Definitionv1
Written commitment: a behavioral commitment that has been
Written commitment: a behavioral commitment that has been externally encoded in physical or digital form, making it concrete, reviewable, and confrontational to the future self, thereby transforming a mental event into a persistent artifact that activates consistency pressure and forces specificity
Why This Is a Definition
This definition establishes written commitment by identifying its genus (behavioral commitment) and differentia (external encoding that makes it concrete and confrontational). It precisely distinguishes it from mental commitments by specifying the cognitive transformation that occurs and the three reinforcing mechanisms that make it more effective.