (3) practices' awareness/sensitivity to quality reports is positively related to their use of CMPs; and (4) combined PR and financial incentives jointly affect CMP use to a greater degree than either of these factors alone. Small- to medium-sized practices appear to respond to PR and financial incentives by greater use of CMPs. Future research needs to investigate the appropriate mix and type of incentive arrangements and quality reporting. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

Factors Influencing Neurosurgeons' Decision to Retain in a Work Location: A Qualitative Study.

PubMed

Rafiei, Sima; Arab, Mohammad; Rashidian, Arash; Mahmoudi, Mahmood; Rahimi-Movaghar, Vafa

2015-04-02

Physician retention is a serious concern to have an effective and efficient health system; the key challenge is how best to encourage and retain health providers in their work location. There have been considerable studies on factors influencing physicians' retention but little research has been conducted in Iran. This study aims to determine the affecting factors from neurosurgeons' viewpoint to support policy makers in proposing a sort of evidence based retention strategies. We conducted semi structured interviews with 17 neurosurgeons working in 9 provinces of Iran between September and November 2014. We included physicians remaining to work in a particular community for at least 3 years and asked them about the factors influenced their decision to retain in a work place. Data were thematically analyzed using "framework approach" for qualitative research. Satisfaction with monetary incentives, availability of adequate clinical infrastructure in a community and appropriate working condition were most commonly cited factors mentioned by all participants as key reasons for retention. Furthermore elements which contributed to the quality of living condition, personal background and incentives, family convenience were emphasized by majority of them. A small number of participants mentioned opportunity for continuing learning and updating knowledge as well as supportive organizational policies as important motivators in a workplace. Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) should consider a multifaceted and holistic approach to improve neurosurgeons' retention in their work location. Our findings suggests a combination of financial remuneration, establishment of adequate hospitals and clinical facilities, collaborative working environment with reasonable workload, proper living condition, family support and facilities for professional development to be employed as an effective strategy for promoting physicians' retention.

Factors Influencing Neurosurgeons’ Decision to Retain in a Work Location: A Qualitative Study

PubMed Central

Rafiei, Sima; Arab, Mohammad; Rashidian, Arash; Mahmoudi, Mahmood; Rahimi-Movaghar, Vafa

2015-01-01

Introduction: Physician retention is a serious concern to have an effective and efficient health system; the key challenge is how best to encourage and retain health providers in their work location. There have been considerable studies on factors influencing physicians’ retention but little research has been conducted in Iran. This study aims to determine the affecting factors from neurosurgeons’ viewpoint to support policy makers in proposing a sort of evidence based retention strategies. Methods: We conducted semi structured interviews with 17 neurosurgeons working in 9 provinces of Iran between September and November 2014. We included physicians remaining to work in a particular community for at least 3 years and asked them about the factors influenced their decision to retain in a work place. Data were thematically analyzed using “framework approach” for qualitative research. Results: Satisfaction with monetary incentives, availability of adequate clinical infrastructure in a community and appropriate working condition were most commonly cited factors mentioned by all participants as key reasons for retention. Furthermore elements which contributed to the quality of living condition, personal background and incentives, family convenience were emphasized by majority of them. A small number of participants mentioned opportunity for continuing learning and updating knowledge as well as supportive organizational policies as important motivators in a workplace. Conclusion: Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) should consider a multifaceted and holistic approach to improve neurosurgeons’ retention in their work location. Our findings suggests a combination of financial remuneration, establishment of adequate hospitals and clinical facilities, collaborative working environment with reasonable workload, proper living condition, family support and facilities for professional development to be employed as an effective strategy for promoting physicians’ retention. PMID:26156906

Social and monetary reward processing in autism spectrum disorders

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Social motivation theory suggests that deficits in social reward processing underlie social impairments in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the extent to which abnormalities in reward processing generalize to other classes of stimuli remains unresolved. The aim of the current study was to examine if reward processing abnormalities in ASD are specific to social stimuli or can be generalized to other classes of reward. Additionally, we sought to examine the results in the light of behavioral impairments in ASD. Methods Participants performed adapted versions of the social and monetary incentive delay tasks. Data from 21 unmedicated right-handed male participants with ASD and 21 age- and IQ-matched controls were analyzed using a factorial design to examine the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response during the anticipation and receipt of both reward types. Results Behaviorally, the ASD group showed less of a reduction in reaction time (RT) for rewarded compared to unrewarded trials than the control group. In terms of the fMRI results, there were no significant group differences in reward circuitry during reward anticipation. During the receipt of rewards, there was a significant interaction between group and reward type in the left dorsal striatum (DS). The ASD group showed reduced activity in the DS compared to controls for social rewards but not monetary rewards and decreased activation for social rewards compared to monetary rewards. Controls showed no significant difference between the two reward types. Increased activation in the DS during social reward processing was associated with faster response times for rewarded trials, compared to unrewarded trials, in both groups. This is in line with behavioral results indicating that the ASD group showed less of a reduction in RT for rewarded compared to unrewarded trials. Additionally, de-activation to social rewards was associated with increased repetitive behavior in ASD. Conclusions In line with social motivation theory, the ASD group showed reduced activation, compared to controls, during the receipt of social rewards in the DS. Groups did not differ significantly during the processing of monetary rewards. BOLD activation in the DS, during social reward processing, was associated with behavioral impairments in ASD. PMID:23014171

Social and monetary reward processing in autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Delmonte, Sonja; Balsters, Joshua H; McGrath, Jane; Fitzgerald, Jacqueline; Brennan, Sean; Fagan, Andrew J; Gallagher, Louise

2012-09-26

Social motivation theory suggests that deficits in social reward processing underlie social impairments in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the extent to which abnormalities in reward processing generalize to other classes of stimuli remains unresolved. The aim of the current study was to examine if reward processing abnormalities in ASD are specific to social stimuli or can be generalized to other classes of reward. Additionally, we sought to examine the results in the light of behavioral impairments in ASD. Participants performed adapted versions of the social and monetary incentive delay tasks. Data from 21 unmedicated right-handed male participants with ASD and 21 age- and IQ-matched controls were analyzed using a factorial design to examine the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response during the anticipation and receipt of both reward types. Behaviorally, the ASD group showed less of a reduction in reaction time (RT) for rewarded compared to unrewarded trials than the control group. In terms of the fMRI results, there were no significant group differences in reward circuitry during reward anticipation. During the receipt of rewards, there was a significant interaction between group and reward type in the left dorsal striatum (DS). The ASD group showed reduced activity in the DS compared to controls for social rewards but not monetary rewards and decreased activation for social rewards compared to monetary rewards. Controls showed no significant difference between the two reward types. Increased activation in the DS during social reward processing was associated with faster response times for rewarded trials, compared to unrewarded trials, in both groups. This is in line with behavioral results indicating that the ASD group showed less of a reduction in RT for rewarded compared to unrewarded trials. Additionally, de-activation to social rewards was associated with increased repetitive behavior in ASD. In line with social motivation theory, the ASD group showed reduced activation, compared to controls, during the receipt of social rewards in the DS. Groups did not differ significantly during the processing of monetary rewards. BOLD activation in the DS, during social reward processing, was associated with behavioral impairments in ASD.

Environmental Effects on Public Health: An Economic Perspective

PubMed Central

Remoundou, Kyriaki; Koundouri, Phoebe

2009-01-01

In this article we critically review the economic literature on the effects of environmental changes on public health, in both the developed and the developing world. We first focus on the economic methodologies that are available for the evaluation of the effects (social costs and benefits) of environmental changes (degradation/preservation) on public health. Then, we explain how the monetary valuations of these effects can feed back in the construction of economic policy for creating agent-specific incentives for more efficient public health management, which is also equitable and environmentally sustainable. Our exposition is accompanied by a synthesis of the available quantitative empirical results. PMID:19742153

Environmental effects on public health: an economic perspective.

PubMed

Remoundou, Kyriaki; Koundouri, Phoebe

2009-08-01

In this article we critically review the economic literature on the effects of environmental changes on public health, in both the developed and the developing world. We first focus on the economic methodologies that are available for the evaluation of the effects (social costs and benefits) of environmental changes (degradation/preservation) on public health. Then, we explain how the monetary evaluations of these effects can feed back in the construction of economic policy for creating agent-specific incentives for more efficient public health management, which is also equitable and environmentally sustainable. Our exposition is accompanied by a synthesis of the available quantitative empirical results.

Cocaine dependent individuals discount future rewards more than future losses for both cocaine and monetary outcomes.

PubMed

Johnson, Matthew W; Bruner, Natalie R; Johnson, Patrick S

2015-01-01

Cocaine dependence and other forms of drug dependence are associated with steeper devaluation of future outcomes (delay discounting). Although studies in this domain have typically assessed choices between monetary gains (e.g., receive less money now versus receive more money after a delay), delay discounting is also applicable to decisions involving losses (e.g., small loss now versus larger delayed loss), with gains typically discounted more than losses (the "sign effect"). It is also known that drugs are discounted more than equivalently valued money. In the context of drug dependence, however, relatively little is known about the discounting of delayed monetary and drug losses and the presence of the sign effect. In this within-subject, laboratory study, delay discounting for gains and losses was assessed for cocaine and money outcomes in cocaine-dependent individuals (n=89). Both cocaine and monetary gains were discounted at significantly greater rates than cocaine and monetary losses, respectively (i.e., the sign effect). Cocaine gains were discounted significantly more than monetary gains, but cocaine and monetary losses were discounted similarly. Results suggest that cocaine is discounted by cocaine-dependent individuals in a systematic manner similar to other rewards. Because the sign effect was shown for both cocaine and money, delayed aversive outcomes may generally have greater impact than delayed rewards in shaping present behavior in this population. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Financial Incentives, Targeting, and Utilization of Child Health Services: Experimental Evidence from Zambia.

PubMed

Fink, Günther; Rockers, Peter C

2017-10-01

To address untreated infections in children, routine health checkups have increasingly been incentivized as part of conditional cash transfer programs targeted at the poor. We conducted a field experiment in Zambia to assess the elasticity of demand for checkups as well as the associated health benefits. We find that relatively small incentives induce substantial increases in uptake among non-farming households and households living farther away from clinics, but not among households in the top wealth quintile. These results suggest that small financial incentives may be an efficient way to target poor populations. However, given the weak socioeconomic gradient in infections observed, small incentives will miss a substantial fraction of exposed children. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Milostan, Catharina; Levin, Todd; Muehleisen, Ralph T.

Many electric utilities operate energy efficiency incentive programs that encourage increased dissemination and use of energy-efficient (EE) products in their service territories. The programs can be segmented into three broad categories—downstream incentive programs target product end users, midstream programs target product distributors, and upstream programs target product manufacturers. Traditional downstream programs have had difficulty engaging Small Business/Small Portfolio (SBSP) audiences, and an opportunity exists to expand Commercial Midstream Incentive Programs (CMIPs) to reach this market segment instead.

Motivation for Participating in a Weight Loss Program and Financial Incentives: An Analysis from a Randomized Trial

PubMed Central

Crane, Melissa M.; Tate, Deborah F.; Finkelstein, Eric A.; Linnan, Laura A.

2012-01-01

This analysis investigated if changes in autonomous or controlled motivation for participation in a weight loss program differed between individuals offered a financial incentive for weight loss compared to individuals not offered an incentive. Additionally, the same relationships were tested among those who lost weight and either received or did not receive an incentive. This analysis used data from a year-long randomized worksite weight loss program that randomly assigned employees in each worksite to either a low-intensity weight loss program or the same program plus small financial incentives for weight loss ($5.00 per percentage of initial weight lost). There were no differences in changes between groups on motivation during the study, however, increases in autonomous motivation were consistently associated with greater weight losses. This suggests that the small incentives used in this program did not lead to increases in controlled motivation nor did they undermine autonomous motivation. Future studies are needed to evaluate the magnitude and timing of incentives to more fully understand the relationship between incentives and motivation. PMID:22577524

Financial incentive strategies for maintenance of weight loss: results from an internet-based randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Yancy, William S; Shaw, Pamela A; Wesby, Lisa; Hilbert, Victoria; Yang, Lin; Zhu, Jingsan; Troxel, Andrea; Huffman, David; Foster, Gary D; Wojtanowski, Alexis C; Volpp, Kevin G

2018-05-25

Financial incentives can improve initial weight loss; we examined whether financial incentives can improve weight loss maintenance. Participants aged 30-80 years who lost at least 5 kg during the first 4-6 months in a nationally available commercial weight loss program were recruited via the internet into a three-arm randomized trial of two types of financial incentives versus active control during months 1-6 (Phase I) followed by passive monitoring during months 7-12 (Phase II). Interventions were daily self-weighing and text messaging feedback alone (control) or combined with a lottery-based incentive or a direct incentive. The primary outcome was weight change 6 months after initial weight loss. Secondary outcomes included weight change 12 months after initial weight loss (6 months after cessation of maintenance intervention), and self-reported physical activity and eating behaviors. Of 191 participants randomized, the mean age was 49.0 (SD = 10.5) years and weight loss prior to randomization was 11.4 (4.7) kg; 92% were women and 89% were White. Mean weight changes during the next 6 months (Phase I) were: lottery -3.0 (5.8) kg; direct -2.8 (5.8) kg; and control -1.4 (5.8) kg (all pairwise comparisons p > 0.1). Weight changes through the end of 12 months post-weight loss (Phase II) were: lottery -1.8 (10.5) kg; direct -0.7 (10.7) kg; and control -0.3 (9.4) kg (all pairwise comparisons p > 0.1). The percentages of participants who maintained their weight loss (defined as gaining ≤1.36 kg) were: lottery 79%, direct 76%, and control 67% at 6 months and lottery 66%, direct 62%, and control 59% at 12 months (all pairwise comparisons p > 0.1). At 6 and 12 months after initial weight loss, changes in self-reported physical activity or eating behaviors did not differ across arms. Compared with the active control of daily texting based on daily home weighing, lottery-based and direct monetary incentives provided no additional benefit for weight loss maintenance.

Effects of Charitable Versus Monetary Incentives on the Acceptance of and Adherence to a Pedometer-Based Health Intervention: Study Protocol and Baseline Characteristics of a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

PubMed Central

Kramer, Jan-Niklas; Kehr, Flavius; Wahle, Fabian; Elser, Niklas; Fleisch, Elgar

2016-01-01

Background Research has so far benefited from the use of pedometers in physical activity interventions. However, when public health institutions (eg, insurance companies) implement pedometer-based interventions in practice, people may refrain from participating due to privacy concerns. This might greatly limit the applicability of such interventions. Financial incentives have been successfully used to influence both health behavior and privacy concerns, and may thus have a beneficial effect on the acceptance of pedometer-based interventions. Objective This paper presents the design and baseline characteristics of a cluster-randomized controlled trial that seeks to examine the effect of financial incentives on the acceptance of and adherence to a pedometer-based physical activity intervention offered by a health insurance company. Methods More than 18,000 customers of a large Swiss health insurance company were allocated to a financial incentive, a charitable incentive, or a control group and invited to participate in a health prevention program. Participants used a pedometer to track their daily physical activity over the course of 6 months. A Web-based questionnaire was administered at the beginning and at the end of the intervention and additional data was provided by the insurance company. The primary outcome of the study will be the participation rate, secondary outcomes will be adherence to the prevention program, physical activity, and health status of the participants among others. Results Baseline characteristics indicate that residence of participants, baseline physical activity, and subjective health should be used as covariates in the statistical analysis of the secondary outcomes of the study. Conclusions This is the first study in western cultures testing the effectiveness of financial incentives with regard to a pedometer-based health intervention offered by a large health insurer to their customers. Given that the incentives prove to be effective, this study provides the basis for powerful health prevention programs of public health institutions that are easy to implement and can reach large numbers of people in need. PMID:27624645

Monetary Shocks in Models with Inattentive Producers.

PubMed

Alvarez, Fernando E; Lippi, Francesco; Paciello, Luigi

2016-04-01

We study models where prices respond slowly to shocks because firms are rationally inattentive. Producers must pay a cost to observe the determinants of the current profit maximizing price, and hence observe them infrequently. To generate large real effects of monetary shocks in such a model the time between observations must be long and/or highly volatile. Previous work on rational inattentiveness has allowed for observation intervals that are either constant-but-long ( e.g . Caballero, 1989 or Reis, 2006) or volatile-but-short ( e.g . Reis's, 2006 example where observation costs are negligible), but not both. In these models, the real effects of monetary policy are small for realistic values of the duration between observations. We show that non-negligible observation costs produce both of these effects: intervals between observations are infrequent and volatile. This generates large real effects of monetary policy for realistic values of the average time between observations.

Monetary Shocks in Models with Inattentive Producers

PubMed Central

Alvarez, Fernando E.; Lippi, Francesco; Paciello, Luigi

2016-01-01

We study models where prices respond slowly to shocks because firms are rationally inattentive. Producers must pay a cost to observe the determinants of the current profit maximizing price, and hence observe them infrequently. To generate large real effects of monetary shocks in such a model the time between observations must be long and/or highly volatile. Previous work on rational inattentiveness has allowed for observation intervals that are either constant-but-long (e.g. Caballero, 1989 or Reis, 2006) or volatile-but-short (e.g. Reis's, 2006 example where observation costs are negligible), but not both. In these models, the real effects of monetary policy are small for realistic values of the duration between observations. We show that non-negligible observation costs produce both of these effects: intervals between observations are infrequent and volatile. This generates large real effects of monetary policy for realistic values of the average time between observations. PMID:27516627

Aversive properties of negative incentive shifts in Fischer 344 and Lewis rats

PubMed Central

Brewer, Adam; Johnson, Patrick; Stein, Jeff; Schlund, Michael; Williams, Dean C.

2018-01-01

Research on incentive contrast highlights that reward value is not absolute but rather is based upon comparisons we make to rewards we have received and expect to receive. Both human and nonhuman studies on incentive contrast show that shifting from a larger more-valued reward to a smaller less-valued reward is associated with long periods of nonresponding—a negative contrast effect. In this investigation, we used two different genetic rat strains, Fischer 344 and Lewis rats that putatively differ in their sensitivity to aversive stimulation, to assess the aversive properties of large-to-small reward shifts (negative incentive shifts). Additionally, we examined the extent to which increasing cost (fixed-ratio requirements) modulates negative contrast effects. In the presence of a cue that signaled the upcoming reward magnitude, lever pressing was reinforced with one of two different magnitudes of food (large or small). This design created two contrast shifts (small-to-large, large-to-small) and two shifts used as control conditions (small-to-small, large-to-large). Results showed a significant interaction between rat strain and cost requirements only during the negative incentive shift with the emotionally reactive Fischer 344 rats exhibiting significantly longer response latencies with increasing cost, highlighting greater negative contrast. These findings are more consistent with emotionality accounts of negative contrast and results of neurophysiological research that suggests shifting from a large to a small reward is aversive. Findings also highlight how subjective reward value and motivation is a product of gene-environment interactions. PMID:27864048

Hyporeactivity of ventral striatum towards incentive stimuli in unmedicated depressed patients normalizes after treatment with escitalopram.

PubMed

Stoy, Meline; Schlagenhauf, Florian; Sterzer, Philipp; Bermpohl, Felix; Hägele, Claudia; Suchotzki, Kristina; Schmack, Katharina; Wrase, Jana; Ricken, Roland; Knutson, Brian; Adli, Mazda; Bauer, Michael; Heinz, Andreas; Ströhle, Andreas

2012-05-01

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) involves deficits in the reward system. While neuroimaging studies have focused on affective stimulus processing, few investigations have directly addressed deficits in the anticipation of incentives. We examined neural responses during gain and loss anticipation in patients with MDD before and after treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Fifteen adults with MDD and 15 healthy participants, matched for age, verbal IQ and smoking habits, were investigated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using a monetary incentive delay task. Patients were scanned drug-free and after 6 weeks of open-label treatment with escitalopram; controls were scanned twice at corresponding time points. We compared the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response during the anticipation of gain and loss with a neutral condition. A repeated measures ANOVA was calculated to identify effects of group (MDD vs. controls), time (first vs. second scan) and group-by-time interaction. Severity of depression was measured with the Hamilton Rating Scale of Depression and the Beck Depression Inventory. MDD patients showed significantly less ventral striatal activation during anticipation of gain and loss compared with controls before, but not after, treatment. There was a significant group-by-time interaction during anticipation of loss in the left ventral striatum due to a signal increase in patients after treatment. Ventral striatal hyporesponsiveness was associated with the severity of depression and in particular anhedonic symptoms. These findings suggest that MDD patients show ventral striatal hyporesponsiveness during incentive cue processing, which normalizes after successful treatment.

Private long-term care insurance and state tax incentives.

PubMed

Stevenson, David G; Frank, Richard G; Tau, Jocelyn

2009-01-01

To increase the role of private insurance in financing long-term care, tax incentives for long-term care insurance have been implemented at both the federal and state levels. To date, there has been surprisingly little study of these initiatives. Using a panel of national data, we find that market take-up for long-term care insurance increased over the last decade, but state tax incentives were responsible for only a small portion of this growth. Ultimately, the modest ability of state tax incentives to lower premiums implies that they should be viewed as a small piece of the long-term care financing puzzle.

77 FR 63925 - Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-10-17

..., Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees of Small Employers (SIMPLE)--Not for Use With a Designated Financial Institution; Form 5305-SIMPLE, Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees of Small Employers (SIMPLE)--for Use With a Designated Financial Institution; Notice 98-4, Simple IRA Plan Guidance. DATES...

Space Situational Awareness using Market Based Agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sullivan, C.; Pier, E.; Gregory, S.; Bush, M.

2012-09-01

Space surveillance for the DoD is not limited to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN). Other DoD-owned assets have some existing capabilities for tasking but have no systematic way to work collaboratively with the SSN. These are run by diverse organizations including the Services, other defense and intelligence agencies and national laboratories. Beyond these organizations, academic and commercial entities have systems that possess SSA capability. Most all of these assets have some level of connectivity, security, and potential autonomy. Exploiting them in a mutually beneficial structure could provide a more comprehensive, efficient and cost effective solution for SSA. The collection of all potential assets, providers and consumers of SSA data comprises a market which is functionally illiquid. The development of a dynamic marketplace for SSA data could enable would-be providers the opportunity to sell data to SSA consumers for monetary or incentive based compensation. A well-conceived market architecture could drive down SSA data costs through increased supply and improve efficiency through increased competition. Oceanit will investigate market and market agent architectures, protocols, standards, and incentives toward producing high-volume/low-cost SSA.

Temporal dynamics of reward anticipation in the human brain.

