Committing Not to Procrastinate...

...or committing to write? A couple years ago Self-Exclusion used the example of a week-long dissertation writing-lock-in, one with $50 at stake for the volunteer participants, to muse on positive and negative commitments, commitments to do something versus commitments to refrain from doing something. A similar writing event was hosted by the University of Chicago this summer -- one of four now held every year. A new wrinkle is that the write-in was held off-campus, which presumably puts the usual quotidian distractions of the participating graduate students somewhat out of reach. After the four hours of work are complete, there's a lunchtime program:

The common barriers to writing—perfectionism and daily distractions—fall away through the program’s rigid structure and community spirit. During the lunch break, speakers from the many offices on campus that serve graduate students address common questions and problems, such as how to submit a dissertation or where to go for career advice on campus.

The community spirit angle is interesting, as it is a dimension that is missing from garden-style casino self-exclusion. It is a commonplace that gambling exclusion works better when it is paired with a treatment regimen, and perhaps the treatment in part serves as a source of social support.

Once again, $50 is at stake for the dissertation writers, and one of those lunchtime services consists of a free massage. Further, in what surely is a major incentive for U of C graduate students, those who put in the 20 hours of interruption-free work during the week receive a Latin-inscripted tee shirt:

And if the satisfaction of marching toward that PhD weren’t enough reward, the students who complete each session get a T-shirt from Graduate Student Affairs that says scribo, ergo conficiam—“I write, therefore I finish.”

Committing to Getting Out of Bed

While gambling self-exclusion programs are aimed at preventing an undesired behavior, some commitments are aimed at motivating a desired behavior. (There's a bit of arbitrariness here, of course, as committing to doing something is like committing to not doing any of the alternatives.) My suspicion is that it might be easier to honor a commitment not to do one well-specified thing -- don't go to a casino -- than it is to commit to doing something -- say, working more -- because there are many alternatives to working. There's only one way to violate the no gambling pledge, but many ways not to work. But the alternative to getting out of bed is pretty much just staying in bed, so a positive commitment to getting out of bed might work pretty well. Indeed, I keep my alarm clock away from my bed to provide a small commitment to achieving verticality in the morning.

That scheme might not be enough, however. Do not despair, as technology has progressed to the point where you can raise the stakes of not getting up. The SnūzNLūz alarm clock allows you to precommit to making a donation to a cause you loathe -- an anti-charity -- every time you hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. SnūzNLūz users will either be prompt at getting out of bed, or the revenues of various presidential libraries will soar.

Motivating Workouts

Self-exclusion noted a gym where non-attendance at scheduled workouts results in fines. The fine system is presumably motivated by the gym's capacity constraints: popular classes are over-subscribed, so reservations are required. The fines dissuade people from making, but then not honoring, their reservations. The system is similar to cancellation fees for hotels or airlines or upscale restaurants.

Via the Freakonomics blog, we learn of a Boston-area gym-pricing option that features higher fees for missed workouts. The variant of the fee schedule that involves enhanced payments for missing a daily workout has much in common with the fines imposed by the Chicago gym. Nevertheless, the motivations behind the two plans seem to be quite different: one is about managing a capacity constraint, and the other is about bolstering workout incentives. (And as the Boston plan is one that is self-selected among other fee arrangements, perhaps there is a systematic difference in the "types" of exercisers in the two locales.) Does the motivation behind the pricing scheme matter, or will the two similar plans produce similar results in terms of exercise behavior?

Paying (Twice?) Not to Go To the Gym

People join health clubs with the intent of heading there frequently. Alas, many find that they do not go as often as planned, and that they would have been better off not to join, but to purchase a ten-visit pass (or a series of such passes) instead. Further, people maintain their health club memberships for a month or two after they stop going to the gym at all.

I am drawing these claims from an article by Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier entitled "Paying Not to Go to the Gym" (ungated version, 35-page pdf, here).

A friend of Self-Exclusion notes the policies of her health club. This club offers classes, for which participants are asked to pre-register. (The most popular classes can fill up quickly, especially those classes conducted on Fridays and Saturdays.) One strategy might be to sign up for a bunch of classes as soon as registration is open, but a system of penalties for missed classes or late cancellations makes that strategy untenable. If you miss a class for which you are pre-registered, you will have to pay a fine or lose your right to pre-register. Cancelling a pre-registration without penalty is allowed, as long as it occurs two hours or more before the class -- 24-hours or more for those busy Friday and Saturday classes. (Apparently one ploy for getting into a popular class is to try to register exactly two hours before the class, as some people will have just cancelled.) If you are more than ten minutes late for a class you will not be allowed to take part, and you are fined as if you had not shown up at all.

Our informant indicates that the cancellation policy has proven very effective in motivating class attendance. But for wildly optimistic folks, those who do not understand the extent of their own self-control problems, the cancellation policy presents the possibility of paying twice not to go to the gym: once for an underused membership, and a second time for missed classes.

Negative and Positive Commitments

The gambling form of self-exclusion is a negative commitment, a pledge to avoid wagering. Other commitments are positive, resolutions to accomplish something. Of course, these terms are somewhat arbitrary, given that a (negative) commitment to avoid wagering is simultaneously a positive commitment to engage only in non-wagering behavior. But only somewhat arbitrary -- the activities that violate a negative commitment seem to be a much more proscribed set than those that constitute a violation of a positive commitment. All else equal (which is never the case), are positive commitments harder to adhere to than negative ones?

Last week, during spring break, the library at the University of Chicago hosted an institution aimed at providing a positive commitment for graduate students to make progress on their dissertations. (I can't find any web-based info on this so I am relying on my faulty memory.) The students could sign up to take part in a write-in, in which they were more or less locked in the library for four (I think) hours per day. The students, stickK-like, put up $50 that would be forfeited if they did not put in their time. I understand that for some students, at least, the write-in was a success.

A positive commitment to write a thesis is simultaneously a negative commitment not to procrastinate in writing your thesis. (Incidentally, I meant to post this days ago.) But there are so many ways to procrastinate, while the ways to break a negative commitment to avoiding gambling are only those behaviors that involve gambling.