For at least the past two decades or so, website, product, and user experience (UX) designers have essentially had a consensus on how to increase the likelihood that users and/or consumers will perform a desired behavior (e.g., buying a product, registering for a workshop, etc.): remove (or at least significantly reduce) any friction related to the desired behavior. In other words, make the experience (and, critically, the actions required to achieve it) as effortless as possible.

Enable one-click purchases.

Minimize the number of fields on a submission form.

Ensure sign-ups are fast and seamless.

The logic underlying these design philosophies is fairly sound. By in large, humans are predisposed to be quite lazy. For instance, we have research to show that if you add even a single step to a check-out or sign-up process, the number of people completing the process drops dramatically. So if your sole goal is to increase participation or clicks, minimizing any and all friction is probably the route with the greatest return on investment.

But what if you care about more than just clicks? What if you - like many leaders and companies - are trying to build cohorts and communities that are actually engaged and committed (not just “signed up”)? Is a “frictionless” experience still the best way to go?

Recent research suggests that it might not be. But before we delve into that, we need to take a trip all the way back to the late-1950s.

In 1959, Elliot Aronson and his colleagues conducted a study on group initiation. They told young women that they would be joining a group discussion on the psychology of sex. Unbeknownst to the young women, they were randomly divided into three conditions:

1. A control condition (where they were permitted to join the discussion without any type of “initiation”)

2. A “mild” initiation condition (where they were made to read aloud sexual but non-embarrassing words like “prostitute” and “virgin” before they were permitted to join the group for discussion)

3. A “severe” initiation condition (where they were made to read aloud 12 obscene words and two highly-sexual passages from novels before they were allowed to join)

Given the generational context (i.e., an era where it was considered quite scandalous - and likely a bit anxiety-inducing - to be a woman uttering such lewd phrases in public), naturally, engaging in the mild (and especially the “severe”) initiations created a good deal of discomfort for the participants…which was precisely the point. Aronson and colleagues wanted to see if the difference in the “effort” they put forth to join the group would impact how they came to value their membership within in.

Despite the fact that, after the “initiations,” the group discussions were all objectively the same across all conditions (something the researchers made sure to control), the women who endured severe embarrassment rated the discussion as being significantly more interesting, engaging, and worthwhile (97.6 out of 100) than the women who endured the mild discomfort (81.8) or the control group (80.2). They didn't rate it higher because it was better (it wasn’t - it was exactly the same) - they rated it higher because they needed to justify the effort they had put forth to join.

This phenomenon, known as "effort justification," reveals something fundamental about human psychology: when we invest effort into something, we unconsciously rationalize that investment by increasing our perceived value of and commitment to that action. The psychological logic is straightforward: "If I spent time and energy on this, it must be worth my time."

Now let’s fast forward to 2023. Researchers Dykstra, O'Flaherty, and Whillans set out to test a counter-intuitive hypothesis: Could adding modest friction at sign-up actually increase long-term engagement?

They conducted a large-scale field experiment involving over 27,000 participants who were enrolling in a carpooling program (an ideal scenario because they could measure both sign-up rates and actual behavior; i.e., carpool trips taken).

The research team randomly varied the sign-up process for the participants: some experienced a simple, streamlined enrollment while others were required to invest more effort to participate in the same exact program (e.g., more steps, additional information, etc.). The goal was to observe how this initial friction that was added to the experience of the second group would impact not only the initial sign-up rates but, critically, the participants' subsequent engagement with (i.e., active use of) the carpooling service.

As expected, the results showed that a more drawn-out registration process reduced the sign-up rate (with the second group exhibiting a 25 percentage point drop in registrations compared to the first group). But here’s where things get interesting: those that did sign up in the second, more effortful registration group took 1.6 times more carpool trips compared to their counterparts in the low-effort group.

That’s a huge difference.

So why does this happen? Why did people who were forced to work a little harder end up becoming more inclined to actually use the service? It’s a phenomenon known as the “buy-in effect.”

Essentially, a modest initial "investment" (of time or effort) can both filter and actually produce more genuinely committed users. It creates a psychological "buy-in," where individuals feel a stronger sense of ownership and dedication to the behavior to which they've just committed.

There are three psychological mechanisms underlying the buy-in effect:

1. Effort Justification: As we saw with Aronson's 1959 study, when people invest effort, they unconsciously rationalize that effort by increasing their perceived value of the outcome. Users who complete a detailed onboarding process inherently believe the product or service is more valuable than those who skipped it.

2. Self-Selection: Higher initial friction naturally filters out casual browsers and uncommitted participants. The people who do complete a more involved enrollment are, by the very fact that they were willing to do it, inherently more motivated and interested.

3. The Endowment Effect: When people invest effort in creating something (a customized profile, stated goals, detailed preferences, etc.), they develop a sense of “psychological ownership” over that thing. They feel the experience is "theirs," dramatically increasing their likelihood of continued engagement.

The buy-in effect teaches us an important lesson: simpler isn't always better. Optimizing purely for high acquisition rates by minimizing all friction might lead to a larger user base, but also a less engaged one. So while "easy" is often good, "effortful" can sometimes be better, especially when it comes to fostering genuine commitment. By asking users to invest just a bit of effort upfront, you're able to secure more than just their sign-up - you're able to secure their buy-in. A strategically applied touch of purposeful friction can cultivate a slightly smaller (but far more engaged, retained, and loyal) user base.