The effect on endurance of a verbal commitment versus exhortation,task information,and monetary incentives

Fifty-six male students worked to better their initial endurance scores on a second trial. Those who had formed a verbal commitment to do so performed significantly better than those offered a monetary incentive, exhortations to try hard, or information on how to deal with fatigue cues. The power of the “contract” in this study appears to be due not to additional specificity of information or to experimenter demands but more directly to the reinforcement value of having made a commitment in the presence of another.