Commitment device psychology: why 59 per cent chose it.
Commitment device psychology starts here: offered a free way to make their earlier work plan binding, 59 per cent of participants took it. They were mostly people whose present bias had already shown up. So they knew themselves, and they wanted their later freedom removed.
A free way to tie your own hands.
The same experiment offered participants commitment at a price of zero. They could make their earlier allocation stick instead of remaking it on the day. As a result, 59 per cent chose it. This shows why people choose to tie their hands: they had felt the pull and were not fooled about themselves.
What the 59 per cent does not prove.
However, the number measures what people asked for, not what it did for them. The paper did not show their output went up because of it. So the narrow claim is this: most wanted their later freedom removed. Whether precommitment against procrastination rescued their afternoons is a separate question the paper did not answer.
The hopeful and uncomfortable sides of commitment device psychology.
The hopeful half is that you can see it coming, since you know you won't do this tonight. That knowledge is the precondition for the only available move. But the uncomfortable half matters more. If nothing ever stopped your evening self overruling your morning self, you have only been deciding, over and over.
Apply commitment device psychology to your past decisions.
Count how many times you decided to start in the last two years, including the shower decisions.
Next to that number, count how many had anything attached that a later you could not cancel alone.
From the book.
The hopeful half is that people can see it coming, and so can you. You already know you won't do this tonight, and you knew it this morning too, and that knowledge is not useless to you. It is the precondition for the only move that is actually available.
I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start, chapter 8: Why later always wins
Questions about commitment device psychology.
What does commitment device psychology say about the 59 per cent?
Most people who had felt the pull to delay wanted their earlier decision made binding, even at no cost.
Did commitment raise their output?
The paper the author read does not say so. It reports what people asked for, not what it did for them.
Why is knowing you will delay useful?
Because seeing it coming is the precondition for the only move available. That move is arranging something your evening self cannot cancel.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 8, “Why later always wins”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Present bias for effort: why Thursday shrinks.
- 02 Hyperbolic discounting explained: model, not data.
- 03 Commitment device psychology: why 59 per cent chose it.
- 04 Does caring more cause procrastination: no one knows.
- 05 Are entrepreneurs more impatient: about time, yes.
- 06 Accountability partner for goals: one line tonight.
- 07 What if I still don't do it: read the result.
- 08 Augustine on akrasia: the garden and the Greek.