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Earlier this week, the fire alarm sounded loudly and persistently in EveryFit’s office.  And yet both our team as well as friends at another company decided not to skedaddle urgently, even though our lives could have conceivably been on the line.  In fact, many of us questioned whether we should have left the building at all.  One guy said that in college, he used to sleep through fire alarms, and the rest of us nodded in agreement.  In sum, the value of doing nothing seemed greater than the perceived probability that we were going to die in a fire that was raging through our building.

With sirens blaring, the fire trucks rushed through the building to discover, as we had thought, that there was no actual fire.   This incident reinforces many insights into social behavioral psychology that are as relevant in everyday life as they are in triggering healthy behavior change:

1)      The anchoring of false alarms – Similar to the story about crying wolf, if you’ve lived through false fire alarms before, you’re unlikely to believe that there’s anything different this time around.  People are pattern-driven, so a trigger must offer evidence to defy the pattern in order to be effective.

2)      Fire alarms trigger only one human sense – you hear the ingratiating sound of the alarm, but none of the other four senses are immediately engaged, unless you’re in the middle of the fire.  Bottom line: the more senses engaged, the more credible and influential the trigger. If you can see the fire with your own eyes, feel the heat, and/or smell the smoke, you’re more likely to stop, drop, and roll.

That said it’s not necessary to engage multiple senses to trigger a desired action.  For anyone focused on behavior change, it’s important to deliver triggers that engage the most valuable human sense for the task at hand.  In the case of fires, sound alarms arguably engage the least valuable sense for convincing people to leave a burning building.  After all, you can hear the alarm but you likely can’t hear the fire.

3)      Social interaction is a double-edged sword – On the one hand, if a colleague were to burst into the office and warn us all that a fire was raging, it would have been an effective trigger for us to move.  On the other hand, if we’re all anchored by our past experience with false alarms, we’re likely to sit still and go down in flames unknowingly.

What does this tell us? Above all, it indicates that social proof is very powerful, but that social influence based on anchored thinking is likely to lead to inaction and disaster.  Solomon Asch’sclassic conformity experiments in the 1950s are a case-in-point that social anchoring can lead people astray, even if their initial inclination towards an action or response is correct.

Every day, doctors tell patients that if they don’t manage their chronic diseases—such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular conditions—they’ll die.  And yet the vast majority of people still consume too much sugar, spend too much time on the couch, and don’t see the immediate relationship between their behavior and the consequences of their diseases.

The lesson:  most of your doctor’s advice is like a fire alarm, where the immediate reward of inactivity and bad nutrition is still more visible, tasty, fragrant, and tangible than the prospect of dying.   For behavioral triggers to be actionable, they must be credible, engage the dominant human sense for a given task, and apply the power of unanchored social proof.  Until then, we all risk going down in flames.

60 Minutes recently ran a story about the increasingly addictive nature of slot machines.  According to the story, players became so addicted to slots they described their experience as a “kiss from a lover” and checked in to rehab with slot withdrawal shakes.  One slot addict admitted he became so engaged in the slot experience that he could not remember his children’s name while playing.

What can the exercise industry learn from casinos? I don’t want to suggest that making exercise addictive would be a good thing or that I agree with casinos preying on the addictiveness of slots.  Addiction, even to something good for you like exercise, is probably unhealthy and not in the best interest of the individual.  However, perhaps we can apply some of the slot machine concepts for a good cause – to help people build a habit of exercise.

First, we have to understand why the new slot machines are addictive.  According to MIT anthropology Professor Natasha Schull, slots are now more like high-tech video games with carefully designed elements to hook the user and make the experience as engaging as possible.  For the addicted player, it’s actually more about the experience than the opportunity to win money.  In fact, Schull described “gambler’s who had won the jackpot that became irritated because it stopped the flow of play.”

I’ll lay out a few of the addictive elements that researches like Schull have identified in slot machines and how these elements might be used to help people develop an exercise habit:

1.  Immediate, Fast-Paced Rewards. “What addiction really has to do with is the speed of rewards,” said Schull during the 60 Minutes interview.  The newest slot machines are providing extremely fast-paced play, with simultaneous bets and special bonus periods. There is an opportunity to apply this concept in exercise, an activity that typically makes the participant wait a long time for rewards (weight loss, improved cardiovascular health, etc.).  The exercise industry can increase the speed of rewards by developing short-term incentives for physical activity, perhaps delivering these in a more game like experience.

