How does "Use an anti-charity donation as your stake" work?

Loss aversion makes the prospect of losing money more motivating than gaining the same amount. Anti-charity contracts add an additional motivational layer: the money doesn’t just disappear, it goes to a cause you actively oppose. The combination of financial loss and values-based aversion creates a particularly strong pre-commitment.

How does "Make an irrevocable decision about a recurring temptation" work?

A Ulysses contract (named for Odysseus lashing himself to the mast) removes decision-making authority from your future self at the moment of temptation. Unlike a commitment that can be renegotiated, a Ulysses contract works by making the option physically unavailable or mechanically enforced — so willpower is never required.

How does "Choose between carrots and sticks based on your goal type" work?

Approach and avoidance motivation are governed by partly distinct neural systems. Loss-framed consequences activate avoidance motivation, which is well-matched to stopping unwanted behaviors. Reward-based incentives activate approach motivation, which is better matched to initiating new positive behaviors. Mismatching the incentive type to the goal type reduces effectiveness.

How does "Schedule commitment renewal to prevent drift" work?

Motivation is highest at the moment a commitment is made and decays over time through habituation and changing circumstances. A commitment made under high motivation but never renewed loses its psychological force without the person noticing, creating a gap between a nominal commitment and actual engagement. Renewal restores the motivational context.

How does "Make a public commitment to create social accountability" work?

Public commitment adds a social cost to failure: the prospect of looking inconsistent or unreliable to others one respects. Self-presentation concerns and the desire for consistency between stated identity and behavior (Festinger’s cognitive dissonance) reinforce the commitment without requiring financial stakes.

How does "Pre-identify your temptations before writing the contract" work?

Generic commitments fail at specific temptation points because the contract language doesn’t cover the real decision the person faces in the moment. Pre-identifying temptations closes the loopholes before they exist, exploiting implementation intention research showing that anticipating obstacles and planning responses dramatically improves follow-through.

Ian Ayres (Carrots and Sticks)

How do commitment contracts help you follow through on goals?

Binding your future self before motivation disappears

Short answer

A commitment contract binds your future self to a course of action by attaching real costs — financial, social, or reputational — to failure. The evidence from savings programs and behavioral economics is solid for financial commitments; effects on health and habit change are positive but more variable, and contracts work best when you already want to change.

Yale Law professor Ian Ayres popularized the systematic use of commitment contracts in his book "Carrots and Sticks." The core logic is simple but psychologically deep: your future self in the moment of temptation is not the same person as the self who set the goal. Commitment contracts are a technology for binding that weaker future self to the intentions of the stronger present one.

The practices (7)

Why it works

A formal contract exploits loss aversion and social accountability simultaneously: the prospect of losing money or reputation makes the cost of failure immediate and concrete, while the referee prevents quiet renegotiation. The specificity of a written contract also reduces the ambiguity that allows people to rationalize failure as "close enough."

How to do it

1Define your goal in precise, measurable terms (not "exercise more" but "run 3×/week for 8 weeks").
2Choose a stake that is genuinely aversive — a financial amount, a public commitment, or an anti-charity donation.
3Designate a referee who is not your cheerleader: someone willing to call a miss a miss.
4Put the contract in writing, even if only in an email to the referee.

Evidence

RCT / meta-analysis

Commitment contracts have RCT support in savings (Ashraf et al., SEED accounts) and in smoking cessation (Gine, Karlan & Zinman). Meta-analyses of commitment devices generally find positive but heterogeneous effects across contexts.

Honest caveat: Effects are strongest for people who self-select into commitment contracts — they already want to change. When commitments are offered but not chosen, effects are smaller. Some financial commitment devices for health (e.g., stickK) show mixed results in natural field use.

— Gine, Karlan & Zinman (2010), "Put your money where your butt is: A commitment contract for smoking cessation", American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
— Ashraf, Karlan & Yin (2006), "Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines", Quarterly Journal of Economics

Common mistake: Choosing a stake that sounds meaningful but isn’t actually aversive enough to change behavior — the number needs to sting, not be performative.

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