On public commitment and achievement
|December 9, 2009
Women who made a public commitment to lose weight achieved 102% of their weight loss goals and 97% kept the weight off, compared to 88% achievement levels for people with no public commitment.
I find the measurement used to track subjects susceptibility to normative influence (how people behave based on social approval) somewhat flawed, but otherwise Nyer and Dellande have confirmed what could be a lever for marketers.
Increasing the how public a commitment is made would probably yield even better results; that’s why The Biggest Loser contestants always lose massive amounts of weight.
