Precommitment

In psychology, precommitment refers to a strategy or a method of self-control that an agent may use to restrict the number of choices available to him at a future time. The strategy may also involve the imposition of obstacles or additional costs to certain courses of action in advance. As theorized by the social scientist Jon Elster, agents may precommit themselves when they predict that their preferences will change but wish to ensure that their future actions will align with their current preferences.

For the concept in cryptography, see commitment scheme. For the campaign to reduce self-harm by gamblers, see Andrew Wilkie.

Precommitment has also been studied as a bargaining strategy in which agents bind themselves to one course of action in order to enhance the credibility of present threats. Some scholars have proposed that collective political agents may also engage in precommitment by adopting constitutions that limit the scope of future legislation. The validity of this application of precommitment theory has been called into question, however.

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