Hard vs. soft commitments: Experimental evidence from a sample of French gamblers
Theory and Decision
We run a field experiment with regular players of betting games registered with La Française des Jeux – French state-run betting agency – to test theories of commitment and temptation. We characterize the effect of hard and soft commitments.
temptation
behavioral public policy
Abstract
People use commitment devices to formalize and facilitate their goals. Self-commitments are ubiquitous and may take different forms: soft, when the commitment can be broken at a low cost, or hard, when that cost is high. The effects of soft and hard commitments have usually been studied separately. We conduct an online experiment with 1527 individuals representative of a big gambling company’s client population to study the comparative effects of hard and soft commitment devices in a risk taking game. Our results show that asking for a limit leads subjects to reduce their risk-taking even when the limit turns out to be non-binding, i.e., the commitment is ex-post soft. Hard commitments lead to slightly lower levels of risk taking.