Once committed publicly, people act to stay consistent with that commitment even against their interests.
Cialdini's field studies found that people who signed a small petition were far likelier to accept a large lawn sign later. Written and public commitments hold much harder than private ones.
In practice
- An employee who tells the team she is quitting smoking finds the third week harder to abandon than the first.
- A department that publishes its target in the all-hands defends the number long after the assumptions behind it have failed.