PubMed

Zhang, Yuanyuan; Li, Qi; Wang, Zhao; Liu, Xun; Zheng, Ya

2017-09-01

Reward anticipation is a complex process including cue evaluation, motor preparation, and feedback anticipation. The present study investigated whether these psychological processes were dissociable on neural dynamics in terms of incentive valence and approach motivation. We recorded EEG when participants were performing a monetary incentive delay task, and found a cue-P3 during the cue-evaluation stage, a contingent negative variation (CNV) during the motor-preparation stage, and a stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) during the feedback-anticipation stage. Critically, both the cue-P3 and SPN exhibited an enhanced sensitivity to gain versus loss anticipation, which was not observed for the CNV. Moreover, both the cue-P3 and SPN, instead of the CNV, for gain anticipation selectively predicted the participants' approach motivation as measured in a following effort expenditure for rewards task, particularly when reward uncertainty was maximal. Together, these results indicate that reward anticipation consists of several sub-stages, each with distinct functional significance, thus providing implications for neuropsychiatric diseases characterized by dysfunction in anticipatory reward processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An exploration of contextual factors that influence HIV risk in female sex workers in Mexico: The Social Ecological Model applied to HIV risk behaviors

PubMed Central

Larios, Sandra E.; Lozada, Remedios; Strathdee, Steffanie A.; Semple, Shirley J.; Roesch, Scott; Staines, Hugo; Orozovich, Prisci; Fraga, Miguel; Amaro, Hortensia; de la Torre, Adela; Magis-Rodríguez, Carlos; Patterson, Thomas L.

2010-01-01

The present study examined the applicability of the Social Ecological Model for explaining condom use in a sample of female sex workers (FSWs) (N=435) participating in a behavioral intervention to increase condom use in Tijuana, Mexico. Using a multi-group path analysis, we compared women who work in bar settings (n=233) to those who worked on the street (n=202) with regard to an individual factor (self efficacy), an interpersonal factor (client financial incentives), and a structural factor (condom access). Competing models showed differential impacts of these factors in the two venue-based groups. Having access to condoms was associated with greater self-efficacy and less unprotected sex in women who worked in bars. Among street-based FSWs, having clients offer monetary incentives for unprotected sex was related to greater unprotected sex while having access to condoms was not. Understanding the contextual factors associated with condom use among subgroups of FSWs has important implications for the development of HIV prevention interventions. PMID:19370470

Caudate responses to reward anticipation associated with delay discounting behavior in healthy youth

PubMed Central

Benningfield, Margaret M.; Blackford, Jennifer U.; Ellsworth, Melissa E.; Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R.; Martin, Peter R.; Cowan, Ronald L.; Zald, David H.

2014-01-01

Background Choices requiring delay of gratification made during adolescence can have significant impact on life trajectory. Willingness to delay gratification can be measured using delay discounting tasks that require a choice between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. Individual differences in the subjective value of delayed rewards are associated with risk for development of psychopathology including substance abuse. The neurobiological underpinnings related to these individual differences early in life are not fully understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we tested the hypothesis that individual differences in delay discounting behavior in healthy youth are related to differences in responsiveness to potential reward. Method Nineteen 10 to 14 year-olds performed a monetary incentive delay task to assess neural sensitivity to potential reward and a questionnaire to measure discounting of future monetary rewards. Results Left ventromedial caudate activation during anticipation of potential reward was negatively correlated with delay discounting behavior. There were no regions where brain responses during notification of reward outcome were associated with discounting behavior. Conclusions Brain activation during anticipation of potential reward may serve as a marker for individual differences in ability or willingness to delay gratification in healthy youth. PMID:24309299

Patient mobility and health care quality when regions and patients differ in income.

PubMed

Brekke, Kurt R; Levaggi, Rosella; Siciliani, Luigi; Straume, Odd Rune

2016-12-01

We study the effects of cross-border patient mobility on health care quality and welfare when income varies across and within regions. We use a Salop model with a high-, middle-, and low-income region. In each region, a policy maker chooses health care quality to maximise the utility of its residents when health care costs are financed by general income taxation. In equilibrium, regions with higher income offer better quality, which creates an incentive for patient mobility from lower- to higher-income regions. Assuming a prospective payment scheme based on DRG-pricing, we find that lower non-monetary (administrative) mobility costs have (i) no effect on quality or welfare in the high-income region; (ii) a negative effect on quality but a positive effect on welfare for the middle-income region; and (iii) ambiguous effects on quality and welfare for the low-income region. Lower monetary mobility costs (copayments) might reduce welfare in both the middle- and low-income region. Thus, health policies that stimulate cross-border patient mobility can be counterproductive when regions differ in income. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reward system dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders

PubMed Central

Schulte-Rüther, Martin; Nehrkorn, Barbara; Müller, Kristin; Fink, Gereon R.; Kamp-Becker, Inge; Herpertz-Dahlmann, Beate; Schultz, Robert T.; Konrad, Kerstin

2013-01-01

Although it has been suggested that social deficits of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are related to reward circuitry dysfunction, very little is known about the neural reward mechanisms in ASD. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated brain activations in response to both social and monetary reward in a group of children with ASD, relative to matched controls. Participants with ASD showed the expected hypoactivation in the mesocorticolimbic circuitry in response to both reward types. In particular, diminished activation in the nucleus accumbens was observed when money, but not when social reward, was at stake, whereas the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex were hypoactivated within the ASD group in response to both rewards. These data indicate that the reward circuitry is compromised in ASD in social as well as in non-social, i.e. monetary conditions, which likely contributes to atypical motivated behaviour. Taken together, with incentives used in this study sample, there is evidence for a general reward dysfunction in ASD. However, more ecologically valid social reward paradigms are needed to fully understand, whether there is any domain specificity to the reward deficit that appears evident in ASD, which would be most consistent with the ASD social phenotype. PMID:22419119

Altered prefrontal correlates of monetary anticipation and outcome in chronic pain.

PubMed

Martucci, Katherine T; Borg, Nicholas; MacNiven, Kelly H; Knutson, Brian; Mackey, Sean C

2018-04-04

Chronic pain may alter both affect- and value-related behaviors, which represents a potentially treatable aspect of chronic pain experience. Current understanding of how chronic pain influences the function of brain reward systems, however, is limited. Using a monetary incentive delay task and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured neural correlates of reward anticipation and outcomes in female participants with the chronic pain condition of fibromyalgia (N = 17) and age-matched, pain-free, female controls (N = 15). We hypothesized that patients would demonstrate lower positive arousal, as well as altered reward anticipation and outcome activity within corticostriatal circuits implicated in reward processing. Patients demonstrated lower arousal ratings as compared with controls, but no group differences were observed for valence, positive arousal, or negative arousal ratings. Group fMRI analyses were conducted to determine predetermined region of interest, nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), responses to potential gains, potential losses, reward outcomes, and punishment outcomes. Compared with controls, patients demonstrated similar, although slightly reduced, NAcc activity during gain anticipation. Conversely, patients demonstrated dramatically reduced mPFC activity during gain anticipation-possibly related to lower estimated reward probabilities. Further, patients demonstrated normal mPFC activity to reward outcomes, but dramatically heightened mPFC activity to no-loss (nonpunishment) outcomes. In parallel to NAcc and mPFC responses, patients demonstrated slightly reduced activity during reward anticipation in other brain regions, which included the ventral tegmental area, anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior insular cortex. Together, these results implicate altered corticostriatal processing of monetary rewards in chronic pain.

Nalmefene Reduces Reward Anticipation in Alcohol Dependence: An Experimental Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

PubMed

Quelch, Darren R; Mick, Inge; McGonigle, John; Ramos, Anna C; Flechais, Remy S A; Bolstridge, Mark; Rabiner, Eugenii; Wall, Matthew B; Newbould, Rexford D; Steiniger-Brach, Björn; van den Berg, Franz; Boyce, Malcolm; Østergaard Nilausen, Dorrit; Breuning Sluth, Lasse; Meulien, Didier; von der Goltz, Christoph; Nutt, David; Lingford-Hughes, Anne

2017-06-01

Nalmefene is a µ and δ opioid receptor antagonist, κ opioid receptor partial agonist that has recently been approved in Europe for treating alcohol dependence. It offers a treatment approach for alcohol-dependent individuals with "high-risk drinking levels" to reduce their alcohol consumption. However, the neurobiological mechanism underpinning its effects on alcohol consumption remains to be determined. Using a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject crossover design we aimed to determine the effect of a single dose of nalmefene on striatal blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal change during anticipation of monetary reward using the monetary incentive delay task following alcohol challenge. Twenty-two currently heavy-drinking, non-treatment-seeking alcohol-dependent males were recruited. The effect of single dose nalmefene (18 mg) on changes in a priori defined striatal region of interest BOLD signal change during reward anticipation compared with placebo was investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Both conditions were performed under intravenous alcohol administration (6% vol/vol infusion to achieve a target level of 80 mg/dL). Datasets from 18 participants were available and showed that in the presence of the alcohol infusion, nalmefene significantly reduced the BOLD response in the striatal region of interest compared with placebo. Nalmefene did not alter brain perfusion. Nalmefene blunts BOLD response in the mesolimbic system during anticipation of monetary reward and an alcohol infusion. This is consistent with nalmefene's actions on opioid receptors, which modulate the mesolimbic dopaminergic system, and provides a neurobiological basis for its efficacy. Copyright © 2017 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Training of Existing Workers: Issues, Incentives and Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mawer, Giselle; Jackson, Elaine

2005-01-01

This report presents issues associated with incentives for training existing workers in small to medium-sized firms, identified through a small sample of case studies from the retail, manufacturing, and building and construction industries. While the majority of employers recognise workforce skill levels are fundamental to the success of the…

Introducing a Method for Calculating the Allocation of Attention in a Cognitive “Two-Armed Bandit” Procedure: Probability Matching Gives Way to Maximizing

PubMed Central

Heyman, Gene M.; Grisanzio, Katherine A.; Liang, Victor

2016-01-01

We tested whether principles that describe the allocation of overt behavior, as in choice experiments, also describe the allocation of cognition, as in attention experiments. Our procedure is a cognitive version of the “two-armed bandit choice procedure.” The two-armed bandit procedure has been of interest to psychologistsand economists because it tends to support patterns of responding that are suboptimal. Each of two alternatives provides rewards according to fixed probabilities. The optimal solution is to choose the alternative with the higher probability of reward on each trial. However, subjects often allocate responses so that the probability of a response approximates its probability of reward. Although it is this result which has attracted most interest, probability matching is not always observed. As a function of monetary incentives, practice, and individual differences, subjects tend to deviate from probability matching toward exclusive preference, as predicted by maximizing. In our version of the two-armed bandit procedure, the monitor briefly displayed two, small adjacent stimuli that predicted correct responses according to fixed probabilities, as in a two-armed bandit procedure. We show that in this setting, a simple linear equation describes the relationship between attention and correct responses, and that the equation’s solution is the allocation of attention between the two stimuli. The calculations showed that attention allocation varied as a function of the degree to which the stimuli predicted correct responses. Linear regression revealed a strong correlation (r = 0.99) between the predictiveness of a stimulus and the probability of attending to it. Nevertheless there were deviations from probability matching, and although small, they were systematic and statistically significant. As in choice studies, attention allocation deviated toward maximizing as a function of practice, feedback, and incentives. Our approach also predicts the frequency of correct guesses and the relationship between attention allocation and response latencies. The results were consistent with these two predictions, the assumptions of the equations used to calculate attention allocation, and recent studies which show that predictiveness and reward are important determinants of attention. PMID:27014109

Modulation of meso-limbic reward processing by motivational tendencies in young adolescents and adults

PubMed Central

Joseph, Jane E.; Zhu, Xun; Lynam, Donald; Kelly, Thomas H.

2015-01-01

Adolescence is a particularly vulnerable period for the onset of substance use disorders and other psychopathology. Individual variability in motivational tendencies and temperament and significant changes in functional brain organization during adolescence are important factors to consider in the development of substance use and dependence. Recent conceptualizations suggest that sensitivity to reward is heightened in adolescence and that this motivation tendency may precipitate subsequent substance abuse. The present study examined the role of personality traits in mesolimbic neurobehavioral response on a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in young adolescents (11–14 years) and emerging adults (18–25 years) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. As a group, adolescents were not more sensitive to gains than losses compared to adults during either anticipatory and feedback phases; instead, compared to adults they showed less sensitivity to incentive magnitude in mesolimbic circuitry during anticipation and feedback stages. However, personality modulated this response such that adolescents high in impulsivity or low in avoidance tendencies showed greater gain sensitivity and adolescents high in avoidance showed greater loss sensitivity during cue anticipation. In adults, mesolimbic response was modulated by the impulsivity construct such that high-impulsive adults showed reduced magnitude sensitivity during both anticipation and feedback compared to low impulsive adults. The present findings suggest that impulsive personality significantly modulates mesolimbic reward response during both adolescence and adulthood but avoidance and approach tendencies also modulate this response in adolescents. Moreover, personality modulated incentive valence in adolescents but incentive magnitude in adults. Collectively, these findings suggest that mesolimbic reward circuitry function is modulated by somewhat different parameters in adolescence than in adulthood. PMID:26690806

Promoting Population Stabilization: Incentives for Small Families. Worldwatch Paper 54.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobsen, Judith

A wide variety of incentive and disincentive programs are presented in an effort to stabilize the population and prevent bankruptcy of physical, economic, and social resources, particularly in countries like India and China. Following an introduction, the document discusses several programs, including (1) the use of small one-time payments for…

Powering up with indirect reciprocity in a large-scale field experiment.

PubMed

Yoeli, Erez; Hoffman, Moshe; Rand, David G; Nowak, Martin A

2013-06-18

A defining aspect of human cooperation is the use of sophisticated indirect reciprocity. We observe others, talk about others, and act accordingly. We help those who help others, and we cooperate expecting that others will cooperate in return. Indirect reciprocity is based on reputation, which spreads by communication. A crucial aspect of indirect reciprocity is observability: reputation effects can support cooperation as long as peoples' actions can be observed by others. In evolutionary models of indirect reciprocity, natural selection favors cooperation when observability is sufficiently high. Complimenting this theoretical work are experiments where observability promotes cooperation among small groups playing games in the laboratory. Until now, however, there has been little evidence of observability's power to promote large-scale cooperation in real world settings. Here we provide such evidence using a field study involving 2413 subjects. We collaborated with a utility company to study participation in a program designed to prevent blackouts. We show that observability triples participation in this public goods game. The effect is over four times larger than offering a $25 monetary incentive, the company's previous policy. Furthermore, as predicted by indirect reciprocity, we provide evidence that reputational concerns are driving our observability effect. In sum, we show how indirect reciprocity can be harnessed to increase cooperation in a relevant, real-world public goods game.

Developing community networks to deliver HIV prevention interventions.

PubMed Central

Guenther-Grey, C; Noroian, D; Fonseka, J; Higgins, D

1996-01-01

Outreach has a long history in health and social service programs as an important method for reaching at-risk persons within their communities. One method of "outreach" is based on the recruitment of networks of community members (or "networkers") to deliver HIV prevention messages and materials in the context of their social networks and everyday lives. This paper documents the experiences of the AIDS Community Demonstration Projects in recruiting networkers to deliver HIV prevention interventions to high-risk populations, including injecting drug users not in treatment; female sex partners of injecting drug users; female sex traders; men who have sex with men but do not self-identify as gay; and youth in high-risk situations. The authors interviewed project staff and reviewed project records of the implementation of community networks in five cities. Across cities, the projects successfully recruited persons into one or more community networks to distribute small media materials, condoms, and bleach kits, and encourage risk-reduction behaviors among community members. Networkers' continuing participation was enlisted through a variety of monetary and nonmonetary incentives. While continuous recruitment of networkers was necessary due to attrition, most interventions reported maintaining a core group of networkers. In addition, the projects appeared to serve as a starting point for some networkers to become more active in other community events and issues. PMID:8862156

Effects of various methodologic strategies: survey response rates among Canadian physicians and physicians-in-training.

PubMed

Grava-Gubins, Inese; Scott, Sarah

2008-10-01

To increase the overall 2007 response rate of the National Physician Survey (NPS) from the survey's 2004 rate of response with the implementation of various methodologic strategies. Physicians were stratified to receive either a long version (12 pages) or a short version (6 pages) of the survey (38% and 62%, respectively). Mixed modes of contact were used-58% were contacted by e-mail and 42% by regular mail-with multiple modes of contact attempted for nonrespondents. The self-administered, confidential surveys were distributed in either English or French. Medical residents and students received e-mail surveys only and were offered a substantial monetary lottery incentive for completing their surveys. A professional communications firm assisted in marketing the survey and delivered advance notification of its impending distribution. Canada. A total of 62 441 practising physicians, 2627 second-year medical residents, and 9162 medical students in Canada. Of the practising physicians group, 60 811 participants were eligible and 19 239 replied, for an overall 2007 study response rate of 31.64% (compared with 35.85% in 2004). No difference in rate of response was found between the longer and shorter versions of the survey. If contacted by regular mail, the response rate was 34.1%; the e-mail group had a response rate of 29.9%. Medical student and resident response rates were 30.8% and 27.9%, respectively (compared with 31.2% and 35.6% in 2004). Despite shortening the questionnaires, contacting more physicians by e-mail, and enhancing marketing and follow-up, the 2007 NPS response rate for practising physicians did not surpass the 2004 NPS response rate. Offering a monetary lottery incentive to medical residents and students was also unsuccessful in increasing their response rates. The role of surveys in gathering information from physicians and physicians-in-training remains problematic. Researchers need to investigate alternative strategies for achieving higher rates of response.

Effects of Escalating and Descending Schedules of Incentives on Cigarette Smoking in Smokers without Plans to Quit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Romanowich, Paul; Lamb, R. J.

2010-01-01

Contingent incentives can reduce substance abuse. Escalating payment schedules, which begin with a small incentive magnitude and progressively increase with meeting the contingency, increase smoking abstinence. Likewise, descending payment schedules can increase cocaine abstinence. The current experiment enrolled smokers without plans to quit in…

An Assessment of Incentive Versus Survey Length Trade-offs in a Web Survey of Radiologists

PubMed Central

Niederhauser, Blake D; Kallmes, David; Beebe, Timothy J

2013-01-01

Background It is generally understood that shorter Web surveys and use of incentives result in higher response rates in Web surveys directed to health care providers. Less is known about potential respondent preference for reduced burden as compared to increased reward. Objective To help elicit preference for minimized burden compared to reward for completion of a survey, we observed physician preferences for shorter Web surveys compared to incentives as well as incentive preference (small guaranteed incentive compared to larger lottery incentive) accompanying an electronic request to complete a survey. Methods This was an observational study that accompanied a large Web survey study of radiology staff, fellows, and residents at select academic medical centers in the United States. With the request to complete the survey, potential respondents were offered three options: (1) a 10-minute Web survey with the chance to win an iPad, (2) a 10-minute Web survey with a guaranteed nominal incentive ($5 amazon.com gift card), or (3) a shorter (5-7 minute) Web survey with no incentive. A total of 254 individuals responded to the Web survey request. Results Overwhelmingly, individuals chose a longer survey accompanied by an incentive compared to a shorter survey with no incentive (85% compared to 15%, P<.001). Of those opting for an incentive, a small, but not significant majority chose the chance to win an iPad over a guaranteed $5 gift card (56% compared to 44%). Conclusions When given the choice, radiologists preferred a reward (either guaranteed or based on a lottery) to a less burdensome survey, indicating that researchers should focus more attention at increasing perceived benefits of completing a Web survey compared to decreasing perceived burden. PMID:23514869

An assessment of incentive versus survey length trade-offs in a Web survey of radiologists.

PubMed

Ziegenfuss, Jeanette Y; Niederhauser, Blake D; Kallmes, David; Beebe, Timothy J

2013-03-20

It is generally understood that shorter Web surveys and use of incentives result in higher response rates in Web surveys directed to health care providers. Less is known about potential respondent preference for reduced burden as compared to increased reward. To help elicit preference for minimized burden compared to reward for completion of a survey, we observed physician preferences for shorter Web surveys compared to incentives as well as incentive preference (small guaranteed incentive compared to larger lottery incentive) accompanying an electronic request to complete a survey. This was an observational study that accompanied a large Web survey study of radiology staff, fellows, and residents at select academic medical centers in the United States. With the request to complete the survey, potential respondents were offered three options: (1) a 10-minute Web survey with the chance to win an iPad, (2) a 10-minute Web survey with a guaranteed nominal incentive ($5 amazon.com gift card), or (3) a shorter (5-7 minute) Web survey with no incentive. A total of 254 individuals responded to the Web survey request. Overwhelmingly, individuals chose a longer survey accompanied by an incentive compared to a shorter survey with no incentive (85% compared to 15%, P<.001). Of those opting for an incentive, a small, but not significant majority chose the chance to win an iPad over a guaranteed $5 gift card (56% compared to 44%). When given the choice, radiologists preferred a reward (either guaranteed or based on a lottery) to a less burdensome survey, indicating that researchers should focus more attention at increasing perceived benefits of completing a Web survey compared to decreasing perceived burden.

Striatal dopaminergic reward response relates to age of first drunkenness and feedback response in at-risk youth.

PubMed

Weiland, Barbara J; Zucker, Robert A; Zubieta, Jon-Kar; Heitzeg, Mary M

2017-03-01

Dopamine receptor concentrations, primarily in the striatum, are hypothesized to contribute to a developmental imbalance between subcortical and prefrontal control systems in emerging adulthood potentially biasing motivation and increasing risky behaviors. Positron emission tomography studies have found significant reductions in striatal dopamine D2 receptors, and blunted amphetamine-induced dopamine release, in substance users compared with healthy controls. Extant literature is limited and inconsistent concerning vulnerability associated with having a family history of substance abuse (FH+). Some studies have reported familial liability associated with higher dopamine receptor levels, reduced dopamine response to stimulant challenges and decreased response to oral alcohol. However, other reports have failed to find group differences based on family history. We explored the interaction of familial liability and behavioral risk with multi-modal molecular and neural imaging of the dopaminergic system. Forty-four young adult male subjects performed monetary incentive delay tasks during both [ 11 C]raclopride positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. FH+ subjects were identified as low (n = 24) or high risk (n = 9) based on early initiation of drunkenness. FH+ high-risk subjects exhibited heightened striatal dopamine response to monetary reward but did not differ in neural activations compared with FH+ low risk subjects and controls with no familial loading (n = 11). Across all subjects, a negative relationship was found between dopamine release and age of first drunkenness and a positive relationship with neural response to reward receipt. These results suggest that in at-risk individuals, higher dopamine transmission associated with monetary reward may represent a particularly useful neurobiological phenotype. © 2016 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Altered neural processing of reward and punishment in adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder.