2.   Constant Winning. Researchers find that slot addicts feel they are always winning, regardless of the balance in their account.  That’s because many of the new slots are constantly ringing up rewards, even though these rewards are often a fraction of the bet placed (a $1 bet might give the user a feeling of winning when only $0.25 is returned to his or her account).  I think the translation to the exercise world works particularly well here.  Any amount of exercise is beneficial.  If positive feedback is properly applied, the exerciser should be able to experience a sense of constant winning, regardless of progress towards long-term goals.

3.  Intangible Rewards. Most slot machines deal in “credits” rather than dollars and cents (i.e. cash is immediately converted to an intangible currency once inserted in to the machine).  As a result, the user gets lost in the experience because it is harder to tie credits to real world value.  Applying intangible rewards in exercise could be a great way to make the experience more engaging, especially for the more casual exerciser.  Take calories, a very prominently displayed metric during cardiovascular exercise.  Some exercisers we have talked to get discouraged tracking calories since this metric can be so easily tied to the real word (i.e. nutrition).  If I can only burn 400 calories in a workout, I’m just barely offsetting the 3 cookies I ate this afternoon.  That’s very discouraging!  Shouldn’t there be a bigger reward?  Maybe a more abstracted metric, like credits, would be more motivating and rewarding.

I would guess the major argument against applying slot concepts to exercise is that the slots are generally considered entertainment, while exercise is widely considered work.  But does that have to be the case?  There is nothing inherently entertaining about sitting in front of a screen for hours on end, pushing a button and watching a wheel spin.  It’s the way the experience is designed that makes this activity entertaining.

While you might not walk in to a gym in the near future and hear coins dispensing and jackpot alarms, we believe a more engaging and fun exercise experience is on the way.

To what extent is your mp3 playlist linked to your workout performance?  A 2009 study by British researchers tested variation in music tempo on the performance of male cyclists and found measurable changes in cyclist response—heart rate and speed/cadence improved in response to higher tempos.

Another 2003 study out of University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse found that with music tempo increases, exercise bikers improved pedaling cadence by 10-15%.   Health columnist Gretchen Reynolds from the New York Times covered these studies and a few others recently—interestingly, some of the test subjects conveyed that the music made them feel that they were working harder and correspondingly pushed them to workout more intensely. These findings are quite interesting and indicate this is a ripe area for research and experimentation.

In the Wisconsin study, the researchers preset the music for the cyclists (i.e. by time sequencing music with no tempo, slow tempo, and fast tempo).   That was in a pre-iPod world.  Nowadays users can dynamically generate music playlists via applications like Genius.    On the exercise front, Nike+ already gives you the opportunity to pick your “homestretch” song for extra motivation at a key time in your run.

And these applications are just scratching the surface.  The truth is, real-time volume, tonal, and tempo manipulation is possible.  With context-aware exercise applications, users should expect Lady Gaga, Vivaldi, and Eminem to help them modulate their intensity levels in strength and cardio training.  Instead of you telling your music player what to play, your player will select music catered to your dynamic workout routine.  Yep, it’s only a matter of time before exercise loses itself in the music…

...they wouldn't be so angry.  According to the Wall Street Journal, physics-based games like "Angry Birds" are ridiculously addictive...so what does this mean for fitness?

Rovio's "Angry Birds" is the #1 iphone game for good reason--great user experience, simple rules, and constant rewards.

Key takeaways for mobile fitness/health:

• Rewards systems and positive reinforcement are critical to user engagement
• Casual games provide a “cognitive distraction”–studies show this improves player moods and stress levels.  Very relevant to fitness.
• The user experience on the mobile phone has far greater potential to achieve mass appeal than PC games and game consoles like the Wii and XBox.  Systems like the Wii Fit and XBox Kinect are scratching the surface of what’s possible.  For the mainstream user, the breakthroughs in fitness will come via the mobile phone because it is ubiquitous, portable, and multi-functional. Unlike consoles, the phone also lends itself well to casual, interrupted use–this is critical for the mainstream user.

Check out the full article here…and get angry for fitness!