We have estimates of the numbers of people who have heard of EA on specific campuses from 2022 (from the study referenced here).
These suggest that the percentages who have encountered EA at elite universities are considerably higher.
Even so, many of the people who’ve encountered EA, clearly barely know what it is (they’ve heard about it from someone else on campus or some such). As such, they definitely shouldn’t be considered as people who’ve been outreached to and failed to engage. Very few people have ever encountered EA outreach and the probability of engaging, conditional on encountering outreach, may be much higher.
We have data comparing where people have heard of effective altruism for the general population and for the EA population (from 2020-2021).
This suggests people actually in EA are much more likely to have encountered EA through a personal contact or 80,000 Hours, an EA Group etc., whereas people who have heard about EA in the general population are much more likely to have encountered it through the media or in the course of their education.
It seems very plausible to me that merely reading about EA in the news, or hearing about it one’s classroom, is much less likely to lead to someone joining EA than if they encounter actual outreach encouraging them to join EA and presenting them a way in (though this likely also reflects differences between the groups encountering EA or not). We’ve observed before that in-person routes into EA (personal contacts and EA Groups) seem particularly important for some demographics groups.[1]
EA Survey
General population
Gap
Personal contact
16%
4%
-12%
80,000 Hours
13%
0%
-13%
Book, article or blog post
9%
22%
13%
LessWrong
8%
0%
-8%
I don’t remember
8%
35%
27%
EA group
8%
0%
-7%
Podcast
7%
7%
0%
SSC
5%
1%
-5%
TED Talk
5%
1%
-4%
GiveWell
3%
0%
-2%
Education
2%
30%
28%
GWWC
2%
0%
-2%
Facebook
1%
0%
-1%
Search engine
1%
0%
-1%
Vox
1%
0%
-1%
OFTW
1%
0%
-1%
Swiss group
1%
0%
-1%
TLYCS
0%
0%
0%
EAG/EAGx
0%
0%
0%
ACE
0%
0%
0%
Other
9%
0%
-9%
We’d be happy to repeat either of these surveys if people are interested.
Jamie you’re completely right that “Reached out to” was a lazy definition. I mention briefly the inequality of distribution for the quality of outreach but this assumes outreach—completely ignoring passive routes to hearing about EA, which of course will have lower take-up rates. This should be clear, and would massively increase estimates of the conversion rate for outreach. Thank you :)
However, a university group cannot “perform outreach” to their entire university, so—hopefully to a lesser extent than with gen pop due—lots of their student population who hear about EA will necessarily only hear about it passively (through flyers or mailing lists) right? (remember I’m trying to estimate take-up based on entire university student populations)
It seems David’s comment below is particularly relevant here, and that it might be useful to have a two-way table of uptake rates? With University/General population on one axis and Passive/Active on the other. (Let me know if this exists and I’m missing it, otherwise if you agree this might be useful I can try and use any relevant surveys to estimate this)
This will work to motivate community builders with clear evidence of their better position with respect to uptake than a gen pop community builder. As well as presumably (based on the findings shared by David) active outreach (speaking to people etc.) over passive methods even within university outreach. Also comparing passive take-up in gen pop and University populations will also provide empirical support for the “stages of change” model too right?
Hi Arthur—just to be clear I wouldn’t call any part of your post ‘lazy’!
Certainly a university group wouldn’t be actively speaking to every person on campus. We may just need to be very precise about what we mean, and perhaps even a single dimension of active vs. passive might not cut it. For example I’d say that flyering or mailing lists are more active forms of outreach/exposure than the type of exposure I’m imagining often happens in the general population (like just seeing a news article that mentions EA, possibly disparagingly), and they also offer a route to participation for those interested. Some other dimensions would likely be whether the context of the exposure presents EA as positive or negative, and whether it is coming from the EA community or simply something about EA.
