Purpose

Mobile fitness apps (MFAs) are increasingly popular for people to promote physical activity (PA) and further enhance health status via behavioral change techniques (BCTs), but the phenomenon of users abandoning MFAs is still common. For improving users' PA and decreasing dropout rates of MFAs, this study intends to gain insights into the effects of major BCTs-based incentive factors on users' PA under MFAs context and the gender differences in their effects.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on self-determination theory, three major incentive factors were chosen from the perspective of self-peer-platform incentives, i.e. self-monitoring (SM), social support (SS) and platform rewards (PR). A dataset of 4,530 users from a popular mobile fitness app was collected and was analyzed using fixed effects models.

Findings

The results show that all three types of incentive factors are positively associated with users' PA. The estimated effect sizes can be ordered as: SM > PR > SS. Moreover, social support has a stronger positive impact on PA of females than males, whereas platform rewards have a weaker positive effect on PA of females than males. In addition, the results also indicate there are no significant gender differences in the effect of self-monitoring.

Originality/value

There is insufficient research on systematically examining the effects of different types of incentive factors of MFAs on users' PA in one study. This study extends the current understanding of incentive factors by simultaneously examining different incentive factors and the role of gender. The findings can also provide insightful guidance for the design of MFAs.

中文翻译：

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了解自我对等平台激励对移动健身应用程序中用户身体活动的影响：性别角色

目的

移动健身应用程序（MFA）对于人们进行体育锻炼（PA）并通过行为改变技术（BCT）进一步增强健康状况的应用越来越受欢迎，但是用户放弃MFA的现象仍然很普遍。为了提高用户的PA并降低MFA的辍学率，本研究旨在深入了解基于BCT的主要激励因素在MFA情况下对用户PA的影响及其作用中的性别差异。

设计/方法/方法

基于自我决定理论，从自我对等平台激励的角度选择了三个主要的激励因素，即自我监控（SM），社会支持（SS）和平台奖励（PR）。收集了来自流行的移动健身应用程序的4,530个用户的数据集，并使用固定效果模型进行了分析。

发现

结果表明，这三种类型的激励因素均与用户的PA呈正相关。估计的效果大小可按以下顺序排序：SM> PR> SS。此外，社会支持对女性的PA的正面影响要强于男性，而平台奖励对女性的PA的正面影响要弱于男性。此外，结果还表明，自我监控的效果没有明显的性别差异。

创意/价值

在一项研究中，还没有足够的研究来系统地检查不同类型的MFA激励因素对用户PA的影响。通过同时研究不同的激励因素和性别角色，本研究扩展了对激励因素的当前理解。这些发现还可以为MFA的设计提供有见地的指导。