Pledges
Pledges involve an individual making a promise
to perform, or refrain from, a particular action.
Pledges can be made to the self, to a loved-one, to
a professional, a group of friends or strangers, or to
society generally. There is evidence that some forms
of pledge are more effective than others, and we
cover a few different forms of the general idea here.
For our context, a pledge may be targeted at a specific
action, such as texting while driving, or may be more
generalised, such as mobile phone use more generally.
It may be positive, where a behaviour will be performed
- “I pledge to always use a ‘do not disturb’ function
when driving”, or negative, where a behaviour will not
be performed - “I pledge to never use a hand held
device while driving”. The wording of the pledge may be
scripted, or left to the individual to personalise. Pledges
have a link to behaviour change theory literatures¹
(pages 22) in that they involve a form of ‘behavioural
contract’ (what will or won’t be done) and ‘commitment’
(‘I will/won’t’) to behaviour change. As such, they are an
opportunity to embed theory into practice.
It is important to remember that behaviour change
techniques work best when techniques are combined.
According to a taxonomy of 93 behavioural change
techniques, these two techniques alone would not
necessarily be enough to encourage behaviour change.
Adding ‘social support’ (by including the influence of
peers and significant others), or building in ‘monitoring
of the behaviour’ (where there is some form of a check
on progress) could increase the impact of a pledge.
Pledges form a part of several of our case studies,
including Message Not Delivered (p79) First Car
(p43) and My Red Thumb (p105).
¹ Fylan, F. (2017). Using Behaviour Change Techniques: Guidance for the road safety community. RAC Foundation. Available from: https://www.racfoundation.
org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Using_behaviour_change_techniques_Guidance_for_the_road_safety_community.pdf
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