Why Pledges?

Pledge applications like Runner present a new way to challenge yourself with meaningful incentives, building on a growing body of supportive research from the field of behavioral economics.

Onchain Accountability

Pledges effectively function as an accountability app with financial stakes. This is compelling because it leverages key principles from behavioral economics and nudging theory. First, the concept of loss aversion, where people prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains, plays a key role. By putting money down on achieving a goal, users are highly motivated to avoid its loss, thus increasing their commitment and making the goal matter more. Pledges also act as a credible commitment device, helping individuals align long-term goals with short-term actions, avoiding the pitfalls of present-biased behavior.

Nudging theory further supports Pledges' effectiveness. By subtly influencing users' decisions, Pledges can encourage users to set realistic goals, choose appropriate stakes, and select meaningful beneficiaries like charities. The immediate financial consequences for failing to meet goals counteract procrastination, providing strong motivation to achieve them. And even if users fail, their money is donated to charity, creating a positive outcome. This combination makes Pledges a powerful tool for enhancing personal motivation and achieving personal goals.

Accountability Tools are Both Useful & Desired

At times, humans can simply struggle with self-control and their future accountability. Of course, there are plenty of anecdotal examples, but even empirical research supports this. A well-known study from Della Vigna and Malmendier titled "Paying Not to Go to the Gym" (2006) studied gym membership and attendance decisions from thousands of gym-(no)goers. They showed that low-attendance members still opted for a yearly membership even when it would have made more sense for them to have simply bought day passes, once they tallied up their yearly visits. These results point to a common tendency for humans to be overconfident when predicting their future behavior, like their expected number of trips to the gym, without some accountability device.

At the same time, there are plenty of examples of popular products today that successfully nudge their users into developing good habits. For example, Apple lets users monitor and limit screen time on their iPhones and iPads, while Duolingo has famously perfected the daily streak in users' completed lessons to help them stay committed to their language learning goals. We believe Pledges are a new application in this category, combining the very best insights from behavioral economics, gamification, and blockchain-based economic incentive mechanisms.