Commitment Pledges

Goal: Increase participation in online groups Evidence rating (PDN): Tentative Civic signal: Connect — Cultivate Belonging When to use: Proactive

What it is

Periodic requests sent to participants asking them to commit or re-commit to participating in a group. If they do not commit, members are removed from the group. If they do, their commitment is seen by all group members.

Intended impact

Commitment pledges are intended to increase user participation, group activity, and retention. They also aim to provide users with increased likelihood of psychological safety and feelings of value and importance while increasing inclusive participation.

Evidence that it works

Popowski et al., 2024 conducted a study in which participants were placed in common interest groups for three weeks on a mobile group chat platform called Commit and asked to engage in conversation with each other. Participants were randomly assigned to either a treatment condition in which they were asked to ‘commit’ every two days (and risk being removed if they did not), or to a control condition in which participants were nudged to participate (with no specific consequence).

Results showed that if participants were in the commit condition, they sent double the number of messages and were more likely to remain active. (Note: all effects we include are statistically significant, unless otherwise stated.) However, being in the commit group did not increase inclusive participation (i.e. there was no reduced gap between frequent and infrequent contributors). Qualitative interviews conducted after the experiment suggest that being in the commit group made people feel safer, more comfortable to contribute, and more able to rely on each other.

While the results above are promising, it is important to note that the study was conducted with students in a course for credit and on a simulated social media platform which limits the study's generalizability.

Why it matters

Many online groups, including those meant to create community and provide social support, struggle to have sustained participation. Many don’t survive past the initial days before they are able to reach critical mass. Such online groups - and the members they are intended to support - benefit from designs that can help them reach critical mass, sustain engagement and thrive.

Special considerations

As may be implicit, this intervention was designed and tested with groups that have a common interest in mind, so it is unclear - and perhaps unlikely - that it would be effective on a large social media platform

Including commitment as a prosocial design intervention hinges on the assumption that those committing will be engaging in prosocial contributions.

Citations

• *Commit: Online Groups with Participation Commitments* — Popowski, Lindsay, Yutong Zhang, and Michael S. Bernstein (Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 8. CSCW2)

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From the Prosocial Design Network's Digital Intervention Library (https://www.prosocialdesign.org/library/commitment-pledges), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Reformatted for the RT Commons; text otherwise as published. Library citation: Prosocial Design Network (2024), Digital Intervention Library, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Q4RMB. Anything built from this pattern should credit the Prosocial Design Network and the researchers cited above.

Details

• goal: Increase participation in online groups
• citations: [object Object]
• image alt: A dialog box with a picture of two hands shaking, which says "I pledge to participate in this group." the illustration says the user may Commit to the pledge or decline it. It says beneath that the pledge will be made visible to the community.
• image url: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647f696dc653a97c26f42a0b/695017461f07ca7587e0b315_Commitment%402x.png
• pdn rating: Tentative
• when to use: Proactive
• civic signal: Connect
• pdn library doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/Q4RMB
• civic signal goal: Cultivate Belonging