Rewarding safety belt usage at an industrial setting: Tests of treatment generality and response maintenance.

Workers at an industrial plant got a paper flier when they left work wearing a seat belt. The flier entered them in a prize raffle. Researchers tracked morning arrivals and afternoon departures across four phases: baseline, fliers, no fliers, fliers again.

The team wanted to know if the reward would work only at quitting time or also carry over to the next morning when no prize was offered.

Afternoon seat-belt use doubled while the fliers were handed out. Morning use rose a little, showing weak generalization. When the fliers stopped, both rates dropped back near the starting point.

Berler et al. (1982) ran the same raffle idea one year earlier and saw the same 20-point jump, proving the effect is reliable.

Haring et al. (1988) swapped paper fliers for a free soft drink at a drive-through and still doubled belt use, showing the reward medium does not matter.

Van Houten et al. (2011) replaced prizes with a pedal that would not let drivers accelerate until they buckled. Their commercial drivers hit 100% use and kept it. The pedal device outperformed the flier raffle, but it needs hardware the 1983 plant could not install.

If you need a quick seat-belt boost where tech is too costly, hand out a raffle ticket only when the belt is on. Expect a fast jump and some next-day carry-over, but plan to keep the tickets coming or the gain will fade. Pair the raffle with a pedal lock or enforcement if you want the change to stick.