PubMed

Landes, I; Bakos, S; Kohls, G; Bartling, J; Schulte-Körne, G; Greimel, E

2018-05-01

Altered reward and punishment function has been suggested as an important vulnerability factor for the development of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Prior ERP studies found evidence for neurophysiological dysfunctions in reinforcement processes in adults with MDD. To date, only few ERP studies have examined the neural underpinnings of reinforcement processing in adolescents diagnosed with MDD. The present event-related potential (ERP) study aimed to investigate neurophysiological mechanisms of anticipation and consumption of reward and punishment in adolescents with MDD in one comprehensive paradigm. During ERP recording, 25 adolescents with MDD and 29 healthy controls (12-17 years) completed a Monetary Incentive Delay Task comprising both a monetary reward and a monetary punishment condition. During anticipation, the cue-P3 signaling attentional allocation was recorded. During consumption, the feedback-P3 and Reward Positivity (RewP) were recorded to capture attentional allocation and outcome evaluation, respectively. Compared to controls, adolescents with MDD showed prolonged cue-P3 latencies to reward cues. Furthermore, unlike controls, adolescents with MDD displayed shorter feedback-P3 latencies in the reward versus punishment condition. RewPs did not differ between groups. It remains unanswered whether the observed alterations in adolescent MDD represent a state or trait. Delayed neural processing of reward cues corresponds to the clinical presentation of adolescent MDD with reduced motivational tendencies to obtain rewards. Relatively shorter feedback-P3 latencies in the reward versus punishment condition could indicate a high salience of performance-contingent reward. Frequent exposure of negatively biased adolescents with MDD to performance-contingent rewards might constitute a promising intervention approach. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Temporal discounting of monetary rewards in children and adolescents with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Baeyens, Dieter; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

2012-11-01

It has been difficult to differentiate attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of some aspects of their cognitive profile. While both show deficits in executive functions, it has been suggested that they may differ in their response to monetary reward. For instance, children with ADHD prefer small immediate over large delayed rewards more than typically developing controls. One explanation for this is that they discount the value of rewards to a higher degree as they are moved into the future. The current study investigated whether children with ADHD can be differentiated from those with ASD in terms of reward discounting. Thirty-nine children (8-16 y) with ADHD, 34 children with ASD and 46 typically developing controls performed a hypothetical monetary temporal discounting task. Participants were instructed to make repeated choices between small variable rewards (0, 5, 10, 20, 30€) delivered immediately and large rewards delivered after a variable delay. Children with ADHD but not ASD discounted future rewards at a higher rate than typically developing controls. These data confirm steeper discounting of future rewards in ADHD and add to a small but growing literature showing that the psychological profile of ADHD can be distinguished from that of ASD in terms of disrupted motivational processes. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Associations between introduction and withdrawal of a financial incentive and timing of attendance for antenatal care and incidence of small for gestational age: natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series methods

PubMed Central

van der Waal, Zelda; Rushton, Steven; Rankin, Judith

2018-01-01

Objectives To determine whether introduction or withdrawal of a maternal financial incentive was associated with changes in timing of first attendance for antenatal care (‘booking’), or incidence of small for gestational age. Design A natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analysis. Setting A hospital-based maternity unit in the north of England. Participants 34 589 women (and their live-born babies) who delivered at the study hospital and completed the 25th week of pregnancy in the 75 months before (January 2003 to March 2009), 21 months during (April 2009 to December 2010) and 36 months after (January 2011 to December 2013) the incentive was available. Intervention The Health in Pregnancy Grant was a financial incentive of £190 ($235; €211) payable to pregnant women in the UK from the 25th week of pregnancy, contingent on them receiving routine antenatal care. Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome was mean gestational age at booking. Secondary outcomes were proportion of women booking by 10, 18 and 25 weeks’ gestation; and proportion of babies that were small for gestational age. Results By 21 months after introduction of the grant (ie, immediately prior to withdrawal), compared with what was predicted given prior trends, there was an reduction in mean gestational age at booking of 4.8 days (95% CI 2.3 to 8.2). The comparable figure for 24 months after withdrawal was an increase of 14.0 days (95% CI 2.8 to 16.8). No changes in incidence of small for gestational age babies were seen. Conclusions The introduction of a universal financial incentive for timely attendance at antenatal care was associated with a reduction in mean gestational age at first attendance, but not the proportion of babies that were small for gestational age. Future research should explore the effects of incentives offered at different times in pregnancy and of differing values; and how stakeholders view such incentives. PMID:29391362

Associations between introduction and withdrawal of a financial incentive and timing of attendance for antenatal care and incidence of small for gestational age: natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series methods.

PubMed

Adams, Jean; van der Waal, Zelda; Rushton, Steven; Rankin, Judith

2018-01-31

To determine whether introduction or withdrawal of a maternal financial incentive was associated with changes in timing of first attendance for antenatal care ('booking'), or incidence of small for gestational age. A natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analysis. A hospital-based maternity unit in the north of England. 34 589 women (and their live-born babies) who delivered at the study hospital and completed the 25th week of pregnancy in the 75 months before (January 2003 to March 2009), 21 months during (April 2009 to December 2010) and 36 months after (January 2011 to December 2013) the incentive was available. The Health in Pregnancy Grant was a financial incentive of £190 ($235; €211) payable to pregnant women in the UK from the 25th week of pregnancy, contingent on them receiving routine antenatal care. The primary outcome was mean gestational age at booking. Secondary outcomes were proportion of women booking by 10, 18 and 25 weeks' gestation; and proportion of babies that were small for gestational age. By 21 months after introduction of the grant (ie, immediately prior to withdrawal), compared with what was predicted given prior trends, there was an reduction in mean gestational age at booking of 4.8 days (95% CI 2.3 to 8.2). The comparable figure for 24 months after withdrawal was an increase of 14.0 days (95% CI 2.8 to 16.8). No changes in incidence of small for gestational age babies were seen. The introduction of a universal financial incentive for timely attendance at antenatal care was associated with a reduction in mean gestational age at first attendance, but not the proportion of babies that were small for gestational age. Future research should explore the effects of incentives offered at different times in pregnancy and of differing values; and how stakeholders view such incentives. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

[Medical doctors driving technological innovation: questions about and innovation management approaches to incentive structures for lead users].

PubMed

Bohnet-Joschko, Sabine; Kientzler, Fionn

2010-01-01

Management science defines user-generated innovations as open innovation and lead user innovation. The medical technology industry finds user-generated innovations profitable and even indispensable. Innovative medical doctors as lead users need medical technology innovations in order to improve patient care. Their motivation to innovate is mostly intrinsic. But innovations may also involve extrinsic motivators such as gain in reputation or monetary incentives. Medical doctors' innovative activities often take place in hospitals and are thus embedded into the hospital's organisational setting. Hospitals find it difficult to gain short-term profits from in-house generated innovations and sometimes hesitate to support them. Strategic investment in medical doctors' innovative activities may be profitable for hospitals in the long run if innovations provide first-mover competitive advantages. Industry co-operations with innovative medical doctors offer chances but also bear potential risks. Innovative ideas generated by expert users may result in even higher complexity of medical devices; this could cause mistakes when applied by less specialised users and thus affect patient safety. Innovations that yield benefits for patients, medical doctors, hospitals and the medical technology industry can be advanced by offering adequate support for knowledge transfer and co-operation models.

Payments for carbon sequestration to alleviate development pressure in a rapidly urbanizing region

USGS Publications Warehouse

Smith, Jordan W.; Dorning, Monica; Shoemaker, Douglas A.; Méley, Andréanne; Dupey, Lauren; Meentemeyer, Ross K.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine individuals' willingness to enroll in voluntary payments for carbon sequestration programs through the use of a discrete choice experiment delivered to forest owners living in the rapidly urbanizing region surrounding Charlotte, North Carolina. We examined forest owners' willingness to enroll in payments for carbon sequestration policies under different levels of financial incentives (annual revenue), different contract lengths, and different program administrators (e.g., private companies versus a state or federal agency). We also examined the influence forest owners' sense of place had on their willingness to enroll in hypothetical programs. Our results showed a high level of ambivalence toward participating in payments for carbon sequestration programs. However, both financial incentives and contract lengths significantly influenced forest owners' intent to enroll. Neither program administration nor forest owners' sense of place influenced intent to enroll. Although our analyses indicated that payments from carbon sequestration programs are not currently competitive with the monetary returns expected from timber harvest or property sales, certain forest owners might see payments for carbon sequestration programs as a viable option for offsetting increasing tax costs as development encroaches and property values rise.

Neural signature of reward-modulated unconscious inhibitory control.

PubMed

Diao, Liuting; Qi, Senqing; Xu, Mengsi; Li, Zhiai; Ding, Cody; Chen, Antao; Zheng, Yan; Yang, Dong

2016-09-01

Consciously initiated cognitive control is generally determined by motivational incentives (e.g., monetary reward). Recent studies have revealed that human cognitive control processes can nevertheless operate without awareness. However, whether monetary reward can impinge on unconscious cognitive control remains unclear. To clarify this issue, a task consisting of several runs was designed to combine a modified version of the reward-priming paradigm with an unconscious version of the Go/No-Go task. At the beginning of each run, participants were exposed to a high- or low-value coin, followed by the modified Go/No-Go task. Participants could earn the coin only if they responded correctly to each trial of the run. Event-related potential (ERP) results indicated that high-value rewards (vs. low-value rewards) induced a greater centro-parietal P3 component associated with conscious and unconscious inhibitory control. Moreover, the P3 amplitude correlated positively with the magnitude of reaction time slowing reflecting the intensity of activation of unconscious inhibitory control in the brain. These findings suggest that high-value reward may facilitate human higher-order inhibitory processes that are independent of conscious awareness, which provides insights into the brain processes that underpin motivational modulation of cognitive control. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Oxytocin curbs calorie intake via food-specific increases in the activity of brain areas that process reward and establish cognitive control.

PubMed

Spetter, Maartje S; Feld, Gordon B; Thienel, Matthias; Preissl, Hubert; Hege, Maike A; Hallschmid, Manfred

2018-02-09

The hypothalamic neurohormone oxytocin decreases food intake via largely unexplored mechanisms. We investigated the central nervous mediation of oxytocin's hypophagic effect in comparison to its impact on the processing of generalized rewards. Fifteen fasted normal-weight, young men received intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) or placebo before functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements of brain activity during exposure to food stimuli and a monetary incentive delay task (MID). Subsequently, ad-libitum breakfast intake was assessed. Oxytocin compared to placebo increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices in response to high- vs. low-calorie food images in the fasted state, and reduced calorie intake by 12%. During anticipation of monetary rewards, oxytocin compared to placebo augmented striatal, orbitofrontal and insular activity without altering MID performance. We conclude that during the anticipation of generalized rewards, oxytocin stimulates dopaminergic reward-processing circuits. In contrast, oxytocin restrains food intake by enhancing the activity of brain regions that exert cognitive control, while concomitantly increasing the activity of structures that process food reward value. This pattern points towards a specific role of oxytocin in the regulation of eating behaviour in humans that might be of relevance for potential clinical applications.

Cortisol alters reward processing in the human brain.

PubMed

Kinner, Valerie L; Wolf, Oliver T; Merz, Christian J

2016-08-01

Dysfunctional reward processing is known to play a central role for the development of psychiatric disorders. Glucocorticoids that are secreted in response to stress have been shown to attenuate reward sensitivity and thereby might promote the onset of psychopathology. However, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms mediating stress hormone effects on reward processing as well as potential sex differences remain elusive. In this neuroimaging study, we administered 30mg cortisol or a placebo to 30 men and 30 women and subsequently tested them in the Monetary Incentive Delay Task. Cortisol attenuated anticipatory neural responses to a verbal and a monetary reward in the left pallidum and the right anterior parahippocampal gyrus. Furthermore, in men, activation in the amygdala, the precuneus, the anterior cingulate, and in hippocampal regions was reduced under cortisol, whereas in cortisol-treated women a signal increase was observed in these regions. Behavioral performance also indicated that reward learning in men is impaired under high cortisol concentrations, while it is augmented in women. These findings illustrate that the stress hormone cortisol substantially diminishes reward anticipation and provide first evidence that cortisol effects on the neural reward system are sensitive to sex differences, which might translate into different vulnerabilities for psychiatric disorders. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ERPs associated with monitoring and evaluation of monetary reward and punishment in children with ADHD.

PubMed

van Meel, Catharina S; Heslenfeld, Dirk J; Oosterlaan, Jaap; Luman, Marjolein; Sergeant, Joseph A

2011-09-01

Several models of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) propose abnormalities in the response to behavioural contingencies. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study investigated the monitoring and subsequent evaluation of performance feedback resulting in either reward or punishment in children with ADHD (N = 18) and normal controls (N = 18) aged 8 to 12 years. Children performed a time production task, in which visual performance feedback was given after each response. To manipulate its motivational salience, feedback was coupled with monetary gains, losses or no incentives. Performance feedback signalling omitted gains as well as omitted losses evoked a feedback-related negativity (FRN) in control children. The FRN, however, was entirely absent in children with ADHD in all conditions. Moreover, while losses elicited enhanced amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP) in controls, omitted rewards had this effect in ADHD. The lack of modulation of the FRN by contingencies in ADHD suggests deficient detection of environmental cues as a function of their motivational significance. LPP findings suggest diminished response to punishment, but oversensitivity to the loss of desired rewards. These findings suggest that children with ADHD have problems assigning relative motivational significance to outcomes of their actions. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2011 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans

PubMed Central

Tapia León, Isabell; Stark, Rudolf; Klucken, Tim

2017-01-01

Abstract Appetitive extinction receives attention as an important model for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, in humans, its underlying neural correlates remain unknown. To close this gap, we investigated appetitive acquisition and extinction with fMRI in a 2-day monetary incentive delay paradigm. During appetitive conditioning, one stimulus (CS+) was paired with monetary reward, while another stimulus (CS−) was never rewarded. Twenty-four hours later, subjects underwent extinction, in which neither CS was reinforced. Appetitive conditioning elicited stronger skin conductance responses to the CS+ as compared with the CS−. Regarding subjective ratings, the CS+ was rated more pleasant and arousing than the CS− after conditioning. Furthermore, fMRI-results (CS+ − CS−) showed activation of the reward circuitry including amygdala, midbrain and striatal areas. During extinction, conditioned responses were successfully extinguished. In the early phase of extinction, we found a significant activation of the caudate, the hippocampus, the dorsal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (dACC and vACC). In the late phase, we found significant activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and the amygdala. Correlational analyses with subjective ratings linked extinction success to the vACC and the NAcc, while associating the dACC with reduced extinction. The results reveal neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans and extend assumptions from models for human extinction learning. PMID:27803289

Studies on bronze pre-monetary signs found in Dobroudja using XRF and micro-PIXE

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Constantinescu, B.; Cristea-Stan, D.; Talmatchi, G.; Ceccato, D.

2016-03-01

We performed compositional analyses on 180 Scythian-type arrowheads and pre-monetary signs using XRF method and on 60 small fragments of such items (approx. 100 microns diameter), sampling being performed on previously corrosion-cleaned areas on their surface, using micro-PIXE. The items are found in Dobroudja, Istros-Histria region. The most relevant for numismatists result is that for each finding place the same type of alloy was used both for fighting arrowheads and for pre-monetary signs. Our analyses revealed three types of alloys: Cu-Sn-Pb ("normal" bronze), Cu-Sn-Mn-Pb and Cu-Sn-Sb-Pb. The presence of antimony suggests the use of fahlore-type poly-metals deposits, most probably from Caucasus Mountains. The problem of ancient bronze containing manganese is more complicated; an explanation could be the use of manganese oxides as flux necessary to smelt oxidized ores.

Fertility Regulation in an Economic Crisis

PubMed Central

McKelvey, Christopher; Thomas, Duncan; Frankenberg, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

Substantial international aid is spent reducing the cost of contraception in developing countries, as part of a larger effort to reduce global fertility and increase investment per child worldwide. The importance for fertility behaviors of keeping contraceptive prices low, however, remains unclear. Targeting of subsidies and insufficient price variation have hindered prior attempts to estimate the effect of monetary and non-monetary contraceptive costs on fertility behavior. Using longitudinal survey data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, we exploit dramatic variation in prices and incomes that was induced by the economic crisis in the late 1990s to pin down the effect of contraceptive availability and costs as well as household resources on contraceptive use and method choice. The results are unambiguous: monetary costs of contraceptives and levels of family economic resources have a very small (and well-determined) impact on contraceptive use and choice of method. PMID:25843969

A fractal comparison of real and Austrian business cycle models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mulligan, Robert F.

2010-06-01

Rescaled range and power spectral density analysis are applied to examine a diverse set of macromonetary data for fractal character and stochastic dependence. Fractal statistics are used to evaluate two competing models of the business cycle, Austrian business cycle theory and real business cycle theory. Strong evidence is found for antipersistent stochastic dependence in transactions money (M1) and components of the monetary aggregates most directly concerned with transactions, which suggests an activist monetary policy. Savings assets exhibit persistent long memory, as do those monetary aggregates which include savings assets, such as savings money (M2), M2 minus small time deposits, and money of zero maturity (MZM). Virtually all measures of economic activity display antipersistence, and this finding is invariant to whether the measures are adjusted for inflation, including real gross domestic product, real consumption expenditures, real fixed private investment, and labor productivity. This strongly disconfirms real business cycle theory.

Does Class Size Make a Difference?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glass, Gene V.; Down, A. Graham

1979-01-01

Argues that study findings indicate that lowered class size increases student achievement and improves school attitudes. Counter argument indicates there is little educational payoff and great monetary expense in small reductions in class size. (RH)

Measuring Preferences for a Diabetes Pay-for-Performance for Patient (P4P4P) Program using a Discrete Choice Experiment.

PubMed

Chen, Tsung-Tai; Tung, Tao-Hsin; Hsueh, Ya-Seng Arthur; Tsai, Ming-Han; Liang, Hsiu-Mei; Li, Kay-Lun; Chung, Kuo-Piao; Tang, Chao-Hsiun

2015-07-01

To elicit a patient's willingness to participate in a diabetes pay-for-performance for patient (P4P4P) program using a discrete choice experiment method. The survey was conducted in March 2013. Our sample was drawn from patients with diabetes at five hospitals in Taiwan (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code 250). The sample size was 838 patients. The discrete choice experiment questionnaire included the attributes monthly cash rewards, exercise time, diet control, and program duration. We estimated a bivariate probit model to derive willingness-to-accept levels after accounting for the characteristics (e.g., severity and comorbidity) of patients with diabetes. The preferred program was a 3-year program involving 30 minutes of exercise per day and flexible diet control. Offering an incentive of approximately US $67 in cash per month appears to increase the likelihood that patients with diabetes will participate in the preferred P4P4P program by approximately 50%. Patients with more disadvantageous characteristics (e.g., elderly, low income, greater comorbidity, and severity) could have less to gain from participating in the program and thus require a higher monetary incentive to compensate for the disutility caused by participating in the program's activities. Our result demonstrates that a modest financial incentive could increase the likelihood of program participation after accounting for the attributes of the P4P4P program and patients' characteristics. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Does environmental certification in coffee promote "business as usual"? A case study from the Western Ghats, India.

PubMed

Bose, Arshiya; Vira, Bhaskar; Garcia, Claude

2016-12-01

Conservation initiatives are designed to address threats to forests and biodiversity, often through partnerships with natural-resource users who are incentivized to change their land-use and livelihood practices to avoid further biodiversity loss. In particular, direct incentives programmes that provide monetary benefits are commended for being effective in achieving conservation across short timescales. In biodiversity-rich areas, outside protected areas, such as coffee agroforestry systems, direct incentives, such as certification schemes, are used to motivate coffee producers to maintain native tree species, natural vegetation, restrict wildlife hunting, and conserve soil and water, in addition to encouraging welfare of workers. However, despite these claims, there is a lack of strong evidence of the on-ground impact of such schemes. To assess the conservation importance of certification, we describe a case study in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot of India, in which coffee growers are provided price incentives to adopt Rainforest Alliance certification standards. We analyse the conservation and social outcomes of this programme by studying peoples' experiences of participating in certification. Despite high compliance and effective implementation, we find a strong case for the endorsement of 'business as usual' with no changes in farm management as a result of certification. We find that such 'business as usual' participation in certification creates grounds for diminishing credibility and local support for conservation efforts. Working towards locally relevant conservation interventions, rather than implementing global blueprints, may lead to more meaningful biodiversity conservation and increased community support for conservation initiatives in coffee landscapes.

Is there time discounting for risk premium?

PubMed

Shavit, Tal; Rosenboim, Mosi

2015-03-01

Individuals with a higher subjective discount rate concentrate more on the present and delay is more significant for them. However, when a risky asset is delayed, not only is the outcome delayed but also the risk. In this paper, we suggest a new, two-stage experimental method with real monetary incentives that allows us to distinguish between the effect of the risk and the effect of the time when pricing a risky asset. We show that when individuals have greater preference for the present, their risk aversion for a risky asset realized in the future decreases. We argue that the effect of the risk for future asset is lower for individuals with higher time preference because they discount not only the outcome but also the risks. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Whistleblowing in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States, England, Canada, and Australia.

PubMed

Boumil, Sylvester James; Nariani, Ashiyana; Boumil, Marcia M; Berman, Harris A

2010-04-01

Fraud and abuse in the spending of public monies plague governments around the world. In the United States the False Claims Act encourages whistleblowing by private individuals to expose evidence of fraud. They are rewarded for their efforts with monetary compensation and protection from retaliation. Such is not the case in Canada, England, and Australia. Although some recent legislation has increased the protections afforded to whistleblowers, they are still likely to be viewed more as disloyal employees than courageous public servants, and there is little incentive to risk their jobs and reputation. Qui tam laws provide a police force of thousands in the effort to reduce rampant fraud, waste, and abuse, and would be an asset in any health-care system where pubic health policy requires conservation of resources.

