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- October 14, 2026
- Decision Science
What Doctors Get Wrong About Incentives: How and Why Time-Saving Incentives Outperform Equivalent Cash in Cancer Screening
Date: 2026-10-21
Time: 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM
Venue: 90402 International Hall
Speaker: Prof. Zheshuai Yang (Zhejiang University)
This research examines the psychological processes and factors that shape how recipients respond to time-saving versus financial incentives for cancer screening. Four studies using in-depth interviews, a survey, a field experiment, and a controlled experiment in the context of colorectal cancer screening show that spending money to save targeted residences’ time evokes perceived sincerity, which increases engagement more than giving recipients an equivalent financial incentive directly. In a real government Colorectal cancer screening program, a time incentive (home delivery of sampling tubes) outperformed three financial incentives of equal value on willingness, participation, and completion. In further evidence of process, decision-making style moderated the effect, which emerged among cognition-based but not affect-based decision makers. Notably, both frontline doctors and health care professionals systematically mispredict this pattern, expecting financial incentives to work best. Theoretically, this research is the first to show that reallocating the same resources from a payment to a time-saving service raises health participation. Practically, it demonstrates that saving targeted residences’ time is a more effective, cost-equivalent lever than paying them directly, one that implementers consistently overlook.
Time: 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM
Venue: 90402 International Hall
Speaker: Prof. Zheshuai Yang (Zhejiang University)
This research examines the psychological processes and factors that shape how recipients respond to time-saving versus financial incentives for cancer screening. Four studies using in-depth interviews, a survey, a field experiment, and a controlled experiment in the context of colorectal cancer screening show that spending money to save targeted residences’ time evokes perceived sincerity, which increases engagement more than giving recipients an equivalent financial incentive directly. In a real government Colorectal cancer screening program, a time incentive (home delivery of sampling tubes) outperformed three financial incentives of equal value on willingness, participation, and completion. In further evidence of process, decision-making style moderated the effect, which emerged among cognition-based but not affect-based decision makers. Notably, both frontline doctors and health care professionals systematically mispredict this pattern, expecting financial incentives to work best. Theoretically, this research is the first to show that reallocating the same resources from a payment to a time-saving service raises health participation. Practically, it demonstrates that saving targeted residences’ time is a more effective, cost-equivalent lever than paying them directly, one that implementers consistently overlook.