Research Seminar in Economics, May 7

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Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote follow-through when behaviors involve repeated effort over time. We test this in two different settings. First, in collaboration with a U.S. state transportation agency, we conduct a field experiment (n = 27,000) to test whether adding friction during an initial sign-up process for a new carpooling platform increases usage. While a more effortful sign-up process leads to a decrease in sign-ups to the carpool platform, overall carpooling increases: of 9,400 observed trips, the more effortful sign-up group took almost 800 more trips overall. Second, in an online lab experiment (n = 500), we ask participants to complete a difficult task, and test the effect of a more effortful sign-up process on returning to complete a second task the next day. Participants assigned to the more effortful sign-up process returned at a 30% higher rate. Finally, we discuss and provide evidence of mechanisms.