No Evidence of Association between Toxoplasma gondii Infection and Financial Risk Taking in Females

PubMed Central

Šebánková, Blanka; Flegr, Jaroslav; Nave, Gideon

2015-01-01

Background Past research linked Toxoplasma gondii (TG) infection in humans with neurological and mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and attention disorders), irregularities of the dopaminergic and testosterone system, and increased likelihood of being involved in traffic accidents. Methodology/Principal Findings We test for an association between TG infection and financial decision-making (DM) using a case-control design in a sample of female Czech students (n = 79). We estimate each subject's risk attitude and loss aversion using an experimental economic task involving real monetary incentives. We find no significant evidence that either measure of decision-making is associated with TG infection. Conclusion We were unable to find evidence of an association between TG infection and financial decision-making in females. PMID:26401912

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT): twenty years after – gambling disorder and IGT

PubMed Central

Brevers, Damien; Bechara, Antoine; Cleeremans, Axel; Noël, Xavier

2013-01-01

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) involves probabilistic learning via monetary rewards and punishments, where advantageous task performance requires subjects to forego potential large immediate rewards for small longer-term rewards to avoid larger losses. Pathological gamblers (PG) perform worse on the IGT compared to controls, relating to their persistent preference toward high, immediate, and uncertain rewards despite experiencing larger losses. In this contribution, we review studies that investigated processes associated with poor IGT performance in PG. Findings from these studies seem to fit with recent neurocognitive models of addiction, which argue that the diminished ability of addicted individuals to ponder short-term against long-term consequences of a choice may be the product of an hyperactive automatic attentional and memory system for signaling the presence of addiction-related cues (e.g., high uncertain rewards associated with disadvantageous decks selection during the IGT) and for attributing to such cues pleasure and excitement. This incentive-salience associated with gambling-related choice in PG may be so high that it could literally “hijack” resources [“hot” executive functions (EFs)] involved in emotional self-regulation and necessary to allow the enactment of further elaborate decontextualized problem-solving abilities (“cool” EFs). A framework for future research is also proposed, which highlights the need for studies examining how these processes contribute specifically to the aberrant choice profile displayed by PG on the IGT. PMID:24137138

How did the Master Settlement Agreement change tobacco industry expenditures for cigarette advertising and promotions?

PubMed

Pierce, John P; Gilpin, Elizabeth A

2004-07-01

The 1998 multistate Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the tobacco industry restricted cigarette advertising and promotions. The MSA monetary settlement was also associated with an average cigarette price increase of U.S.$1.19/pack between 1998 and 2001 to fund, in part, industry payments to the states. We examined Federal Trade Commission reports on how the tobacco industry spends its cigarette advertising and promotional dollars to see if changes expected as a result of the MSA occurred. Expected changes included reduced total expenditures and reductions for outdoor advertising, specialty promotional items identified with a brand (e.g., caps, t-shirts, lighters), and public entertainment. However, tobacco industry spending for advertising and promotions increased 96% between 1995 and 2001, with large increases in 1998 and 1999, as the MSA took effect. Between 1997 and 2001, outdoor advertising declined 98%, expenditures for specialty promotional items decreased 41%, although public entertainment increased 45%. However, in 2001, these categories represented only a small fraction of the total budget. Expenditures for retail-value-added increased 344% between 1997 and 2001 (to 42.5% of total), perhaps to mitigate increased cigarette prices. In 2001, the incentives-to-merchants and retail-value-added categories comprised more than 80% of total expenditures. To adequately monitor tobacco industry expenditures as they adapt to the MSA and other tobacco control efforts, more refined reporting categories are essential.

Powering up with indirect reciprocity in a large-scale field experiment

PubMed Central

Yoeli, Erez; Hoffman, Moshe; Rand, David G.; Nowak, Martin A.

2013-01-01

A defining aspect of human cooperation is the use of sophisticated indirect reciprocity. We observe others, talk about others, and act accordingly. We help those who help others, and we cooperate expecting that others will cooperate in return. Indirect reciprocity is based on reputation, which spreads by communication. A crucial aspect of indirect reciprocity is observability: reputation effects can support cooperation as long as peoples’ actions can be observed by others. In evolutionary models of indirect reciprocity, natural selection favors cooperation when observability is sufficiently high. Complimenting this theoretical work are experiments where observability promotes cooperation among small groups playing games in the laboratory. Until now, however, there has been little evidence of observability’s power to promote large-scale cooperation in real world settings. Here we provide such evidence using a field study involving 2413 subjects. We collaborated with a utility company to study participation in a program designed to prevent blackouts. We show that observability triples participation in this public goods game. The effect is over four times larger than offering a $25 monetary incentive, the company’s previous policy. Furthermore, as predicted by indirect reciprocity, we provide evidence that reputational concerns are driving our observability effect. In sum, we show how indirect reciprocity can be harnessed to increase cooperation in a relevant, real-world public goods game. PMID:23754399

Demand surge following earthquakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Olsen, Anna H.

2012-01-01

Demand surge is understood to be a socio-economic phenomenon where repair costs for the same damage are higher after large- versus small-scale natural disasters. It has reportedly increased monetary losses by 20 to 50%. In previous work, a model for the increased costs of reconstruction labor and materials was developed for hurricanes in the Southeast United States. The model showed that labor cost increases, rather than the material component, drove the total repair cost increases, and this finding could be extended to earthquakes. A study of past large-scale disasters suggested that there may be additional explanations for demand surge. Two such explanations specific to earthquakes are the exclusion of insurance coverage for earthquake damage and possible concurrent causation of damage from an earthquake followed by fire or tsunami. Additional research into these aspects might provide a better explanation for increased monetary losses after large- vs. small-scale earthquakes.

Neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans.

PubMed

Kruse, Onno; Tapia León, Isabell; Stark, Rudolf; Klucken, Tim

2017-01-01

Appetitive extinction receives attention as an important model for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, in humans, its underlying neural correlates remain unknown. To close this gap, we investigated appetitive acquisition and extinction with fMRI in a 2-day monetary incentive delay paradigm. During appetitive conditioning, one stimulus (CS+) was paired with monetary reward, while another stimulus (CS-) was never rewarded. Twenty-four hours later, subjects underwent extinction, in which neither CS was reinforced. Appetitive conditioning elicited stronger skin conductance responses to the CS+ as compared with the CS-. Regarding subjective ratings, the CS+ was rated more pleasant and arousing than the CS- after conditioning. Furthermore, fMRI-results (CS+ - CS-) showed activation of the reward circuitry including amygdala, midbrain and striatal areas. During extinction, conditioned responses were successfully extinguished. In the early phase of extinction, we found a significant activation of the caudate, the hippocampus, the dorsal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (dACC and vACC). In the late phase, we found significant activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and the amygdala. Correlational analyses with subjective ratings linked extinction success to the vACC and the NAcc, while associating the dACC with reduced extinction. The results reveal neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans and extend assumptions from models for human extinction learning. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press.

Alterations of monetary reward and punishment processing in chronic cannabis users: an FMRI study.

PubMed

Enzi, Björn; Lissek, Silke; Edel, Marc-Andreas; Tegenthoff, Martin; Nicolas, Volkmar; Scherbaum, Norbert; Juckel, Georg; Roser, Patrik

2015-01-01

Alterations in reward and punishment processing have been reported in adults suffering from long-term cannabis use. However, previous findings regarding the chronic effects of cannabis on reward and punishment processing have been inconsistent. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal the neural correlates of reward and punishment processing in long-term cannabis users (n = 15) and in healthy control subjects (n = 15) with no history of drug abuse. For this purpose, we used the well-established Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task, a reliable experimental paradigm that allows the differentiation between anticipatory and consummatory aspects of reward and punishment processing. Regarding the gain anticipation period, no significant group differences were observed. In the left caudate and the left inferior frontal gyrus, cannabis users were - in contrast to healthy controls - not able to differentiate between the conditions feedback of reward and control. In addition, cannabis users showed stronger activations in the left caudate and the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus following feedback of no punishment as compared to healthy controls. We interpreted these deficits in dorsal striatal functioning as altered stimulus-reward or action-contingent learning in cannabis users. In addition, the enhanced lateral prefrontal activation in cannabis users that is related to non-punishing feedback may reflect a deficit in emotion regulation or cognitive reappraisal in these subjects.

A contingent payment model of smoking cessation: effects on abstinence and withdrawal.

PubMed

Heil, Sarah H; Tidey, Jennifer W; Holmes, Heather W; Badger, Gary J; Higgins, Stephen T

2003-04-01

The present study was designed to characterize nicotine withdrawal during a 5-day period in which smokers who were not trying to quit were offered monetary incentives to abstain while residing in their usual environments. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. In two groups, monetary payment was delivered contingent on breath carbon monoxide levels (CO< or =8 ppm) indicating recent smoking abstinence, with the amount of payment differing between the two groups. The third group was a control group in which payment was delivered independent of smoking status. Participants provided CO samples three times per day (morning, afternoon- and evening) for 5 days (Monday-Friday). At each evening visit, all participants completed a nicotine withdrawal questionnaire and other questionnaires. Contingent payment significantly decreased expired-air CO and salivary cotinine levels as compared with the control group. No significant differences in abstinence were noted as a function of the amount paid. Participants in both contingent payment groups reported significantly more withdrawal symptoms than those in the noncontingent control group, including increases in anxiety and nervousness, impatience and restlessness, hunger, and desire to smoke. Such contingent payment procedures may provide an effective method for studying nicotine withdrawal in smokers that does not require the costly and inconvenient practice of housing research participants on a closed ward to prevent smoking.

Alterations of Monetary Reward and Punishment Processing in Chronic Cannabis Users: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Enzi, Björn; Lissek, Silke; Edel, Marc-Andreas; Tegenthoff, Martin; Nicolas, Volkmar; Scherbaum, Norbert; Juckel, Georg; Roser, Patrik

2015-01-01

Alterations in reward and punishment processing have been reported in adults suffering from long-term cannabis use. However, previous findings regarding the chronic effects of cannabis on reward and punishment processing have been inconsistent. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal the neural correlates of reward and punishment processing in long-term cannabis users (n = 15) and in healthy control subjects (n = 15) with no history of drug abuse. For this purpose, we used the well-established Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task, a reliable experimental paradigm that allows the differentiation between anticipatory and consummatory aspects of reward and punishment processing. Regarding the gain anticipation period, no significant group differences were observed. In the left caudate and the left inferior frontal gyrus, cannabis users were – in contrast to healthy controls – not able to differentiate between the conditions feedback of reward and control. In addition, cannabis users showed stronger activations in the left caudate and the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus following feedback of no punishment as compared to healthy controls. We interpreted these deficits in dorsal striatal functioning as altered stimulus-reward or action-contingent learning in cannabis users. In addition, the enhanced lateral prefrontal activation in cannabis users that is related to non-punishing feedback may reflect a deficit in emotion regulation or cognitive reappraisal in these subjects. PMID:25799565

Bank Size and Small- and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Lending: Evidence from China.

PubMed

Shen, Yan; Shen, Minggao; Xu, Zhong; Bai, Ying

2009-04-01

Using panel data collected in 2005, we evaluate how bank size, discretion over credit, incentive schemes, competition, and the institutional environment affect lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. We deal with the endogeneity problem using instrumental variables, and a reduced-form approach is also applied to allow for weak instruments in estimation. We find that total bank asset is an insignificant factor for banks' decision on small- and medium-enterprise (SME) lending, but more local lending authority, more competition, carefully designed incentive schemes, and stronger law enforcement encourage commercial banks to lend to SMEs.

Habit formation in children: Evidence from incentives for healthy eating.

PubMed

Loewenstein, George; Price, Joseph; Volpp, Kevin

2016-01-01

We present findings from a field experiment conducted at 40 elementary schools involving 8000 children and 400,000 child-day observations, which tested whether providing short-run incentives can create habit formation in children. Over a 3- or 5-week period, students received an incentive for eating a serving of fruits or vegetables during lunch. Relative to an average baseline rate of 39%, providing small incentives doubled the fraction of children eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables. Two months after the end of the intervention, the consumption rate at schools remained 21% above baseline for the 3-week treatment and 44% above baseline for the 5-week treatment. These findings indicate that short-run incentives can produce changes in behavior that persist after incentives are removed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The use of financial incentives in Australian general practice.

PubMed

Kecmanovic, Milica; Hall, Jane P

2015-05-18

To examine the uptake of financial incentive payments in general practice, and identify what types of practitioners are more likely to participate in these schemes. Analysis of data on general practitioners and GP registrars from the Medicine in Australia - Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) longitudinal panel survey of medical practitioners in Australia, from 2008 to 2011. Income received by GPs from government incentive schemes and grants and factors associated with the likelihood of claiming such incentives. Around half of GPs reported receiving income from financial incentives in 2008, and there was a small fall in this proportion by 2011. There was considerable movement into and out of the incentives schemes, with more GPs exiting than taking up grants and payments. GPs working in larger practices with greater administrative support, GPs practising in rural areas and those who were principals or partners in practices were more likely to use grants and incentive payments. Administrative support available to GPs appears to be an increasingly important predictor of incentive use, suggesting that the administrative burden of claiming incentives is large and not always worth the effort. It is, therefore, crucial to consider such costs (especially relative to the size of the payment) when designing incentive payments. As market conditions are also likely to influence participation in incentive schemes, the impact of incentives can change over time and these schemes should be reviewed regularly.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bird, L.; Reger, A.; Heeter, J.

Based on lessons from recent program experience, this report explores best practices for designing and implementing incentives for small and mid-sized residential and commercial distributed solar energy projects. The findings of this paper are relevant to both new incentive programs as well as those undergoing modifications. The report covers factors to consider in setting and modifying incentive levels over time, differentiating incentives to encourage various market segments, administrative issues such as providing equitable access to incentives and customer protection. It also explores how incentive programs can be designed to respond to changing market conditions while attempting to provide a longer-termmore » and stable environment for the solar industry. The findings are based on interviews with program administrators, regulators, and industry representatives as well as data from numerous incentive programs nationally, particularly the largest and longest-running programs. These best practices consider the perspectives of various stakeholders and the broad objectives of reducing solar costs, encouraging long-term market viability, minimizing ratepayer costs, and protecting consumers.« less

Psychometric properties of neural responses to monetary and social rewards across development.

PubMed

Ethridge, Paige; Weinberg, Anna

2018-02-02

Reward-related event-related potentials (ERPs) are often used to index individual differences that signal the presence or predict the onset of psychopathology. However, relatively little research has explored the psychometric properties of reward-related ERPs. Without understanding their psychometric properties, the value of using ERPs as biomarkers for psychopathology is limited. The present study, therefore, sought to establish the internal consistency reliability and convergent validity of the reward positivity (RewP) and feedback negativity (FN) elicited by two types of incentives commonly used in individual differences research - monetary and social rewards. A large, developmentally-diverse sample completed a forced-choice guessing task in which they won or lost money, as well as a social interaction task in which they received acceptance and rejection feedback. Data were analyzed at both Cz and at a frontocentral region of interest (ROI) using techniques derived from classical test theory and generalizability theory. Results demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency of the RewP and FN within 20 trials in both tasks, in addition to convergent validity between the two tasks. Results from a regression-based approach to isolating activity specific to a single response demonstrated acceptable to good internal consistency within 20 trials in both tasks, while a subtraction-based approach (∆RewP) did not achieve acceptable internal consistency in either task. Internal consistency was not moderated by age and did not differ between Cz and the frontocentral ROI; however, the magnitudes of the RewP and FN were significantly associated with age at Cz but not at the ROI. This work replicates previous studies demonstrating good psychometric properties of the monetary RewP/FN and provides novel information about the psychometric properties of the social RewP/FN. These data support the use of reward-related ERPs elicited by multiple reward types in studies of biomarkers of psychopathology. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Technology-neutral green procurement in practice - an example from Swedish waste management.

PubMed

Arvidsson, Anders; Stage, Jesper

2012-05-01

Green public procurement has been criticized for its excessive reliance on detailed technology specifications, which can distort incentives in the short term and discourage innovation in the longer term. Economists therefore tend to prefer technology-neutral procurement, which rewards outcomes rather than technologies. However, technology-neutral procurement can also be problematic in practice. The present study investigated green public procurement of waste management, a rapidly growing field. In one of the most sophisticated models for technology-neutral procurement applied in Sweden in recent years, different environmental impacts were assigned weights, but no weight was given to the particular technology employed. Even here, however, potential inefficiencies were found where the scoring rule could have led to arbitrary, and presumably unwanted, outcomes. Explicitly assigning monetary surcharges to desirable and undesirable environmental effects may be a better way to reach environmental targets.

Persuasion stage in adoption theory: a cognitive response-cognitive structure assessment of source credibility and tax-incentive effects on consumer decision making for residential solar systems. [Suburbs of Baltimore

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Batory, S.S.

1981-01-01

The research objective was to learn more about the consumer's acceptance or rejection process toward a major residential energy innovation, a solar-generated water heating system. An experiment was conducted that evaluated one aspect of solar's commercialization, the persuasion stage in new-product-adoption decision making. A test of source credibility and monetary incentive effects on the consumer's decision-making processes was carried out. The experiment contained two message sources: the Department of Energy (a high credibility source) and a homebuilder (a moderate credibility source), and three levels of incentives, a tax credit equal to 40% of the solar unit purchase price, a 20%more » tax credit, and no tax credit. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a control group or one of six experimental treatments in a 2 x 3 fixed-effects factorial design. Subjects were 226 adult homeowners drawn from the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. The research postulated and tested a process of acceptance or rejection of innovations which was based on a cognitive-response/cognitive-structure paradigm of decision making. This process is called the persuasion stage by adoption theorists. Cognitive responses, beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral measures were the dependent variables. Consumers were shown to confront or debate incoming information by comparing it to their existing cognitive structure. This comparison process generated cognitive responses which led to changes in beliefs, attitudes, and behavior toward the innovation. The findings confirm that the federal government's intervention in the marketplace is having a favorable effect on the adoption decision process toward solar-generated water heating.« less

Retention and sustainability of community-based health volunteers' activities: A qualitative study in rural Northern Ghana.

PubMed

Chatio, Samuel; Akweongo, Patricia

2017-01-01

The shortage of formal health workers has led to the utilization of Community-Based Health Volunteers (CBHV) to provide health care services to people especially in rural and neglected communities. Community-based health volunteers have been effective partners in health care delivery at the community level for many years. The challenge is how to retain these volunteers and also sustain their activities. This study explored factors affecting retention and sustainability of community-based health volunteers' activities in a rural setting in Northern Ghana. This was a qualitative study comprising thirty-two in-depth interviews (IDIs) with health volunteers and health workers in-charge of health volunteers' activities. Purposive sampling technique was used to select study participants for the interviews. The interviews were transcribed and coded into themes using Nvivo 10 software. The thematic analysis framework was used to analyze the data. Study participants reported that the desire to help community members, prestige and recognition as doctors in community mainly motivated them to work as health volunteers. Lack of incentives and logistical supplies such as raincoats, torch lights, wellington boots and transportation in the form of bicycles to facilitate the movement of health volunteers affected the work. They suggested that lack of these things discouraged them from working as health volunteers. Most of the dropout volunteers said lack of support and respect from community members made them to stop working as health volunteers. They recommended that community support, incentives and logistical supplies such as raincoats, torch light, wellington boots, bicycles, awards to hard working volunteers are mechanisms that can help retain community-based health volunteers and also sustain their activities. Providing means of transport and non-monetary incentives would help to retain community-based health volunteers and also sustain their activities at the community level.

The effect of the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program on increasing enrollment and performance on Advanced Placement science exams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramsey, Susan Brady

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the National Math and Science Initiative's Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program (APTIP) on the number of students taking AP science courses and their performance. The study evaluated 39 schools over a six-year period in six states that participate in the APTIP. The National Math and Science Initiative provided data for cohort I. A general linear model for repeated measures was used to evaluate the data. Data was evaluated three years prior to the intervention and three years during the intervention, which will actually continue for two more years (2012 and 2013) since cohort I schools were awarded five years of support. Students in APTIP schools enrolled in more AP science exams (AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, and AP Physics-B) over the course of the intervention. The quantity of students earning qualifying scores increased during the intervention years. APTIP is a multi-tiered program that includes seven days of teacher training, three six-hour student prep sessions, school equipment, reduced exam fees, and monetary incentives for students and teachers. This program positively impacted the quantity of enrollment and qualifying scores during the three years evaluated in this study. Increases in the number of female and African American students' test takers their and qualifying scores were seen in all three years of the APTIP intervention. This study supports the premise that the first step to increasing the Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline is giving access to advanced courses to more students in high schools.

Bank Size and Small- and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Lending: Evidence from China

PubMed Central

SHEN, YAN; SHEN, MINGGAO; XU, ZHONG; BAI, YING

2014-01-01

Summary Using panel data collected in 2005, we evaluate how bank size, discretion over credit, incentive schemes, competition, and the institutional environment affect lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. We deal with the endogeneity problem using instrumental variables, and a reduced-form approach is also applied to allow for weak instruments in estimation. We find that total bank asset is an insignificant factor for banks’ decision on small- and medium-enterprise (SME) lending, but more local lending authority, more competition, carefully designed incentive schemes, and stronger law enforcement encourage commercial banks to lend to SMEs. PMID:26052179

Predictors of Essential Health and Nutrition Service Delivery in Bihar, India: Results From Household and Frontline Worker Surveys

PubMed Central

Kosec, Katrina; Avula, Rasmi; Holtemeyer, Brian; Tyagi, Parul; Hausladen, Stephanie; Menon, Purnima

2015-01-01

Background: In Bihar, India, coverage of essential health and nutrition interventions is low. These interventions are provided by 2 national programs—the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Health/National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)—through Anganwadi workers (AWWs) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), respectively. Little is known, however, about factors that predict effective service delivery by these frontline workers (FLWs) or receipt of services by households. This study examined the predictors of use of 4 services: (1) immunization information and services, (2) food supplements, (3) pregnancy care information, and (4) general nutrition information. Methods: Data are from a 2012 cross-sectional survey of 6,002 households in 400 randomly selected villages in 1 district of Bihar state, as well as an integrated survey of 377 AWWs and 382 ASHAs from the same villages. For each of the 4 service delivery outcomes, logistic regression models were specified using a combination of variables hypothesized to be supply- and demand-side drivers of service utilization. Results: About 35% of households reported receiving any of the 4 services. Monetary immunization incentives for AWWs (OR = 1.55, CI = 1.02–2.36) and above-median household head education (OR = 1.39, CI = 1.05–1.82) were statistically significant predictors of household receipt of immunization services. Higher household socioeconomic status was associated with significantly lower odds of receiving food supplements (OR = 0.87, CI = 0.79–0.96). ASHAs receiving incentives for institutional delivery (OR = 1.52, CI = 0.99–2.33) was marginally associated with higher odds of receiving pregnancy care information, and ASHAs who maintained records of pregnant women was significantly associated with households receiving such information (OR = 2.25, CI = 1.07–4.74). AWWs receiving immunization incentives was associated with significantly higher odds of households receiving general nutrition information (OR = 1.92, CI = 1.08–3.41), suggesting a large spillover effect of incentives from product- to information-oriented services. Conclusion: Product-oriented incentives affect delivery of both product- and information-oriented services, although household factors are also important. In India, existing government programs can mitigate supply- and demand-side constraints to receiving essential interventions by optimizing existing incentives for FLWs in national programs, helping FLWs better organize their work, and raising awareness among groups who are less likely to access services. PMID:26085022

The Energy Economics of Financial Structuring for Renewable Energy Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rana, Vishwajeet

2011-12-01

This dissertation focuses on the various financial structuring options for the renewable energy sector. The projects in this sector are capital-intensive to build but have relatively low operating costs in the long run when compared to traditional energy resources. The large initial capital requirements tend to discourage investors. To encourage renewable investments the government needs to provide financial incentives. Since these projects ultimately generate returns, the government's monetary incentives go to the sponsors and tax equity investors who build and operate such projects and invest capital in them. These incentives are usually in the form of ITCs, PTCs and accelerated depreciation benefits. Also, in some parts of the world, carbon credits are another form of incentive for the sponsors and equity investors to invest in such turnkey projects. The relative importance of these various considerations, however, differs from sponsor to sponsor, investor to investor and from project to project. This study focuses mainly on the US market, the federal tax benefits and incentives provided by the government. This study focuses on the energy economics that are used for project decision-making and parties involved in the transaction as: Project Developer/Sponsor, Tax equity investor, Debt investor, Energy buyer and Tax regulator. The study fulfils the knowledge gap in the decision making process that takes advantage of tax monetization in traditional after-tax analysis for renewable energy projects if the sponsors do not have the tax capacity to realize the total benefits of the project. A case-study for a wind farm, using newly emerging financial structures, validates the hypothesis that these renewable energy sources can meet energy industry economic criteria. The case study also helps to validate the following hypotheses: a) The greater a sponsor's tax appetite, the tower the sponsor's equity dilution. b) The use of leverage increases the cost of equity financing and the financing fee. c) Capital contributions by the sponsor are not relevant to the rate of return (IRR) over the life of the project. Overall conclusion is that financial structures can have a major impact on renewable energy, meeting energy demand in an economic manner. At the end, the dissertation lays down the foundation for future research that can be conducted in this field. Key Words: Renewable energy investments, structured finance, financial structuring

48 CFR 519.7004 - Incentives for prime contractors.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS GSA Mentor-Protégé Program 519.7004 Incentives for prime...) Costs incurred by a mentor to provide developmental assistance, as described in section 519.7012 to... under a GSA contract. If GSA is the mentor's responsible audit agency under FAR 42.703-1, GSA will...

