Sign Me Up! Maximize the Commitment Power of e-Pledges for Prosocial Causes

Abstract

Prosocial organizations increasingly rely on e-pledges to promote their cause and secure commitment. Four lab studies and one semi-field study conducted during 2016’s U.S. presidential primaries examined whether and why pledging electronically compromises subsequent commitment to a cause, and how to remedy this limitation. Our results consistently demonstrated that e-pledging (versus traditional hand-signed pledges) is less effective at securing commitment behavior across four prosocial domains–scientific advancement, the democratic process, social advocacy, and peace–because it fails to evoke a strong psychological sense of self-awareness. Based on the mechanism identified, we further developed two easy-to-administer e-pledge interventions that can effectively increase commitment via raising e-pledgers’ self-awareness. Meta-analysis across all studies confirms the reliability of the proposed causal link. As technological innovations continue to redefine how people interact with the world, this research sheds light on how to transform a simple virtual acknowledgment to deeper commitment–and, ideally, to action.