About
About Moved to Act
Moved to Act is run by the Emergent Frontiers Institute, a nonprofit research group, to learn whether true stories paired with an action lead people to help more.
Who runs it
Moved to Act is run by the Emergent Frontiers Institute, a nonprofit research group based in the United States that has begun work in Europe. The Institute builds and operates the site, with help from members who join as builders, the volunteers who check actions, review stories and write the code. We don't run ads or take a cut of donations, and the site never handles money.
Why it exists
Most social feeds are ranked by how long they hold your attention. Studies of the emotion psychologists call elevation find that watching someone help a stranger makes people want to help as well (Algoe and Haidt, 2009; Schnall, Roper and Fessler, 2010), though the urge passes quickly when there is nowhere to act on it. Moved to Act was built to put a real action next to that moment.
Where the actions are
Most actions are in the United States for now. We're adding actions in Europe as we go, and each action says where it can be done.
What we measure
We count the actions members complete. For members who choose to take part in our research, we also look at whether they are still helping six and twelve months after they join. Time spent on the site is not a goal and plays no part in ranking stories.
Taking part in the research
Members can take part in our research on whether stories like these lead people to help more, in three separate ways: a four-minute check-in now and every three months about how they've been feeling and how they see other people, letting us study what they do on the site from the day they agree, and being placed in tests of new features. Each is a separate choice, each is optional, and members can change any of them at any time. Research stays switched off until an independent ethics review approves it.
Results will be published
The platform is new, and we do not yet know whether it changes how much people help. We will publish what we find on this site, including results that show no effect or show that a feature made things worse.
Help build it
Builders are volunteers who check actions, review stories, and work on the design and code. If you would like to help, ask to join as a builder.
Contact
Questions about the site or the Institute go to contact@movedtoact.com or through the contact form.