Does race matter in landowners' participation in conservation incentive programs?

Treesearch

Jianbang Gan; Okwuldili O. Onianwa; John Schelhas; Gerald C. Wheelock; Mark R. Dubois

2005-01-01

This study investigated and compared the participation behavior of white and minority small landowners in Alabama in eight conservation incentive programs. Using nonparametric tests and logit modeling, we found both similarities and differences in participation behavior between these two landowner groups. Both white and minority landowners tended not to participate in...

Retail trade incentives: how tobacco industry practices compare with those of other industries.

PubMed Central

Feighery, E C; Ribisl, K M; Achabal, D D; Tyebjee, T

1999-01-01

OBJECTIVES: This study compared the incentive payments for premium shelf space and discounts on volume purchases paid to retailers by 5 types of companies. METHODS: Merchants were interviewed at 108 randomly selected small retail outlets that sell tobacco in Santa Clara County, California. RESULTS: Significantly more retailers reported receiving slotting/display allowances for tobacco (62.4%) than for any other product type. An average store participating in a retailer incentive program received approximately $3157 annually from all sampled product types, of which approximately $2462 (78%) came from tobacco companies. CONCLUSIONS: Future research should assess the impact of tobacco industry incentive programs on the in-store marketing and sales practices of retailers. PMID:10511841

Retail trade incentives: how tobacco industry practices compare with those of other industries.

PubMed

Feighery, E C; Ribisl, K M; Achabal, D D; Tyebjee, T

1999-10-01

This study compared the incentive payments for premium shelf space and discounts on volume purchases paid to retailers by 5 types of companies. Merchants were interviewed at 108 randomly selected small retail outlets that sell tobacco in Santa Clara County, California. Significantly more retailers reported receiving slotting/display allowances for tobacco (62.4%) than for any other product type. An average store participating in a retailer incentive program received approximately $3157 annually from all sampled product types, of which approximately $2462 (78%) came from tobacco companies. Future research should assess the impact of tobacco industry incentive programs on the in-store marketing and sales practices of retailers.

Ignoring small predictable profits and losses: a new approach for measuring incentives for cream skimming.

PubMed

van Barneveld, E M; Lamers, L M; van Vliet, R C; van de Ven, W P

2000-02-01

Under inadequate capitation formulae competing health insurers have an incentive for cream skimming, i.e., the selection of enrollees whom the insurer expects to be profitable. When evaluating different capitation formulae, previous studies used various indicators of incentives for cream skimming. These conventional indicators are based on all actual profits and losses or on all predictable profits and losses. For the latter type of indicators, this paper proposes, as a new approach, to ignore the small predictable profits and losses. We assume that this new approach provides a better indication of the size of the cream skimming problem than the conventional one, because an insurer has to take into account its costs of cream skimming and the (statistical) uncertainties about the net benefits of cream skimming. Both approaches are applied in theoretical and empirical analyses. The results show that, if our assumption is right, the problem of cream skimming is overestimated by the conventional ways of measuring incentives for cream skimming, especially in the case of relatively good capitation formulae.

77 FR 2497 - Great Lakes Steamship Repower Incentive Program

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-01-18

... allow the use of residual fuel in the replacement diesel engines that exceeds the global and ECA sulfur... changes, see the direct final rule EPA has published in the ``Rules and Regulations'' section of today's... substantial number of small entities. Small entities include small businesses, small organizations, and small...

Social Norms and Financial Incentives to Promote Employees’ Healthy Food Choices: A Randomized Controlled Trial

PubMed Central

Thorndike, Anne N.; Riis, Jason; Levy, Douglas E.

2016-01-01

Population-level strategies to improve healthy food choices are needed for obesity prevention. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of 2,672 employees at Massachusetts General Hospital who were regular customers of the hospital cafeteria with all items labeled green (healthy), yellow (less healthy), or red (unhealthy) to determine if social norm (peer-comparison) feedback with or without financial incentives increased employees’ healthy food choices. Participants were randomized in 2012 to three arms: 1) monthly letter with social norm feedback about healthy food purchases, comparing employee to “all” and to “healthiest” customers (feedback-only); 2) monthly letter with social norm feedback plus small financial incentive for increasing green purchases (feedback-incentive); or 3) no contact (control). The main outcome was change in proportion of green-labeled purchases at end of 3-month intervention. Post-hoc analyses examined linear trends. At baseline, the proportion of green-labeled purchases (50%) did not differ between arms. At end of the 3-month intervention, the percentage increase in green-labeled purchases was larger in the feedback-incentive arm compared to control (2.2% vs. 0.1%, P=0.03), but the two intervention arms were not different. The rate of increase in green-labeled purchases was higher in both feedback-only (P=0.04) and feedback-incentive arms (P=0.004) compared to control. At end of a 3-month wash-out, there were no differences between control and intervention arms. Social norms plus small financial incentives increased employees’ healthy food choices over the short-term. Future research will be needed to assess the impact of this relatively low-cost intervention on employees’ food choices and weight over the long-term. Trial Registration: Clinical Trials.gov NCT01604499 PMID:26827617

Social norms and financial incentives to promote employees' healthy food choices: A randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Thorndike, Anne N; Riis, Jason; Levy, Douglas E

2016-05-01

Population-level strategies to improve healthy food choices are needed for obesity prevention. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of 2672 employees at the Massachusetts General Hospital who were regular customers of the hospital cafeteria with all items labeled green (healthy), yellow (less healthy), or red (unhealthy) to determine if social norm (peer-comparison) feedback with or without financial incentives increased employees' healthy food choices. Participants were randomized in 2012 to three arms: 1) monthly letter with social norm feedback about healthy food purchases, comparing employee to "all" and to "healthiest" customers (feedback-only); 2) monthly letter with social norm feedback plus small financial incentive for increasing green purchases (feedback-incentive); or 3) no contact (control). The main outcome was change in proportion of green-labeled purchases at the end of 3-month intervention. Post-hoc analyses examined linear trends. At baseline, the proportion of green-labeled purchases (50%) did not differ between arms. At the end of the 3-month intervention, the percentage increase in green-labeled purchases was larger in the feedback-incentive arm compared to control (2.2% vs. 0.1%, P=0.03), but the two intervention arms were not different. The rate of increase in green-labeled purchases was higher in both feedback-only (P=0.04) and feedback-incentive arms (P=0.004) compared to control. At the end of a 3-month wash-out, there were no differences between control and intervention arms. Social norms plus small financial incentives increased employees' healthy food choices over the short-term. Future research will be needed to assess the impact of this relatively low-cost intervention on employees' food choices and weight over the long-term. Clinical Trials.gov: NCT01604499. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Financial incentives to improve adherence to antipsychotic maintenance medication in non-adherent patients: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

PubMed

Priebe, Stefan; Bremner, Stephen A; Lauber, Christoph; Henderson, Catherine; Burns, Tom

2016-09-01

Poor adherence to long-term antipsychotic injectable (LAI) medication in patients with psychotic disorders is associated with a range of negative outcomes. No psychosocial intervention has been found to be consistently effective in improving adherence. To test whether or not offering financial incentives is effective and cost-effective in improving adherence and to explore patient and clinician experiences with such incentives. A cluster randomised controlled trial with economic and nested qualitative evaluation. The intervention period lasted for 12 months with 24 months' follow-up. The unit of randomisation was mental health teams in the community. Community teams in secondary mental health care. Patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective psychosis or bipolar illness, receiving ≤ 75% of their prescribed LAI medication. In total, 73 teams with 141 patients (intervention n = 78 and control n = 63) were included. Participants in the intervention group received £15 for each LAI medication. Patients in the control group received treatment as usual. adherence to LAI medication (the percentage of received out of those prescribed). percentage of patients with at least 95% adherence; clinical global improvement; subjective quality of life; satisfaction with medication; hospitalisation; adverse events; and costs. Qualitative evaluation: semistructured interviews with patients in the intervention group and their clinicians. outcome data were available for 131 patients. Baseline adherence was 69% in the intervention group and 67% in the control group. During the intervention period, adherence was significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group (85% vs. 71%) [adjusted mean difference 11.5%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.9% to 19.0%; p = 0.003]. Secondary outcome: patients in the intervention group showed statistically significant improvement in adherence of at least 95% (adjusted odds ratio 8.21, 95% CI 2.00 to 33.67; p = 0.003) and subjective quality of life (difference in means 0.71, 95% CI 0.26 to 1.15; p = 0.002). Follow-ups: after incentives stopped, adherence did not differ significantly between groups, neither during the first 6 months (adjusted difference in means -7.4%, 95% CI -17.0% to 2.1%; p = 0.175) nor during the period from month 7 to month 24 (difference in means -5.7%, 95% CI -13.1% to 1.7%; p = 0.130). Cost-effectiveness: the average costs of the financial incentives was £303. Overall costs per patient were somewhat higher in the intervention group, but the difference was not significant. Semistructured interviews: the majority of patients and clinicians reported positive experiences with the incentives beyond their monetary value. These included improvement in the therapeutic relationship. The majority of both patients and clinicians perceived no negative impact after the intervention was stopped after 1 year. Financial incentives are effective in improving adherence to LAI medication. Health-care costs (including costs of the financial incentive) are unlikely to be increased substantially by this intervention. Once the incentives stop, the advantage is not maintained. The experiences of both patients and clinicians are largely, but not exclusively, positive. Whether or not financial incentives are effective for patients with more favourable background, those on oral mediation or for shorter or longer time periods remains unknown. Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN77769281. This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 20, No. 70. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

The cost-effectiveness of cash versus lottery incentives for a web-based, stated-preference community survey.

PubMed

Gajic, Aleksandra; Cameron, David; Hurley, Jeremiah

2012-12-01

We present the results of a randomized experiment to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of response incentives for a stated-preference survey of a general community population. The survey was administered using a mixed-mode approach, in which community members were invited to participate using a traditional mailed letter using contact information for a representative sample of the community; but individuals completed the survey via the web, which exploited the advantages of electronic capture. Individuals were randomized to four incentive groups: (a) no incentive, (b) prepaid cash incentive ($2), (c) a low lottery (10 prizes of $25) and (d) a high lottery (2 prizes of $250). Letters of invitation were mailed to 3,000 individuals. In total, 405 individuals (14.4%) contacted the website and 277 (9.8%) provided complete responses. The prepaid cash incentive generated the highest contact and response rates (23.3 and 17.3%, respectively), and no incentive generated the lowest (9.1 and 5.7%, respectively). The high lottery, however, was the most cost-effective incentive for obtaining completed surveys: compared with no incentive, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) per completed survey for high lottery was $13.89; for prepaid cash, the ICER was $18.29. This finding suggests that the preferred response incentive for community-based, stated-preference surveys is a lottery with a small number of large prizes.

Effectiveness of shared leadership in Wikipedia.

PubMed

Zhu, Haiyi; Kraut, Robert E; Kittur, Aniket

2013-12-01

The objective of the paper is to understand leadership in an online community, specifically, Wikipedia. Wikipedia successfully aggregates millions of volunteers' efforts to create the largest encyclopedia in human history. Without formal employment contracts and monetary incentives, one significant question for Wikipedia is how it organizes individual members with differing goals, experience, and commitment to achieve a collective outcome. Rather than focusing on the role of the small set of people occupying a core leadership position, we propose a shared leadership model to explain the leadership in Wikipedia. Members mutually influence one another by exercising leadership behaviors, including rewarding, regulating, directing, and socializing one another. We conducted a two-phase study to investigate how distinct types of leadership behaviors (transactional, aversive, directive, and person-focused), the legitimacy of the people who deliver the leadership, and the experience of the people who receive the leadership influence the effectiveness of shared leadership in Wikipedia. Our results highlight the importance of shared leadership in Wikipedia and identify trade-offs in the effectiveness of different types of leadership behaviors. Aversive and directive leadership increased contribution to the focal task, whereas transactional and person-focused leadership increased general motivation. We also found important differences in how newcomers and experienced members responded to leadership behaviors from peers. These findings extend shared leadership theories, contribute new insight into the important underlying mechanisms in Wikipedia, and have implications for practitioners who wish to design more effective and successful online communities.

Altruism, personal benefit, and anxieties: a phenomenological study of healthy volunteers' experiences in a placebo‐controlled trial of duloxetine

PubMed Central

Kwakye, Isaac N.; Garner, Matthew; Baldwin, David S.; Bamford, Susan; Pinkney, Verity

2016-01-01

Objective The objective of this study was to develop an in‐depth understanding of healthy volunteers' experiences of mental health trials. Methods A qualitative study was nested within a healthy volunteer placebo‐controlled trial of duloxetine, a psychotropic drug used for treating patients with major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Eight participants were interviewed, and data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results Interviewees described volunteering for the trial because they were interested in research, wanted the monetary incentive, wanted to help researchers, and wanted to be part of something. On entering the trial, participants considered the possible risks and described feeling anxious, excited, and determined; they had some clear expectations and some loosely held hopes about what would happen. During the trial, participants were curious about whether they were taking duloxetine or placebo, self‐monitored their bodies' reactions, and guessed which treatment they received. On being un‐blinded to treatment allocation after completing the trial, some participants' guesses were confirmed, but others were surprised, and a few were disappointed. Conclusions Small changes to advertising/consent materials to reflect volunteers' motivations could improve recruitment rates to similar trials; “active” placebos might be particularly useful for maintaining blinding in healthy volunteer trials; and sensitive procedures are needed for un‐blinding participants to treatment allocation. © 2016 The Authors. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. PMID:27378326

Dissociable Effects of Cocaine Dependence on Reward Processes: The Role of Acute Cocaine and Craving.

PubMed

Rose, Emma Jane; Salmeron, Betty Jo; Ross, Thomas J; Waltz, James; Schweitzer, Julie B; Stein, Elliot A

2017-02-01

The relative impact of chronic vs acute cocaine on dependence-related variability in reward processing in cocaine-dependent individuals (CD) is not well understood, despite the relevance of such effects to long-term outcomes. To dissociate these effects, CD (N=15) and healthy controls (HC; N=15) underwent MRI two times while performing a monetary incentive delay task. Both scans were identical across subjects/groups, except that, in a single-blind, counterbalanced design, CD received intravenous cocaine (30 mg/70 kg) before one session (CD+cocaine) and saline in another (CD+saline). Imaging analyses focused on activity related to anticipatory valence (gain/loss), anticipatory magnitude (small/medium/large), and reinforcing outcomes (successful/unsuccessful). Drug condition (cocaine vs saline) and group (HC vs CD+cocaine or CD+saline) did not influence valence-related activity. However, compared with HC, magnitude-related activity for gains was reduced in CD in the left cingulate gyrus post-cocaine and in the left putamen in the abstinence/saline condition. In contrast, magnitude-dependent activity for losses increased in CD vs HC in the right inferior parietal lobe post-cocaine and in the left superior frontal gyrus post-saline. Across outcomes (ie, successful and unsuccessful) activity in the right habenula decreased in CD in the abstinence/saline condition vs acute cocaine and HC. Cocaine-dependent variability in outcome- and loss-magnitude activity correlated negatively with ratings of cocaine craving and positively with how high subjects felt during the scanning session. Collectively, these data suggest dissociable effects of acute cocaine on non-drug reward processes, with cocaine consumption partially ameliorating dependence-related insensitivity to reinforcing outcomes/'liking', but having no discernible effect on dependence-related alterations in incentive salience/'wanting'. The relationship of drug-related affective sequelae to non-drug reward processing suggests that CD experience a general alteration of reward function and may be motivated to continue using cocaine for reasons beyond desired drug-related effects. This may have implications for individual differences in treatment efficacy for approaches that rely on reinforcement strategies (eg, contingency management) and for the long-term success of treatment.

A negative relationship between ventral striatal loss anticipation response and impulsivity in borderline personality disorder.

PubMed

Herbort, Maike C; Soch, Joram; Wüstenberg, Torsten; Krauel, Kerstin; Pujara, Maia; Koenigs, Michael; Gallinat, Jürgen; Walter, Henrik; Roepke, Stefan; Schott, Björn H

2016-01-01

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) frequently exhibit impulsive behavior, and self-reported impulsivity is typically higher in BPD patients when compared to healthy controls. Previous functional neuroimaging studies have suggested a link between impulsivity, the ventral striatal response to reward anticipation, and prediction errors. Here we investigated the striatal neural response to monetary gain and loss anticipation and their relationship with impulsivity in 21 female BPD patients and 23 age-matched female healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants performed a delayed monetary incentive task in which three categories of objects predicted a potential gain, loss, or neutral outcome. Impulsivity was assessed using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11). Compared to healthy controls, BPD patients exhibited significantly reduced fMRI responses of the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens (VS/NAcc) to both reward-predicting and loss-predicting cues. BIS-11 scores showed a significant positive correlation with the VS/NAcc reward anticipation responses in healthy controls, and this correlation, while also nominally positive, failed to reach significance in BPD patients. BPD patients, on the other hand, exhibited a significantly negative correlation between ventral striatal loss anticipation responses and BIS-11 scores, whereas this correlation was significantly positive in healthy controls. Our results suggest that patients with BPD show attenuated anticipation responses in the VS/NAcc and, furthermore, that higher impulsivity in BPD patients might be related to impaired prediction of aversive outcomes.

Spatiotemporal dissociation of brain activity underlying threat and reward in social anxiety disorder

PubMed Central

Ghane, Merage; Valdespino, Andrew; Coffman, Marika C.; Strege, Marlene V.; White, Susan W.; Ollendick, Thomas H.

2017-01-01

Abstract Social anxiety disorder (SAD) involves abnormalities in social motivation, which may be independent of well-documented differences in fear and arousal systems. Yet, the neurobiology underlying motivational difficulties in SAD is not well understood. The aim of the current study was to spatiotemporally dissociate reward circuitry dysfunction from alterations in fear and arousal-related neural activity during anticipation and notification of social and non-social reward and punishment. During fMRI acquisition, non-depressed adults with social anxiety disorder (SAD; N = 21) and age-, sex- and IQ-matched control subjects (N = 22) completed eight runs of an incentive delay task, alternating between social and monetary outcomes and interleaved in alternating order between gain and loss outcomes. Adults with SAD demonstrated significantly reduced neural activity in ventral striatum during the anticipation of positive but not negative social outcomes. No differences between the SAD and control groups were observed during anticipation of monetary gain or loss outcomes or during anticipation of negative social images. However, consistent with previous work, the SAD group demonstrated amygdala hyper-activity upon notification of negative social outcomes. Degraded anticipatory processing in bilateral ventral striatum in SAD was constrained exclusively to anticipation of positive social information and dissociable from the effects of negative social outcomes previously observed in the amygdala. Alterations in anticipation-related neural signals may represent a promising target for treatment that is not addressed by available evidence-based interventions, which focus primarily on fear extinction and habituation processes. PMID:27798252

THC reduces the anticipatory nucleus accumbens response to reward in subjects with a nicotine addiction

PubMed Central

Jansma, J M; van Hell, H H; Vanderschuren, L J M J; Bossong, M G; Jager, G; Kahn, R S; Ramsey, N F

2013-01-01

Recent evidence has implicated the endocannabinoid (eCB) system in nicotine addiction. The eCB system also has an important role in reward mechanisms, and nicotine addiction has been associated with aberrant reward processing. Motivated by this evidence, we tested the hypothesis that eCB modulation of reward processing is altered in subjects with a nicotine addiction (NAD). For this purpose, we compared reward-related activity in NAD with healthy controls (HC) in a pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study using Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) administration to challenge the eCB system. Eleven HC and 10 NAD participated in a 3-T functional MRI (fMRI) study with a double-blind, cross-over, placebo-controlled design, using a Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) paradigm with three reward levels. Reward activity in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and caudate putamen during anticipation and feedback of reward was compared after THC and placebo. fMRI results indicated a significant reduction of reward anticipation activity in the NAcc in NAD after THC administration, which was not present in HC. This is indicated by a significant group by drug by reward interaction. Our data show that THC significantly reduces the NAcc response to monetary reward anticipation in NAD. These results suggest that nicotine addiction is associated with altered eCB modulation of reward processing in the NAcc. This study adds important human data to existing evidence implicating the eCB system in nicotine addiction. PMID:23443360

Internet-based group contingency management to promote abstinence from cigarette smoking: A feasibility study

PubMed Central

Meredith, Steven E.; Grabinski, Michael J.; Dallery, Jesse

2011-01-01

Background In contingency management (CM) interventions, monetary consequences are contingent on evidence of drug abstinence. Typically, these consequences are contingent on individual performance. Consequences contingent on group performance may promote social support (e.g., praise). Methods Thus, to combine social support with the monetary incentives of CM, we integrated independent and interdependent group contingencies of reinforcement into an Internet-based intervention to promote smoking abstinence. Breath carbon monoxide (CO) measures were compared between treatment conditions and a baseline control condition. Thirteen participants were divided into 5 groups or “teams” (n = 2–3 per team). Each participant submitted video recordings of CO measurement twice daily via the Internet. Teammates could monitor each other’s progress and communicate with one another through an online peer support forum. During a 4-day tapering condition, vouchers exchangeable for goods were contingent on gradual reductions in breath CO. During a 10-day abstinence induction condition, vouchers were contingent on abstinence (CO ≤4 ppm). In both treatment conditions, concurrent independent and interdependent group contingencies were arranged (i.e., a mixed contingency arrangement). Results Less than 1% of CO samples submitted during baseline were ≤4 ppm, compared to 57% submitted during abstinence induction. Sixty-five percent of participants’ comments on the online peer support forum were rated as positive by independent observers. Participants rated the intervention favorably on a treatment acceptability questionnaire. Conclusion The results suggest that the intervention is feasible and acceptable for promoting abstinence from cigarette smoking. PMID:21414733

Pathological gambling and alcohol dependence: neural disturbances in reward and loss avoidance processing.

