Precommitment

For the concept in cryptography, see commitment scheme. For the campaign to reduce self-harm by gamblers, see Andrew Wilkie.

In psychology, precommitment is a strategy or a method of self-control that a person or organisation may use to restrict the number of choices available to them at a future time.[1] Precommitment may also involve imposing obstacles or additional costs to certain courses of action in advance. Agents may precommit themselves when they predict that their preferences will change but wish to ensure that their future actions will align with their current preferences.[2]

Precommitment has been studied as a bargaining strategy in which agents bind themselves to one course of action in order to enhance the credibility of present threats. Some scholars have proposed that collective political groups may also engage in precommitment by adopting constitutions that limit the scope of future legislation.[3]

  1. ^ Silva, Sara Graça Da (2016). Morality and Emotion. Oxon: Routledge. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-138-12130-0.
  2. ^ Elster, Jon (2000). Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–7. ISBN 0521665612.
  3. ^ e.g. Stephen Holmes, "Precommitment and the paradox of democracy," in Constitutionalism and Democracy, eds. John Elster and Rune Slagstad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 195-240.