Investment Model of Commitment Scale: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices

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Practices that may help

  1. The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
    Caryl Rusbult’s Investment Model proposes that commitment is driven by three factors: satisfaction (how good the relationship feels), quality of alternatives (how appealing life outside the relationship seems), and investment size (what you’ve put into it that would be lost on leaving). All three are modifiable — and understanding which is weakest gives a precise target for strengthening commitment. The model has extensive empirical support across diverse relationship types and cultures.
  2. Commitment Contracts, Made Practical
    A commitment contract binds your future self to a course of action by attaching real costs — financial, social, or reputational — to failure. The evidence from savings programs and behavioral economics is solid for financial commitments; effects on health and habit change are positive but more variable, and contracts work best when you already want to change.
  3. Making your investments visible to both partners
    Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
    The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
  4. Schedule commitment renewal to prevent drift
    Recommit explicitly every few weeks — the motivation that drove the original contract fades faster than the contract itself.
    Commitment Contracts, Made Practical
  5. Understanding and managing the lure of alternatives
    Recognize when comparison to alternatives is inflating their apparent quality — and how to recalibrate.
    The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
  6. Willingness to sacrifice: building relationship-oriented decision-making
    Practice making at least one weekly decision that prioritizes the relationship over personal short-term convenience.
    The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
  7. Satisfaction audit: tracking what is actually good
    Regularly inventory what genuinely works in the relationship — not as gratitude practice, but as an honest baseline.
    The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
  8. Commitment contracts with real stakes
    Put money or a consequence on the line so failing the goal costs something concrete.
    Precommitment Devices (Ulysses Contracts)
  9. Pro-relationship maintenance behaviors
    Actively do things that maintain and strengthen the relationship, rather than expecting it to run itself.
    The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
  10. Build genuine commitment before the work begins
    Goal commitment is the moderator — without it, a hard goal backfires.
    Goal Setting Theory, Made Practical

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