PubMed

Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina; Koehler, Saskia; Dreesen, Caspar; Wüstenberg, Torsten; Heinz, Andreas

2015-05-01

Pathological gambling (PG) shares clinical characteristics such as craving and loss of control with substance use disorders and is thus considered a behavioral addiction. While functional alterations in the mesolimbic reward system have been correlated with craving and relapse in substance use disorders, only a few studies have examined this brain circuit in PG, and no direct comparison has been conducted so far. Thus, we investigated the neuronal correlates of reward processing in PG in contrast to alcohol-dependent (AD) patients and healthy subjects. Eighteen PG patients, 15 AD patients and 17 controls were investigated with a monetary incentive delay task, in which visual cues predict the consequence (monetary gain, avoidance of loss, none) of a fast response to a subsequent target stimulus. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were analyzed to account for possible confounding factors such as local gray matter volume. Activity in the right ventral striatum during loss anticipation was increased in PG patients compared with controls and AD patients. Moreover, PG patients showed decreased activation in the right ventral striatum and right medial prefrontal cortex during successful loss avoidance compared with controls, which was inversely associated with severity of gambling behavior. Thus, despite neurobiological similarities to substance use disorders in reward processing, as reported by previous studies, we found relevant differences with respect to the anticipation of loss as well as its avoidance (negative reinforcement), which further contributes to the understanding of PG. © 2014 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Unconditional and conditional incentives differentially improved general practitioners' participation in an online survey: randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Young, Jane M; O'Halloran, Anna; McAulay, Claire; Pirotta, Marie; Forsdike, Kirsty; Stacey, Ingrid; Currow, David

2015-06-01

To compare the impact of unconditional and conditional financial incentives on response rates among Australian general practitioners invited by mail to participate in an online survey about cancer care and to investigate possible differential response bias between incentive groups. Australian general practitioners were randomly allocated to unconditional incentive (book voucher mailed with letter of invitation), conditional incentive (book voucher mailed on completion of the online survey), or control (no incentive). Nonresponders were asked to complete a small subset of questions from the online survey. Among 3,334 eligible general practitioners, significantly higher response rates were achieved in the unconditional group (167 of 1,101, 15%) compared with the conditional group (118 of 1,111, 11%) (P = 0.0014), and both were significantly higher than the control group (74 of 1,122, 7%; both P < 0.001). Although more positive opinions about cancer care were expressed by online responders compared with nonresponders, there was no evidence that the magnitude of difference varied by the incentive group. The incremental cost for each additional 1% increase above the control group response rate was substantially higher for the unconditional incentive group compared with the conditional incentive group. Both unconditional and conditional financial incentives significantly increased response with no evidence of differential response bias. Although unconditional incentives had the largest effect, the conditional approach was more cost-effective. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Small financial incentives increase smoking cessation in homeless smokers: a pilot study.

PubMed

Businelle, Michael S; Kendzor, Darla E; Kesh, Anshula; Cuate, Erica L; Poonawalla, Insiya B; Reitzel, Lorraine R; Okuyemi, Kolawole S; Wetter, David W

2014-03-01

Although over 70% of homeless individuals smoke, few studies have examined the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions in this vulnerable population. The purpose of this pilot study was to compare the effectiveness of shelter-based smoking cessation clinic usual care (UC) to an adjunctive contingency management (CM) treatment that offered UC plus small financial incentives for smoking abstinence. Sixty-eight homeless individuals in Dallas, Texas (recruited in 2012) were assigned to UC (n=58) or UC plus financial incentives (CM; n=10) groups and were followed for 5 consecutive weeks (1 week pre-quit through 4 weeks post-quit). A generalized linear mixed model regression analysis was conducted to compare biochemically-verified abstinence rates between groups. An additional model examined the interaction between time and treatment group. The participants were primarily male (61.8%) and African American (58.8%), and were 49 years of age on average. There was a significant effect of treatment group on abstinence overall, and effects varied over time. Follow-up logistic regression analyses indicated that CM participants were significantly more likely than UC participants to be abstinent on the quit date (50% vs. 19% abstinent) and at 4 weeks post-quit (30% vs. 1.7% abstinent). Offering small financial incentives for smoking abstinence may be an effective way to facilitate smoking cessation in homeless individuals. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of menarche on the relation between diurnal cortisol production and ventral striatum activity during reward anticipation

PubMed Central

LeMoult, Joelle; Colich, Natalie L.; Sherdell, Lindsey; Hamilton, J. Paul; Gotlib, Ian H.

2015-01-01

Adolescence is characterized by an increase in risk-taking and reward-seeking behaviors. In other populations, increased risk taking has been associated with tighter coupling between cortisol production and ventral striatum (VS) activation during reward anticipation; this relation has not yet been examined, however, as a function of adolescent development. This study examined the influence of pubertal development on the association between diurnal cortisol production and VS activity during reward anticipation. Pre- and post-menarcheal girls collected diurnal cortisol and completed an functional magnetic resonance imaging-based monetary incentive delay task, from which we extracted estimates of VS activity during the anticipation of reward, anticipation of loss and anticipation of non-incentive neutral trials. Post-menarcheal girls showed greater coupling between the cortisol awakening response and VS activation during anticipation of reward and loss than did their pre-menarcheal counterparts. Post-menarcheal girls did not differ from pre-menarcheal girls in their cortisol-VS coupling during anticipation of neutral trials, suggesting that puberty-related changes in cortisol-VS coupling are specific to affective stimuli. Interestingly, behavioral responses during the task indicate that post-menarcheal girls are faster to engage with affective stimuli than are pre-menarcheal girls. Thus, post-menarcheal girls exhibit neurobiological and behavioral patterns that have been associated with risk taking and that may underlie the dramatic increase in risk-taking behavior documented during adolescence. PMID:25678549

Affective traits link to reliable neural markers of incentive anticipation.

PubMed

Wu, Charlene C; Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R; Katovich, Kiefer; Knutson, Brian

2014-01-01

While theorists have speculated that different affective traits are linked to reliable brain activity during anticipation of gains and losses, few have directly tested this prediction. We examined these associations in a community sample of healthy human adults (n=52) as they played a Monetary Incentive Delay task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). Factor analysis of personality measures revealed that subjects independently varied in trait Positive Arousal and trait Negative Arousal. In a subsample (n=14) retested over 2.5years later, left nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activity during anticipation of large gains (+$5.00) and right anterior insula activity during anticipation of large losses (-$5.00) showed significant test-retest reliability (intraclass correlations>0.50, p's<0.01). In the full sample (n=52), trait Positive Arousal correlated with individual differences in left NAcc activity during anticipation of large gains, while trait Negative Arousal correlated with individual differences in right anterior insula activity during anticipation of large losses. Associations of affective traits with neural activity were not attributable to the influence of other potential confounds (including sex, age, wealth, and motion). Together, these results demonstrate selective links between distinct affective traits and reliably-elicited activity in neural circuits associated with anticipation of gain versus loss. The findings thus reveal neural markers for affective dimensions of healthy personality, and potentially for related psychiatric symptoms. © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Affective traits link to reliable neural markers of incentive anticipation

PubMed Central

Wu, Charlene C.; Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R.; Katovich, Kiefer; Knutson, Brian

2013-01-01

While theorists have speculated that different affective traits are linked to reliable brain activity during anticipation of gains and losses, few have directly tested this prediction. We examined these associations in a community sample of healthy human adults (n = 52) as they played a Monetary Incentive Delay Task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). Factor analysis of personality measures revealed that subjects independently varied in trait Positive Arousal and Negative Arousal. In a subsample (n = 14) retested over 2.5 years later, left nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activity during anticipation of large gains (+$5.00) and right anterior insula activity during anticipation of large losses (−$5.00) showed significant test-retest reliability (intraclass correlations > 0.50, p’s < 0.01). In the full sample (n = 52), trait Positive Arousal correlated with individual differences in left NAcc activity during anticipation of large gains, while trait Negative Arousal correlated with individual differences in right anterior insula activity during anticipation of large losses. Associations of affective traits with neural activity were not attributable to the influence of other potential confounds (including sex, age, wealth, and motion). Together, these results demonstrate selective links between distinct affective traits and reliably-elicited activity in neural circuits associated with anticipation of gain versus loss. The findings thus reveal neural markers for affective dimensions of healthy personality, and potentially for related psychiatric symptoms. PMID:24001457

Strategic Adaptation to Task Characteristics, Incentives, and Individual Differences in Dual-Tasking

PubMed Central

Janssen, Christian P.; Brumby, Duncan P.

2015-01-01

We investigate how good people are at multitasking by comparing behavior to a prediction of the optimal strategy for dividing attention between two concurrent tasks. In our experiment, 24 participants had to interleave entering digits on a keyboard with controlling a randomly moving cursor with a joystick. The difficulty of the tracking task was systematically varied as a within-subjects factor. Participants were also exposed to different explicit reward functions that varied the relative importance of the tracking task relative to the typing task (between-subjects). Results demonstrate that these changes in task characteristics and monetary incentives, together with individual differences in typing ability, influenced how participants choose to interleave tasks. This change in strategy then affected their performance on each task. A computational cognitive model was used to predict performance for a wide set of alternative strategies for how participants might have possibly interleaved tasks. This allowed for predictions of optimal performance to be derived, given the constraints placed on performance by the task and cognition. A comparison of human behavior with the predicted optimal strategy shows that participants behaved near optimally. Our findings have implications for the design and evaluation of technology for multitasking situations, as consideration should be given to the characteristics of the task, but also to how different users might use technology depending on their individual characteristics and their priorities. PMID:26161851

Reward Sensitivity and Waiting Impulsivity: Shift towards Reward Valuation away from Action Control

PubMed Central

Mechelmans, Daisy J; Strelchuk, Daniela; Doñamayor, Nuria; Banca, Paula; Robbins, Trevor W; Baek, Kwangyeol

2017-01-01

Abstract Background Impulsivity and reward expectancy are commonly interrelated. Waiting impulsivity, measured using the rodent 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time task, predicts compulsive cocaine seeking and sign (or cue) tracking. Here, we assess human waiting impulsivity using a novel translational task, the 4-Choice Serial Reaction Time task, and the relationship with reward cues. Methods Healthy volunteers (n=29) performed the monetary incentive delay task as a functional MRI study where subjects observe a cue predicting reward (cue) and wait to respond for high (£5), low (£1), or no reward. Waiting impulsivity was tested with the 4-Choice Serial Reaction Time task. Results For high reward prospects (£5, no reward), greater waiting impulsivity on the 4-CSRT correlated with greater medial orbitofrontal cortex and lower supplementary motor area activity to cues. In response to high reward cues, greater waiting impulsivity was associated with greater subthalamic nucleus connectivity with orbitofrontal cortex and greater subgenual cingulate connectivity with anterior insula, but decreased connectivity with regions implicated in action selection and preparation. Conclusion These findings highlight a shift towards regions implicated in reward valuation and a shift towards compulsivity away from higher level motor preparation and action selection and response. We highlight the role of reward sensitivity and impulsivity, mechanisms potentially linking human waiting impulsivity with incentive approach and compulsivity, theories highly relevant to disorders of addiction. PMID:29020291

Lipopolysaccharide Alters Motivated Behavior in a Monetary Reward Task: a Randomized Trial.

PubMed

Lasselin, Julie; Treadway, Michael T; Lacourt, Tamara E; Soop, Anne; Olsson, Mats J; Karshikoff, Bianka; Paues-Göranson, Sofie; Axelsson, John; Dantzer, Robert; Lekander, Mats

2017-03-01

Inflammation-induced sickness is associated with a large set of behavioral alterations; however, its motivational aspects remain poorly explored in humans. The present study assessed the effect of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration at a dose of 2 ng/kg of body weight on motivation in 21 healthy human subjects in a double-blinded, placebo (saline)-controlled, cross-over design. Incentive motivation and reward sensitivity were measured using the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT), in which motivation for high-effort/high-reward trials vs low-effort/low-reward trials are manipulated by variations in reward magnitude and probability to win. Because of the strong interactions between sleepiness and motivation, the role of sleepiness was also determined. As expected, the probability to win predicted the choice to engage in high-effort/high-reward trials; however, this occurred at a greater extent after LPS than after saline administration. This effect was related to the level of sleepiness. Sleepiness increased motivation to choose the high-effort/high-reward mode of response, but only when the probability to win was the highest. LPS had no effect on reward sensitivity either directly or via sleepiness. These results indicate that systemic inflammation induced by LPS administration causes motivational changes in young healthy subjects, which are associated with sleepiness. Thus, despite its association with energy-saving behaviors, sickness allows increased incentive motivation when the effort is deemed worthwhile.

Caveats to quantifying ecosystem services: fruit abortion blurs benefits from crop pollination.

PubMed

Bos, Merijn M; Veddeler, Dorthe; Bogdanski, Anne K; Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Tscharntke, Teja; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Tylianakis, Jason M

2007-09-01

The recent trend to place monetary values on ecosystem services has led to studies on the economic importance of pollinators for agricultural crops. Several recent studies indicate regional, long-term pollinator declines, and economic consequences have been derived from declining pollination efficiencies. However, use of pollinator services as economic incentives for conservation must consider environmental factors such as drought, pests, and diseases, which can also limit yields. Moreover, "flower excess" is a well-known reproductive strategy of plants as insurance against unpredictable, external factors that limit reproduction. With three case studies on the importance of pollination levels for amounts of harvested fruits of three tropical crops (passion fruit in Brazil, coffee in Ecuador, and cacao in Indonesia) we illustrate how reproductive strategies and environmental stress can obscure initial benefits from improved pollination. By interpreting these results with findings from evolutionary sciences, agronomy, and studies on wild-plant populations, we argue that studies on economic benefits from pollinators should include the total of ecosystem processes that (1) lead to successful pollination and (2) mobilize nutrients and improve plant quality to the extent that crop yields indeed benefit from enhanced pollinator services. Conservation incentives that use quantifications of nature's services to human welfare will benefit from approaches at the ecosystem level that take into account the broad spectrum of biological processes that limit or deliver the service.

Lipopolysaccharide Alters Motivated Behavior in a Monetary Reward Task: a Randomized Trial

PubMed Central

Lasselin, Julie; Treadway, Michael T; Lacourt, Tamara E; Soop, Anne; Olsson, Mats J; Karshikoff, Bianka; Paues-Göranson, Sofie; Axelsson, John; Dantzer, Robert; Lekander, Mats

2017-01-01

Inflammation-induced sickness is associated with a large set of behavioral alterations; however, its motivational aspects remain poorly explored in humans. The present study assessed the effect of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration at a dose of 2 ng/kg of body weight on motivation in 21 healthy human subjects in a double-blinded, placebo (saline)-controlled, cross-over design. Incentive motivation and reward sensitivity were measured using the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT), in which motivation for high-effort/high-reward trials vs low-effort/low-reward trials are manipulated by variations in reward magnitude and probability to win. Because of the strong interactions between sleepiness and motivation, the role of sleepiness was also determined. As expected, the probability to win predicted the choice to engage in high-effort/high-reward trials; however, this occurred at a greater extent after LPS than after saline administration. This effect was related to the level of sleepiness. Sleepiness increased motivation to choose the high-effort/high-reward mode of response, but only when the probability to win was the highest. LPS had no effect on reward sensitivity either directly or via sleepiness. These results indicate that systemic inflammation induced by LPS administration causes motivational changes in young healthy subjects, which are associated with sleepiness. Thus, despite its association with energy-saving behaviors, sickness allows increased incentive motivation when the effort is deemed worthwhile. PMID:27620550

Study design for a randomized controlled trial to increase the relative reinforcing value of vegetable consumption using incentive sensitization among obese and overweight people

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Federal dietary guidance recommends consumption of a variety of vegetables, but Americans only consume a small fraction of recommended amounts. Studies have attempted to increase consumption with modest results. In this manuscript, we present the protocol for a study that applies incentive sensitiza...

Incentives for Cheating Given Imperfect Detection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Canavan, G.H.

1998-10-01

The incentives for cheating given imperfect detection can be discussed within the context of first strike stability. The cost reduction due to is balanced against the sanctions that would be imposed if cheating was detected. For small political sanctions, the optimum level is at high levels of cheating. For large sanctions, the optimum is at quite low levels, which discourages cheating.

Neurological Correlates of Reward Responding in Adolescents With and Without Externalizing Behavior Disorders

PubMed Central

Gatzke-Kopp, Lisa M.; Beauchaine, Theodore P.; Shannon, Katherine E.; Chipman, Jane; Fleming, Andrew P.; Crowell, Sheila E.; Liang, Olivia; Aylward, Elizabeth; Johnson, L. Clark

2009-01-01

Opposing theories of striatal hyper- and hypodopaminergic functioning have been suggested in the pathophysiology of externalizing behavior disorders. To test these competing theories, the authors used functional MRI to evaluate neural activity during a simple reward task in 12- to 16-year-old boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or conduct disorder (n = 19) and in controls with no psychiatric condition (n = 11). The task proceeded in blocks during which participants received either (a) monetary incentives for correct responses or (b) no rewards for correct responses. Controls exhibited striatal activation only during reward, shifting to anterior cingulate activation during nonreward. In contrast, externalizing adolescents exhibited striatal activation during both reward and nonreward. Externalizing psychopathology appears to be characterized by deficits in processing the omission of predicted reward, which may render behaviors that are acquired through environmental contingencies difficult to extinguish when those contingencies change. PMID:19222326

All I saw was the cake. Hunger effects on attentional capture by visual food cues.

PubMed

Piech, Richard M; Pastorino, Michael T; Zald, David H

2010-06-01

While effects of hunger on motivation and food reward value are well-established, far less is known about the effects of hunger on cognitive processes. Here, we deployed the emotional blink of attention paradigm to investigate the impact of visual food cues on attentional capture under conditions of hunger and satiety. Participants were asked to detect targets which appeared in a rapid visual stream after different types of task irrelevant distractors. We observed that food stimuli acquired increased power to capture attention and prevent target detection when participants were hungry. This occurred despite monetary incentives to perform well. Our findings suggest an attentional mechanism through which hunger heightens perception of food cues. As an objective behavioral marker of the attentional sensitivity to food cues, the emotional attentional blink paradigm may provide a useful technique for studying individual differences, and state manipulations in the sensitivity to food cues. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Transitioning the California Energy Commission Eligible Equipment List to a National Platform

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Truitt, Sarah; Nobler, Erin; Krasko, Vitaliy

The Energy Commission called on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL)'s Solar Technical Assistance Team to explore various pathways for supporting continued evolution of the list. NREL staff utilized the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), California Solar Initiative (CSI) data, and information from in-depth interviews to better understand the impact of a lack of an updated list and suggest potential solutions. A total of 18 people from state energy offices, rebate program administrators, utilities, national testing laboratories, private companies, nonprofit organizations, and the federal government were interviewed between July and September 2013. CSI data were analyzedmore » to illustrate the monetary benefits of the algorithm behind calculating performance of PV modules included on the list. The primary objectives of this study are to: 1) Determine the impact of not maintaining the list, and 2) Explore alternatives to the State of California's maintenance of the list.« less

The Field of View is More Useful in Golfers than Regular Exercisers

PubMed Central

Murphy, Karen

2017-01-01

Superior visual attention skills are vital for excellent sports performance. This study used a cognitive skills approach to examine expert and novice differences in a visual spatial attention task. Thirty-two males aged 18 to 42 years completed this study in return for course credit or monetary incentive. Participants were expert golfers (N = 18) or exercise controls (N = 14). Spatial attention was assessed using the useful field of view task which required participants to locate a target shown 10°, 20°, and 30° of eccentricity from centre in very brief presentations. At each degree of eccentricity, golfers were more accurate at locating the target than the exercise controls. These results provide support for the broad transfer hypothesis by demonstrating a link between golf expertise and better performance on an objective measure of spatial attention skills. Therefore, it appears that sports expertise can transfer to expertise in non-sport related tasks. PMID:28450973

The Changing Political Undercurrents in Health Services Delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa.

PubMed

Ichoku, H E; Ifelunini, A I

2017-07-01

This article reviews the changing political undercurrent in health service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa, chronicling the ideological shift in orientation toward neoliberalism in the health sector, an ideology crafted and introduced into Sub-Saharan Africa by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The article examines the implication of this neoliberal reform on the efficiency in health care provision and on the quality and accessibility of health services by the poor and vulnerable. Drawing inference from countries like Nigeria, the authors argue that the ascendency of neoliberalism in the health systems of Sub-Saharan Africa has engendered unethical practices and introduced elements of moral hazard in the health sector, reducing the incentive for governments to develop effective service delivery over the long term. The authors therefore advocate for a rejection of neoliberal ideology in favor of a universal coverage principle if an inclusive health system is to be developed.

A review of how to conduct a surgical survey using a questionnaire.

PubMed

Hing, C B; Smith, T O; Hooper, L; Song, F; Donell, S T

2011-08-01

Health surveys using questionnaires facilitate the acquisition of information on the knowledge, behaviour, attitudes, perceptions and clinical history of a selected population. Their internal and external validities are threatened by poor design and low response rates. Numerous studies have investigated survey design and administration but care should be taken when generalising findings in different clinical and cultural settings. The current evidence-base suggests that no single mode of survey administration, such as postal, electronic or telephone, is superior to another. Whilst there is no evidence of an ideal response rate relationship to survey validity, response rates can be enhanced by including monetary incentives, providing a time cue, and repeat contact with non-responders. Unlike other modes of experimental data collection, few guidelines currently exist for survey and questionnaire design and response rate should not be considered a direct measure of a survey's quality. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Consolidation power of extrinsic rewards: reward cues enhance long-term memory for irrelevant past events.

PubMed

Murayama, Kou; Kitagami, Shinji

2014-02-01

Recent research suggests that extrinsic rewards promote memory consolidation through dopaminergic modulation processes. However, no conclusive behavioral evidence exists given that the influence of extrinsic reward on attention and motivation during encoding and consolidation processes are inherently confounded. The present study provides behavioral evidence that extrinsic rewards (i.e., monetary incentives) enhance human memory consolidation independently of attention and motivation. Participants saw neutral pictures, followed by a reward or control cue in an unrelated context. Our results (and a direct replication study) demonstrated that the reward cue predicted a retrograde enhancement of memory for the preceding neutral pictures. This retrograde effect was observed only after a delay, not immediately upon testing. An additional experiment showed that emotional arousal or unconscious resource mobilization cannot explain the retrograde enhancement effect. These results provide support for the notion that the dopaminergic memory consolidation effect can result from extrinsic reward.

Motivational factors for participation in biomedical research: evidence from a qualitative study of biomedical research participation in Blantyre District, Malawi.

PubMed

Mfutso-Bengo, Joseph; Manda-Taylor, Lucinda; Masiye, Francis

2015-02-01

Obtaining effective informed consent from research participants is a prerequisite to the conduct of an ethically sound research. Yet it is believed that obtaining quality informed consent is generally difficult in settings with low socioeconomic status. This is so because of the alleged undue inducements and therapeutic misconception among participants. However, there is a dearth of data on factors that motivate research participants to take part in research. Hence, this study was aimed at filling this gap in the Malawian context. We conducted 18 focus group discussions with community members in urban and rural communities of Blantyre in Malawi. Most participants reported that they accepted the invitation to participate in research because of better quality treatment during study also known as ancillary care, monetary and material incentives given to participants, and thorough medical diagnosis. © The Author(s) 2014.

The influence of concrete support on child welfare program engagement, progress, and recurrence.

PubMed

Rostad, Whitney L; Rogers, Tia McGill; Chaffin, Mark J

2017-01-01

Families living in poverty are significantly more likely to become involved with child welfare services, and consequently, referred to interventions that target abusive and neglectful parenting practices. Program engagement and retention are difficult to achieve, possibly because of the concrete resource insufficiencies that may have contributed to a family's involvement with services in the first place. Various strategies have been used to enhance program completion, such as motivational interventions, monetary incentives, and financial assistance with concrete needs. This study examines the influence of adjunctive concrete support provided by home visitors on families' ( N = 1754) engagement, retention, and satisfaction with services as well as parenting outcomes. Using propensity stratification, mixed modeling procedures revealed that increasing concrete support predicted greater engagement, satisfaction, goal attainment, and lower short-term recidivism. Results suggest that adjunctive concrete support is a potentially beneficial strategy for promoting service engagement and satisfaction and increasing short-term child safety.

A Learning Collaborative Approach to Improve Primary Care STI Screening.

PubMed

McKee, M Diane; Alderman, Elizabeth; York, Deborah V; Blank, Arthur E; Briggs, Rahil D; Hoidal, Kelsey E S; Kus, Christopher; Lechuga, Claudia; Mann, Marie; Meissner, Paul; Patel, Nisha; Racine, Andrew D

2017-10-01

The Bronx Ongoing Pediatric Screening (BOPS) project sought to improve screening for sexual activity and sexually transmitted infections (gonorrhea and chlamydia [GCC] and HIV) in a primary care network, employing a modified learning collaborative, real-time clinical data feedback to practices, improvement coaching, and a pay-for-quality monetary incentive. Outcomes are compared for 11 BOPS-participating sites and 10 non-participating sites. The quarterly median rate for documenting sexual activity status increased from 55% to 88% (BOPS sites) and from 13% to 74% (non-BOPS sites). GCC screening of sexually active youth increased at BOPS and non-BOPS sites. Screening at non-health care maintenance visits improved more at BOPS than non-BOPS sites. Data from nonparticipating sites suggests that introduction of an adolescent EMR template or other factors improved screening rates regardless of BOPS participation; BOPS activities appear to promote additional improvement of screening during non-health maintenance visits.

The influence of concrete support on child welfare program engagement, progress, and recurrence

PubMed Central

Rostad, Whitney L.; Rogers, Tia McGill; Chaffin, Mark J.

2016-01-01

Families living in poverty are significantly more likely to become involved with child welfare services, and consequently, referred to interventions that target abusive and neglectful parenting practices. Program engagement and retention are difficult to achieve, possibly because of the concrete resource insufficiencies that may have contributed to a family's involvement with services in the first place. Various strategies have been used to enhance program completion, such as motivational interventions, monetary incentives, and financial assistance with concrete needs. This study examines the influence of adjunctive concrete support provided by home visitors on families’ (N = 1754) engagement, retention, and satisfaction with services as well as parenting outcomes. Using propensity stratification, mixed modeling procedures revealed that increasing concrete support predicted greater engagement, satisfaction, goal attainment, and lower short-term recidivism. Results suggest that adjunctive concrete support is a potentially beneficial strategy for promoting service engagement and satisfaction and increasing short-term child safety. PMID:28533569

Climbing the Ladder: Experience with Developing a Large Group Genetic Counselor Career Ladder at Children's National Health System.

PubMed

Kofman, Laura; Seprish, Mary Beth; Summar, Marshall

2016-08-01

Children's National Health System (CNHS) is a not-for-profit pediatric hospital that employs around twenty genetic counselors in a range of specialties, including clinical pediatric, neurology, fetal medicine, research, and laboratory. CNHS lacked a structured system of advancement for their genetic counselors; therefore, a formal career ladder was proposed by the genetic counselors based on years of experience, responsibility, and job performance. This career ladder utilized monetary, academic, and seniority incentives to encourage advancement and continue employment at CNHS. The creation and ultimate approval of the career ladder required direct input from genetic counselors, Department Chairs, and Human Resource personnel. The establishment of a genetic counselor career ladder at CNHS will hopefully benefit the profession of genetic counselors as a whole and allow other facilities to create and maintain their own career ladder to meet the needs of the growing, competitive, field of genetic counseling.

An In-depth Examination of Farmers' Perceptions of Targeting Conservation Practices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kalcic, Margaret; Prokopy, Linda; Frankenberger, Jane; Chaubey, Indrajeet

2014-10-01

Watershed managers have largely embraced targeting of agricultural conservation as a way to manage strategically non-point source pollution from agricultural lands. However, while targeting of particular watersheds is not uncommon, targeting farms and fields within a specific watershed has lagged. In this work, we employed a qualitative approach, using farmer interviews in west-central Indiana to better understand their views on targeting. Interviews focused on adoption of conservation practices on farmers' lands and identified their views on targeting, disproportionality, and monetary incentives. Results show consistent support for the targeting approach, despite dramatic differences in farmers' views of land stewardship, in their views about disproportionality of water quality impacts, and in their trust in conservation programming. While the theoretical concept of targeting was palatable to all participants, many raised concerns about its practical implementation, pointing to the need for flexibility when applying targeting solutions and revealing misgivings about the government agencies that perform targeting.

Using social marketing to manage population health performance.

PubMed

Rothschild, Michael L

2010-09-01

Population health can be affected by implementing pay-for-performance measures with key players. From a social marketing perspective, people (both consumers and managers) have choices and will do what they perceive enhances their own self-interest. The bottom-up focus of social marketing begins with an understanding of the people whose behaviors are targeted. Desired behavior results when people perceive that they will get more value than the cost of behaving and when the resulting offer is perceived to be better than what is obtainable through alternative choices. Incentives should be offered to consumers; managers should receive motivation for their own behavior and understand how to motivate relevant consumers. Pay can be monetary or nonmonetary, tangible or intangible. Everyone is paid for performance. Some are paid well enough to behave as desired; others are offered a poor rate of pay and choose not to behave.

Rational emotions.

PubMed

Meshulam, Meir; Winter, Eyal; Ben-Shakhar, Gershon; Aharon, Itzhak

2012-01-01

We present here the concept of rational emotions: Emotions may be directly controlled and utilized in a conscious, analytic fashion, enabling an individual to size up a situation, to determine that a certain "mental state" is strategically advantageous and adjust accordingly. Building on the growing body of literature recognizing the vital role of emotions in determining decisions, we explore the complementary role of rational choice in choosing emotional states. Participants played the role of "recipient" in the dictator game, in which an anonymous "dictator" decides how to split an amount of money between himself and the recipient. A subset of recipients was given a monetary incentive to be angry at low-split offers. That subset demonstrated increased physiological arousal at low offers relative to high offers as well as more anger than other participants. These results provide a fresh outlook on human decision-making and contribute to the continuing effort to build more complete models of rational behavior.

The perception of visual emotion: comparing different measures of awareness.

PubMed

Szczepanowski, Remigiusz; Traczyk, Jakub; Wierzchoń, Michał; Cleeremans, Axel

2013-03-01

Here, we explore the sensitivity of different awareness scales in revealing conscious reports on visual emotion perception. Participants were exposed to a backward masking task involving fearful faces and asked to rate their conscious awareness in perceiving emotion in facial expression using three different subjective measures: confidence ratings (CRs), with the conventional taxonomy of certainty, the perceptual awareness scale (PAS), through which participants categorize "raw" visual experience, and post-decision wagering (PDW), which involves economic categorization. Our results show that the CR measure was the most exhaustive and the most graded. In contrast, the PAS and PDW measures suggested instead that consciousness of emotional stimuli is dichotomous. Possible explanations of the inconsistency were discussed. Finally, our results also indicate that PDW biases awareness ratings by enhancing first-order accuracy of emotion perception. This effect was possibly a result of higher motivation induced by monetary incentives. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The effect of payment and incentives on motivation and focus of community health workers: five case studies from low- and middle-income countries.

PubMed

Singh, Debra; Negin, Joel; Otim, Michael; Orach, Christopher Garimoi; Cumming, Robert

2015-07-14

Community health workers (CHWs) have been proposed as a means for bridging gaps in healthcare delivery in rural communities. Recent CHW programmes have been shown to improve child and neonatal health outcomes, and it is increasingly being suggested that paid CHWs become an integral part of health systems. Remuneration of CHWs can potentially effect their motivation and focus. Broadly, programmes follow a social, monetary or mixed market approach to remuneration. Conscious understanding of the differences, and of what each has to offer, is important in selecting the most appropriate approach according to the context. The objective of this review is to identify and examine different remuneration models of CHWs that have been utilized in large-scale sustained programmes to gain insight into the effect that remuneration has on the motivation and focus of CHWs. A MEDLINE search using Ovid SP was undertaken and data collected from secondary sources about CHW programmes in Iran, Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Five main approaches were identified: part-time volunteer CHWs without regular financial incentives, volunteers that sell health-related merchandise, volunteers with financial incentives, paid full-time CHWs and a mixed model of paid and volunteer CHWs. Both volunteer and remunerated CHWs are potentially effective and can bring something to the health arena that the other may not. For example, well-trained, supervised volunteers and full-time CHWs who receive regular payment, or a combination of both, are more likely to engage the community in grass-roots health-related empowerment. Programmes that utilize minimal economic incentives to part-time CHWs tend to limit their focus, with financially incentivized activities becoming central. They can, however, improve outcomes in well-circumscribed areas. In order to maintain benefits from different approaches, there is a need to distinguish between CHWs that are trained and remunerated to be a part of an existing health system and those who, with little training, take on roles and are motivated by a range of contextual factors. Governments and planners can benefit from understanding the programme that can best be supported in their communities, thereby maximizing motivation and effectiveness.

Influence of raw milk quality on processed dairy products: How do raw milk quality test results relate to product quality and yield?

PubMed

Murphy, Steven C; Martin, Nicole H; Barbano, David M; Wiedmann, Martin

2016-12-01

This article provides an overview of the influence of raw milk quality on the quality of processed dairy products and offers a perspective on the merits of investing in quality. Dairy farmers are frequently offered monetary premium incentives to provide high-quality milk to processors. These incentives are most often based on raw milk somatic cell and bacteria count levels well below the regulatory public health-based limits. Justification for these incentive payments can be based on improved processed product quality and manufacturing efficiencies that provide the processor with a return on their investment for high-quality raw milk. In some cases, this return on investment is difficult to measure. Raw milks with high levels of somatic cells and bacteria are associated with increased enzyme activity that can result in product defects. Use of raw milk with somatic cell counts >100,000cells/mL has been shown to reduce cheese yields, and higher levels, generally >400,000 cells/mL, have been associated with textural and flavor defects in cheese and other products. Although most research indicates that fairly high total bacteria counts (>1,000,000 cfu/mL) in raw milk are needed to cause defects in most processed dairy products, receiving high-quality milk from the farm allows some flexibility for handling raw milk, which can increase efficiencies and reduce the risk of raw milk reaching bacterial levels of concern. Monitoring total bacterial numbers in regard to raw milk quality is imperative, but determining levels of specific types of bacteria present has gained increasing importance. For example, spores of certain spore-forming bacteria present in raw milk at very low levels (e.g., <1/mL) can survive pasteurization and grow in milk and cheese products to levels that result in defects. With the exception of meeting product specifications often required for milk powders, testing for specific spore-forming groups is currently not used in quality incentive programs in the United States but is used in other countries (e.g., the Netherlands). Copyright © 2016 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Benefits of adding small financial incentives or optional group meetings to a web-based statewide obesity initiative.

PubMed

Leahey, Tricia M; Subak, Leslee L; Fava, Joseph; Schembri, Michael; Thomas, Graham; Xu, Xiaomeng; Krupel, Katie; Kent, Kimberly; Boguszewski, Katherine; Kumar, Rajiv; Weinberg, Brad; Wing, Rena

2015-01-01

To examine whether adding either small, variable financial incentives or optional group sessions improves weight losses in a community-based, Internet behavioral program. Participants (N = 268) from Shape Up Rhode Island 2012, a 3-month Web-based community wellness initiative, were randomized to: Shape Up+Internet behavioral program (SI), Shape Up+Internet program+incentives (SII), or Shape Up+Internet program+group sessions (SIG). At the end of the 3-month program, SII achieved significantly greater weight losses than SI (SII: 6.4% [5.1-7.7]; SI: 4.2% [3.0-5.6]; P = 0.03); weight losses in SIG were not significantly different from the other two conditions (SIG: 5.8% [4.5-7.1], P's ≥ 0.10). However, at the 12-month no-treatment follow-up visit, both SII and SIG had greater weight losses than SI (SII: 3.1% [1.8-4.4]; SIG: 4.5% [3.2-5.8]; SI: 1.2% [-0.1-2.6]; P's ≤ 0.05). SII was the most cost-effective approach at both 3 (SII: $34/kg; SI: $34/kg; SIG: $87/kg) and 12 months (SII: $64/kg; SI: $140/kg; SIG: $113/kg). Modest financial incentives enhance weight losses during a community campaign, and both incentives and optional group meetings improved overall weight loss outcomes during the follow-up period. However, the use of the financial incentives is the most cost-effective approach. © 2014 The Obesity Society.

An incentive-based source separation model for sustainable municipal solid waste management in China.

PubMed

Xu, Wanying; Zhou, Chuanbin; Lan, Yajun; Jin, Jiasheng; Cao, Aixin

2015-05-01

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management (MSWM) is most important and challenging in large urban communities. Sound community-based waste management systems normally include waste reduction and material recycling elements, often entailing the separation of recyclable materials by the residents. To increase the efficiency of source separation and recycling, an incentive-based source separation model was designed and this model was tested in 76 households in Guiyang, a city of almost three million people in southwest China. This model embraced the concepts of rewarding households for sorting organic waste, government funds for waste reduction, and introducing small recycling enterprises for promoting source separation. Results show that after one year of operation, the waste reduction rate was 87.3%, and the comprehensive net benefit under the incentive-based source separation model increased by 18.3 CNY tonne(-1) (2.4 Euros tonne(-1)), compared to that under the normal model. The stakeholder analysis (SA) shows that the centralized MSW disposal enterprises had minimum interest and may oppose the start-up of a new recycling system, while small recycling enterprises had a primary interest in promoting the incentive-based source separation model, but they had the least ability to make any change to the current recycling system. The strategies for promoting this incentive-based source separation model are also discussed in this study. © The Author(s) 2015.

Quantifying individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues.

PubMed

Meyer, Paul J; Lovic, Vedran; Saunders, Benjamin T; Yager, Lindsay M; Flagel, Shelly B; Morrow, Jonathan D; Robinson, Terry E

2012-01-01

If reward-associated cues acquire the properties of incentive stimuli they can come to powerfully control behavior, and potentially promote maladaptive behavior. Pavlovian incentive stimuli are defined as stimuli that have three fundamental properties: they are attractive, they are themselves desired, and they can spur instrumental actions. We have found, however, that there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which animals attribute Pavlovian incentive motivational properties ("incentive salience") to reward cues. The purpose of this paper was to develop criteria for identifying and classifying individuals based on their propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of rats (N = 1,878) subjected to a classic Pavlovian conditioning procedure. We then used the propensity of animals to approach a cue predictive of reward (one index of the extent to which the cue was attributed with incentive salience), to characterize two behavioral phenotypes in this population: animals that approached the cue ("sign-trackers") vs. others that approached the location of reward delivery ("goal-trackers"). This variation in Pavlovian approach behavior predicted other behavioral indices of the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Thus, the procedures reported here should be useful for making comparisons across studies and for assessing individual variation in incentive salience attribution in small samples of the population, or even for classifying single animals.

The New York Times readers' opinions about paying people to take their medicine.

PubMed

Park, James D; Metlay, Jessica; Asch, Jeremy M; Asch, David A

2012-12-01

There has been considerable interest in using financial incentives to help people improve their health. However, paying people to improve their health touches on strongly held views about personal responsibility. The New York Times printed two articles in June 2010 about patient financial incentives, which resulted in 394 comments from their online audience. The authors systematically analyzed those online responses to news media in order to understand the range of themes that were expressed regarding the use of financial incentives to improve health. The New York Times online readers revealed a broad range of attitudes about paying individuals to be healthy. Many comments reflected disdain for financial incentives, describing them as "absurd" or "silly." Other comments reflected the notion that financial incentives reward individuals for being irresponsible toward their health. Many individuals communicated concerns that paying individuals for healthy behaviors may weaken their internal drive to be healthy. A smaller set of comments conveyed support for financial incentives, recognizing it as a small sum to pay to prevent or offset higher costs related to chronic diseases. Although a measurable group of individuals supported financial incentives, most readers revealed negative perceptions of these approaches and an appeal for greater personal responsibility for individual health. Despite experimental success of financial incentives, negative perceptions may limit their public acceptability and uptake.

Financial Incentives for Promoting Colorectal Cancer Screening: A Randomized, Comparative Effectiveness Trial.

PubMed

Gupta, Samir; Miller, Stacie; Koch, Mark; Berry, Emily; Anderson, Paula; Pruitt, Sandi L; Borton, Eric; Hughes, Amy E; Carter, Elizabeth; Hernandez, Sylvia; Pozos, Helen; Halm, Ethan A; Gneezy, Ayelet; Lieberman, Alicea J; Sugg Skinner, Celette; Argenbright, Keith; Balasubramanian, Bijal

2016-11-01

Offering financial incentives to promote or "nudge" participation in cancer screening programs, particularly among vulnerable populations who traditionally have lower rates of screening, has been suggested as a strategy to enhance screening uptake. However, effectiveness of such practices has not been established. Our aim was to determine whether offering small financial incentives would increase colorectal cancer (CRC) screening completion in a low-income, uninsured population. We conducted a randomized, comparative effectiveness trial among primary care patients, aged 50-64 years, not up-to-date with CRC screening served by a large, safety net health system in Fort Worth, Texas. Patients were randomly assigned to mailed fecal immunochemical test (FIT) outreach (n=6,565), outreach plus a $5 incentive (n=1,000), or outreach plus a $10 incentive (n=1,000). Outreach included reminder phone calls and navigation to promote diagnostic colonoscopy completion for patients with abnormal FIT. Primary outcome was FIT completion within 1 year, assessed using an intent-to-screen analysis. FIT completion was 36.9% with vs. 36.2% without any financial incentive (P=0.60) and was also not statistically different for the $10 incentive (34.6%, P=0.32 vs. no incentive) or $5 incentive (39.2%, P=0.07 vs. no incentive) groups. Results did not differ substantially when stratified by age, sex, race/ethnicity, or neighborhood poverty rate. Median time to FIT return also did not differ across groups. Financial incentives, in the amount of $5 or $10 offered in exchange for responding to mailed invitation to complete FIT, do not impact CRC screening completion.

Working Hard and Making Do: Surviving in Small Town America.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Margaret K.; Smith, Joan

This book reports on the effects of economic restructuring on the livelihood of working families in a rural Vermont county. Specifically, a study investigated family strategies to ensure and enhance daily survival including gainful employment (informal and formal), moonlighting, self-provisioning efforts, and non-monetary exchanges with other…

The Social and Productive Impacts of Zambia's Child Grant

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Handa, Sudhanshu; Seidenfeld, David; Davis, Benjamin; Tembo, Gelson

2016-01-01

Accumulated evidence from dozens of cash transfer (CT) programs across the world suggests that there are few interventions that can match the range of impacts and cost-effectiveness of a small, predictable monetary transfer to poor families in developing countries. However, individual published impact assessments typically focus on only one…

Does everyone have a price? On the role of payoff magnitude for ethical decision making.

PubMed

Hilbig, Benjamin E; Thielmann, Isabel

2017-06-01

Most approaches to dishonest behavior emphasize the importance of corresponding payoffs, typically implying that dishonesty might increase with increasing incentives. However, prior evidence does not appear to confirm this intuition. However, extant findings are based on relatively small payoffs, the potential effects of which are solely analyzed across participants. In two experiments, we used different multi-trial die-rolling paradigms designed to investigate dishonesty at the individual level (i.e., within participants) and as a function of the payoffs at stake - implementing substantial incentives exceeding 100€. Results show that incentive sizes indeed matter for ethical decision making, though primarily for two subsets of "corruptible individuals" (who cheat more the more they are offered) and "small sinners" (who tend to cheat less as the potential payoffs increase). Others ("brazen liars") are willing to cheat for practically any non-zero incentive whereas still others ("honest individuals") do not cheat at all, even for large payoffs. By implication, the influence of payoff magnitude on ethical decision making is often obscured when analyzed across participants and with insufficiently tempting payoffs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Medicaid expenditures for the disabled under a work incentive program

PubMed Central

Andrews, Roxanne M.; Ruther, Martin; Baugh, David K.; Pine, Penelope L.; Rymer, Marilyn P.

1988-01-01

Congress enacted Section 1619 of the Social Security Act to enable the disabled receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to obtain jobs and still retain Medicaid health benefits. Congress intended this work incentive to remove the fear of the severely disabled that by obtaining employment they would lose Medicaid benefits. Based on data from 11 States, our analysis found that Medicaid expenditures for Section 1619 enrollees were relatively small and only one-half the average Medicaid expenditure for the disabled. Retaining Medicaid appears to provide a significant work incentive because Medicaid expenditures represent 13 percent of Section 1619 enrollees' earnings. PMID:10318077

Energy Metrics for State Government Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Michael, Trevor

Measuring true progress towards energy conservation goals requires the accurate reporting and accounting of energy consumption. An accurate energy metrics framework is also a critical element for verifiable Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Energy conservation in government can reduce expenditures on energy costs leaving more funds available for public services. In addition to monetary savings, conserving energy can help to promote energy security, air quality, and a reduction of carbon footprint. With energy consumption/GHG inventories recently produced at the Federal level, state and local governments are beginning to also produce their own energy metrics systems. In recent years, many states have passed laws and executive orders which require their agencies to reduce energy consumption. In June 2008, SC state government established a law to achieve a 20% energy usage reduction in state buildings by 2020. This study examines case studies from other states who have established similar goals to uncover the methods used to establish an energy metrics system. Direct energy consumption in state government primarily comes from buildings and mobile sources. This study will focus exclusively on measuring energy consumption in state buildings. The case studies reveal that many states including SC are having issues gathering the data needed to accurately measure energy consumption across all state buildings. Common problems found include a lack of enforcement and incentives that encourage state agencies to participate in any reporting system. The case studies are aimed at finding the leverage used to gather the needed data. The various approaches at coercing participation will hopefully reveal methods that SC can use to establish the accurate metrics system needed to measure progress towards its 20% by 2020 energy reduction goal. Among the strongest incentives found in the case studies is the potential for monetary savings through energy efficiency. Framing energy conservation as budget enhancement is found to be a particularly useful approach in political environments that are not always receptive to climate change oriented efforts. For example, the NC Utility Savings Initiative claims to have saved over $400 million in avoided tax costs. The case studies reveal a wide range of individual successes as a result of energy conservation efforts. Despite the successes found, results indicate that most states have not obtained or completely measured progress towards their energy reduction goals.

A bill to require the Small Business Administration to submit a regular National Small Business Index to Congress to assess how policies provide incentives or impediments to small business development.

THOMAS, 112th Congress

Sen. Landrieu, Mary L. [D-LA

2012-05-17

Senate - 05/17/2012 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status IntroducedHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

The behavioralist as nutritionist: leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption.

PubMed

List, John A; Samek, Anya Savikhin

2015-01-01

We leverage behavioral economics to explore new approaches to tackling child food choice and consumption. Using a field experiment with >1500 children, we report several key insights. We find that incentives have large influences: in the control, 17% of children prefer the healthy snack, whereas introduction of small incentives increases take-up of the healthy snack to ∼75%. There is some evidence that the effects continue post-treatment, consistent with a model of habit formation. We find little evidence that the framing of incentives (loss vs. gain) matters. Educational messaging alone has little effect, but we observe a combined effect of messaging and incentives: together they provide an important influence on food choice. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mobile phone-delivered reminders and incentives to improve childhood immunisation coverage and timeliness in Kenya (M-SIMU): a cluster randomised controlled trial.

PubMed

Gibson, Dustin G; Ochieng, Benard; Kagucia, E Wangeci; Were, Joyce; Hayford, Kyla; Moulton, Lawrence H; Levine, Orin S; Odhiambo, Frank; O'Brien, Katherine L; Feikin, Daniel R

2017-04-01

As mobile phone access continues to expand globally, opportunities exist to leverage these technologies to support demand for immunisation services and improve vaccine coverage. We aimed to assess whether short message service (SMS) reminders and monetary incentives can improve immunisation uptake in Kenya. In this cluster-randomised controlled trial, villages were randomly and evenly allocated to four groups: control, SMS only, SMS plus a 75 Kenya Shilling (KES) incentive, and SMS plus 200 KES (85 KES = USD$1). Caregivers were eligible if they had a child younger than 5 weeks who had not yet received a first dose of pentavalent vaccine. Participants in the intervention groups received SMS reminders before scheduled pentavalent and measles immunisation visits. Participants in incentive groups, additionally, received money if their child was timely immunised (immunisation within 2 weeks of the due date). Caregivers and interviewers were not masked. The proportion of fully immunised children (receiving BCG, three doses of polio vaccine, three doses of pentavalent vaccine, and measles vaccine) by 12 months of age constituted the primary outcome and was analysed with log-binomial regression and General Estimating Equations to account for correlation within clusters. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01878435. Between Oct 14, 2013, and Oct 17, 2014, we enrolled 2018 caregivers and their infants from 152 villages into the following four groups: control (n=489), SMS only (n=476), SMS plus 75 KES (n=562), and SMS plus 200 KES (n=491). Overall, 1375 (86%) of 1600 children who were successfully followed up achieved the primary outcome, full immunisation by 12 months of age (296 [82%] of 360 control participants, 332 [86%] of 388 SMS only participants, 383 [86%] of 446 SMS plus 75 KES participants, and 364 [90%] of 406 SMS plus 200 KES participants). Children in the SMS plus 200 KES group were significantly more likely to achieve full immunisation at 12 months of age (relative risk 1·09, 95% CI 1·02-1·16, p=0·014) than children in the control group. In a setting with high baseline immunisation coverage levels, SMS reminders coupled with incentives significantly improved immunisation coverage and timeliness. Given that global immunisation coverage levels have stagnated around 85%, the use of incentives might be one option to reach the remaining 15%. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Predictors of Essential Health and Nutrition Service Delivery in Bihar, India: Results From Household and Frontline Worker Surveys.

PubMed

Kosec, Katrina; Avula, Rasmi; Holtemeyer, Brian; Tyagi, Parul; Hausladen, Stephanie; Menon, Purnima

2015-06-17

In Bihar, India, coverage of essential health and nutrition interventions is low. These interventions are provided by 2 national programs--the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Health/National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)--through Anganwadi workers (AWWs) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), respectively. Little is known, however, about factors that predict effective service delivery by these frontline workers (FLWs) or receipt of services by households. This study examined the predictors of use of 4 services: (1) immunization information and services, (2) food supplements, (3) pregnancy care information, and (4) general nutrition information. Data are from a 2012 cross-sectional survey of 6,002 households in 400 randomly selected villages in 1 district of Bihar state, as well as an integrated survey of 377 AWWs and 382 ASHAs from the same villages. For each of the 4 service delivery outcomes, logistic regression models were specified using a combination of variables hypothesized to be supply- and demand-side drivers of service utilization. About 35% of households reported receiving any of the 4 services. Monetary immunization incentives for AWWs (OR = 1.55, CI = 1.02-2.36) and above-median household head education (OR = 1.39, CI = 1.05-1.82) were statistically significant predictors of household receipt of immunization services. Higher household socioeconomic status was associated with significantly lower odds of receiving food supplements (OR = 0.87, CI = 0.79-0.96). ASHAs receiving incentives for institutional delivery (OR = 1.52, CI = 0.99-2.33) was marginally associated with higher odds of receiving pregnancy care information, and ASHAs who maintained records of pregnant women was significantly associated with households receiving such information (OR = 2.25, CI = 1.07-4.74). AWWs receiving immunization incentives was associated with significantly higher odds of households receiving general nutrition information (OR = 1.92, CI = 1.08-3.41), suggesting a large spillover effect of incentives from product- to information-oriented services. Product-oriented incentives affect delivery of both product- and information-oriented services, although household factors are also important. In India, existing government programs can mitigate supply- and demand-side constraints to receiving essential interventions by optimizing existing incentives for FLWs in national programs, helping FLWs better organize their work, and raising awareness among groups who are less likely to access services. © Kosec et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Biosimilar versus patented erythropoietins: learning from 5 years of European and Japanese experience.

PubMed

Bocquet, François; Paubel, Pascal; Fusier, Isabelle; Cordonnier, Anne-Laure; Sinègre, Martine; Le Pen, Claude

2015-02-01

Patent expiries on leading biologics are creating new momentum in the market for biosimilars (copies of off-patent biologics), paving the way for their development. However, little is known about the factors influencing the competition between biosimilars and their reference products (REF). The aim of this study was to analyse key global erythropoietin (EPO) markets and factors affecting biosimilar EPO (BIOSIM-EPO) uptakes, and to identify countries where BIOSIM-EPOs have gained significant market shares. Inclusion criteria for countries in the study were a biosimilar regulatory framework similar to the EU framework, and biological market value higher than US$2.5 billion. Factors evaluated included EPO market size, EPO retail/hospital distribution mix, national incentives to use biosimilars and BIOSIM-EPO/REF price differences. IMS Health provided EPO consumption in volumes, values, and EPO ex-manufacturer prices from 2007 to 2012. Japan: large-sized market, mixed retail/hospital distribution, no incentives, low BIOSIM-EPO uptake (6.8 % in 2012). France: large-sized market, dominant retail distribution, no incentives, low BIOSIM-EPO uptake (5.8 %). Spain and Italy: medium-sized market, dominant hospital distribution, no incentives, moderate BIOSIM-EPO uptakes (11.5 and 8.6 %). Germany: small-sized market, dominant retail distribution, presence of incentives, high BIOSIM-EPO uptake (30.4 %). UK: small-sized market, mixed retail/hospital distribution, no incentives, low BIOSIM-EPO uptake (2.0 %). BIOSIM-EPO/REF price differences play no role at a global level (-10.8 % in Germany and -26.9 % in Japan). EPO markets have proven to be highly country-specific. EPO market sizes, EPO retail/hospital distribution mixes and BIOSIM-EPO/REF price differences may not be determining factors of BIOSIM-EPO uptakes. Prescription and substitution incentives to use BIOSIM-EPO appear to be determining factors in Germany. The heterogeneity of national EPO markets makes it impossible to outline country profile types with significant BIOSIM-EPO penetrations.

Quantifying Individual Variation in the Propensity to Attribute Incentive Salience to Reward Cues

PubMed Central

Meyer, Paul J.; Lovic, Vedran; Saunders, Benjamin T.; Yager, Lindsay M.; Flagel, Shelly B.; Morrow, Jonathan D.; Robinson, Terry E.

2012-01-01

If reward-associated cues acquire the properties of incentive stimuli they can come to powerfully control behavior, and potentially promote maladaptive behavior. Pavlovian incentive stimuli are defined as stimuli that have three fundamental properties: they are attractive, they are themselves desired, and they can spur instrumental actions. We have found, however, that there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which animals attribute Pavlovian incentive motivational properties (“incentive salience”) to reward cues. The purpose of this paper was to develop criteria for identifying and classifying individuals based on their propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of rats (N = 1,878) subjected to a classic Pavlovian conditioning procedure. We then used the propensity of animals to approach a cue predictive of reward (one index of the extent to which the cue was attributed with incentive salience), to characterize two behavioral phenotypes in this population: animals that approached the cue (“sign-trackers”) vs. others that approached the location of reward delivery (“goal-trackers”). This variation in Pavlovian approach behavior predicted other behavioral indices of the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Thus, the procedures reported here should be useful for making comparisons across studies and for assessing individual variation in incentive salience attribution in small samples of the population, or even for classifying single animals. PMID:22761718

Financial Incentives to Increase Advance Care Planning Among Medicaid Beneficiaries: Lessons Learned From Two Pragmatic Randomized Trials.

PubMed

Barnato, Amber E; Moore, Robert; Moore, Charity G; Kohatsu, Neal D; Sudore, Rebecca L

2017-07-01

Medicaid populations have low rates of advance care planning (ACP). Potential policy interventions include financial incentives. To test the effectiveness of patient plus provider financial incentive compared with provider financial incentive alone for increasing ACP discussions among Medicaid patients. Between April 2014 and July 2015, we conducted two sequential assessor-blinded pragmatic randomized trials in a health plan that pays primary care providers (PCPs) $100 to discuss ACP: 1) a parallel cluster trial (provider-delivered patient incentive) and 2) an individual-level trial (mail-delivered patient incentive). Control and intervention arms included encouragement to complete ACP, instructions for using an online ACP tool, and (in the intervention arm) $50 for completing the online ACP tool and a small probability of $1000 (i.e., lottery) for discussing ACP with their PCP. The primary outcome was provider-reported ACP discussion within three months. In the provider-delivered patient incentive study, 38 PCPs were randomized to the intervention (n = 18) or control (n = 20) and given 10 patient packets each to distribute. Using an intention-to-treat analysis, there were 27 of 180 ACP discussions (15%) in the intervention group and 5 of 200 (2.5%) in the control group (P = .0391). In the mail-delivered patient incentive study, there were 5 of 187 ACP discussions (2.7%) in the intervention group and 5 of 189 (2.6%) in the control group (P = .99). ACP rates were low despite an existing provider financial incentive. Adding a provider-delivered patient financial incentive, but not a mail-delivered patient incentive, modestly increased ACP discussions. PCP encouragement combined with a patient incentive may be more powerful than either encouragement or incentive alone. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neural alterations of fronto-striatal circuitry during reward anticipation in euthymic bipolar disorder.

PubMed

Schreiter, S; Spengler, S; Willert, A; Mohnke, S; Herold, D; Erk, S; Romanczuk-Seiferth, N; Quinlivan, E; Hindi-Attar, C; Banzhaf, C; Wackerhagen, C; Romund, L; Garbusow, M; Stamm, T; Heinz, A; Walter, H; Bermpohl, F

2016-11-01

Bipolar disorder (BD), with the hallmark symptoms of elevated and depressed mood, is thought to be characterized by underlying alterations in reward-processing networks. However, to date the neural circuitry underlying abnormal responses during reward processing in BD remains largely unexplored. The aim of this study was to investigate whether euthymic BD is characterized by aberrant ventral striatal (VS) activation patterns and altered connectivity with the prefrontal cortex in response to monetary gains and losses. During functional magnetic resonance imaging 20 euthymic BD patients and 20 age-, gender- and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls completed a monetary incentive delay paradigm, to examine neural processing of reward and loss anticipation. A priori defined regions of interest (ROIs) included the VS and the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). Psychophysiological interactions (PPIs) between these ROIs were estimated and tested for group differences for reward and loss anticipation separately. BD participants, relative to healthy controls, displayed decreased activation selectively in the left and right VS during anticipation of reward, but not during loss anticipation. PPI analyses showed decreased functional connectivity between the left VS and aPFC in BD patients compared with healthy controls during reward anticipation. This is the first study showing decreased VS activity and aberrant connectivity in the reward-processing circuitry in euthymic, medicated BD patients during reward anticipation. Our findings contrast with research supporting a reward hypersensitivity model of BD, and add to the body of literature suggesting that blunted activation of reward processing circuits may be a vulnerability factor for mood disorders.

Neural Correlates of Impaired Reward-Effort Integration in Remitted Bulimia Nervosa.

PubMed

Mueller, Stefanie Verena; Morishima, Yosuke; Schwab, Simon; Wiest, Roland; Federspiel, Andrea; Hasler, Gregor

2018-03-01

The integration of reward magnitudes and effort costs is required for an effective behavioral guidance. This reward-effort integration was reported to be dependent on dopaminergic neurotransmission. As bulimia nervosa has been associated with a dysregulated dopamine system and catecholamine depletion led to reward-processing deficits in remitted bulimia nervosa, the purpose of this study was to identify the role of catecholamine dysfunction and its relation to behavioral and neural reward-effort integration in bulimia nervosa. To investigate the interaction between catecholamine functioning and behavioral, and neural responses directly, 17 remitted bulimic (rBN) and 21 healthy individuals (HC) received alpha-methyl-paratyrosine (AMPT) over 24 h to achieve catecholamine depletion in a randomized, crossover study design. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the monetary incentive delay (MID) task to assess reward-effort integration in relation to catecholaminergic neurotransmission at the behavioral and neural level. AMPT reduced the ability to integrate rewards and efforts effectively in HC participants. In contrast, in rBN participants, the reduced reward-effort integration was associated with illness duration in the sham condition and unrelated to catecholamine depletion. Regarding neural activation, AMPT decreased the reward anticipation-related neural activation in the anteroventral striatum. This decrease was associated with the AMPT-induced reduction of monetary earning in HC in contrast to rBN participants. Our findings contributed to the theory of a desensitized dopaminergic system in bulimia nervosa. A disrupted processing of reward magnitudes and effort costs might increase the probability of maintenance of bulimic symptoms.

Motivation and job satisfaction among medical and nursing staff in a Cyprus public general hospital

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The objective of this study was to investigate how medical and nursing staff of the Nicosia General Hospital is affected by specific motivation factors, and the association between job satisfaction and motivation. Furthermore, to determine the motivational drive of socio-demographic and job related factors in terms of improving work performance. Methods A previously developed and validated instrument addressing four work-related motivators (job attributes, remuneration, co-workers and achievements) was used. Two categories of health care professionals, medical doctors and dentists (N = 67) and nurses (N = 219) participated and motivation and job satisfaction was compared across socio-demographic and occupational variables. Results The survey revealed that achievements was ranked first among the four main motivators, followed by remuneration, co-workers and job attributes. The factor remuneration revealed statistically significant differences according to gender, and hospital sector, with female doctors and nurses and accident and emergency (A+E) outpatient doctors reporting greater mean scores (p < 0.005). The medical staff showed statistically significantly lower job satisfaction compared to the nursing staff. Surgical sector nurses and those >55 years of age reported higher job satisfaction when compared to the other groups. Conclusions The results are in agreement with the literature which focuses attention to management approaches employing both monetary and non-monetary incentives to motivate health care professionals. Health care professionals tend to be motivated more by intrinsic factors, implying that this should be a target for effective employee motivation. Strategies based on the survey's results to enhance employee motivation are suggested. PMID:21080954

Nitrous oxide abatement potential from the wastewater sector and the monetary value of the emissions credits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, J. S.; Hamburg, S. P.; Pryor, D.

2009-12-01

As an illustration of the monetary opportunities afforded by greenhouse gas emissions markets, we estimated the potential value of greenhouse gas credits generated in the wastewater sector by switching from secondary to tertiary treatment. Our methodology for estimating emissions is a modification of that used by the Environmental Protection Agency for the U.S. greenhouse gas inventories. Focusing on N2O, we found that tertiary treatment in some situations will result in a net decrease in emissions, though the full range of reported emission factors for treatment plants and effluent in receiving waters could result in a net increase as well. Implementation of tertiary treatment across the U.S. could reduce emissions by up to 800,000 tonnes of N2O per year, generating greenhouse gas emissions credits worth up to 10 billion per year (assuming a market price of 10-40/tonne CO2 equivalents). In practice, it will be important to account for potential increases in CO2 emissions associated with the additional power consumption and chemical use required by tertiary treatment that would reduce the net climatic benefit. The net credits would reduce the cost of operating and maintaining tertiary treatment plants and provide an incentive for managers to optimize operating conditions for N2O reductions, a critical benefit of raising awareness of the link between tertiary treatment and N2O emissions. We outline a strategy for minimizing the uncertainty in quantifying N2O reductions in the hopes of accelerating implementation of a N2O crediting system for tertiary wastewater treatment plants.

Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity.

PubMed

Gergelyfi, Mónika; Jacob, Benvenuto; Olivier, Etienne; Zénon, Alexandre

2015-01-01

Mental fatigue (MF) is commonly observed following prolonged cognitive activity and can have major repercussions on the daily life of patients as well as healthy individuals. Despite its important impact, the cognitive processes involved in MF remain largely unknown. An influential hypothesis states that MF does not arise from a disruption of overused neural processes but, rather, is caused by a progressive decrease in motivation-related task engagement. Here, to test this hypothesis, we measured various neural, autonomic, psychometric and behavioral signatures of MF and motivation (EEG, ECG, pupil size, eye blinks, Skin conductance responses (SCRs), questionnaires and performance in a working memory (WM) task) in healthy volunteers, while MF was induced by Sudoku tasks performed for 120 min. Moreover extrinsic motivation was manipulated by using different levels of monetary reward. We found that, during the course of the experiment, the participants' subjective feeling of fatigue increased and their performance worsened while their blink rate and heart rate variability (HRV) increased. Conversely, reward-induced EEG, pupillometric and skin conductance signal changes, regarded as indicators of task engagement, remained constant during the experiment, and failed to correlate with the indices of MF. In addition, MF did not affect a simple reaction time task, despite the strong influence of extrinsic motivation on this task. Finally, alterations of the motivational state through monetary incentives failed to compensate the effects of MF. These findings indicate that MF in healthy subjects is not caused by an alteration of task engagement but is likely to be the consequence of a decrease in the efficiency, or availability, of cognitive resources.

Stress and reward processing in bipolar disorder: an fMRI study

PubMed Central

Berghorst, Lisa H; Kumar, Poornima; Greve, Doug N; Deckersbach, Thilo; Ongur, Dost; Dutra, Sunny; Pizzagalli, Diego A

2016-01-01

Objectives A link between negative life stress and the onset of mood episodes in bipolar disorder (BD) has been established, but processes underlying such a link remain unclear. Growing evidence suggests that stress can negatively affect reward processing and related neurobiological substrates, indicating that a dysregulated reward system may provide a partial explanation. The aim of this study was to test the impact of stress on reward-related neural functioning in BD. Methods Thirteen euthymic or mildly depressed individuals with BD and 15 controls performed a Monetary Incentive Delay task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging during no-stress and stress (negative psychosocial stressor involving poor performance feedback and threat of monetary deductions) conditions. Results In hypothesis-driven region-of- interest-based analyses, a significant group by condition interaction emerged in the amygdala during reward anticipation. Relative to controls, while anticipating a potential reward, subjects with BD were characterized by amygdalar hyperactivation in the no-stress condition but hypoactivation during stress. Moreover, relative to controls, subjects with BD had significantly larger amygdala volumes. After controlling for structural differences, the effects of stress on amygdalar function remained, whereas groups no longer differed during the no-stress condition. During reward consumption, a group by condition interaction emerged in the putamen due to increased putamen activation to rewards in participants with BD during stress, but an opposite pattern in controls. Conclusions Overall, findings highlight possible impairments in using reward-predicting cues to adaptively engage in goal-directed actions in BD, combined with stress-induced hypersensitivity to reward consumption. Potential clinical implications are discussed. PMID:27870507