We don’t have a direct assessment of ‘uptake rates’ although maybe, at least for the US, we could look at making something that at least sheds some light on it (e.g., looking at % hearing of EA in US adult demographics, vs. US respondent demographic % in the EA survey—though I think you are right that the EA survey definitely does not capture everyone and we don’t strictly know the composition of the ‘EA community’, unfortunately, which may limit the value of doing this). Of possible interest is that we observed in the most recent Pulse results that ‘elite’ universities in the US (~top 20 ranked) had higher awareness of EA than other universities. David may have more insight into other findings/data from the EA survey that would be of relevance in terms of outreach/exposure types.
It seems David’s comment below is particularly relevant here, and that it might be useful to have a two-way table of uptake rates? With University/General population on one axis and Passive/Active on the other. (Let me know if this exists and I’m missing it, otherwise if you agree this might be useful I can try and use any relevant surveys to estimate this)
Thanks Arthur! Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this data exists. It seems that we’d need to know both how many EA members there are at different universities and where they first heard of EA (perhaps CEA could gather this in future groups surveys).
We do have data about where people on campus in general had heard of EA.[1] Interestingly, ~0 of the people in our sample who seemed to have encountered EA (~220 people) seemed to be EAs themselves, which is itself somewhat suggestive of conversion rates.
As we can see, people on campus are more likely to say they heard of EA due to an EA group (14%), or a club fair (7%), that is probably likewise attributable to direct group activity. Some of the people who simply heard about EA around campus or from friends may also be attributable to group activity, but not have been directly outreached to. Many people clearly encountered EA only through more indirect means though, e.g. wider media, school or classes.[2]
Though it is worth bearing in mind that what we count as direct/indirect or higher/lower quality outreach is somewhat theoretically laden (and these dimensions can come apart). I recall, many years ago, it was more common to believe that people reading books would be ‘high fidelity’, and that groups might be ‘lower fidelity’; now a minority view.
Agreed with Jamie’s points above.
A couple of additional points:
We have estimates of the numbers of people who have heard of EA on specific campuses from 2022 (from the study referenced here).
These suggest that the percentages who have encountered EA at elite universities are considerably higher.
Even so, many of the people who’ve encountered EA, clearly barely know what it is (they’ve heard about it from someone else on campus or some such). As such, they definitely shouldn’t be considered as people who’ve been outreached to and failed to engage. Very few people have ever encountered EA outreach and the probability of engaging, conditional on encountering outreach, may be much higher.
We have data comparing where people have heard of effective altruism for the general population and for the EA population (from 2020-2021).
This suggests people actually in EA are much more likely to have encountered EA through a personal contact or 80,000 Hours, an EA Group etc., whereas people who have heard about EA in the general population are much more likely to have encountered it through the media or in the course of their education.
It seems very plausible to me that merely reading about EA in the news, or hearing about it one’s classroom, is much less likely to lead to someone joining EA than if they encounter actual outreach encouraging them to join EA and presenting them a way in (though this likely also reflects differences between the groups encountering EA or not). We’ve observed before that in-person routes into EA (personal contacts and EA Groups) seem particularly important for some demographics groups.[1]
We’d be happy to repeat either of these surveys if people are interested.
The results are directionally similar if you exclude those who “Don’t remember”, which is much more common for the general population.
Thank you both for your replies!
Jamie you’re completely right that “Reached out to” was a lazy definition. I mention briefly the inequality of distribution for the quality of outreach but this assumes outreach—completely ignoring passive routes to hearing about EA, which of course will have lower take-up rates. This should be clear, and would massively increase estimates of the conversion rate for outreach. Thank you :)
However, a university group cannot “perform outreach” to their entire university, so—hopefully to a lesser extent than with gen pop due—lots of their student population who hear about EA will necessarily only hear about it passively (through flyers or mailing lists) right? (remember I’m trying to estimate take-up based on entire university student populations)
It seems David’s comment below is particularly relevant here, and that it might be useful to have a two-way table of uptake rates? With University/General population on one axis and Passive/Active on the other. (Let me know if this exists and I’m missing it, otherwise if you agree this might be useful I can try and use any relevant surveys to estimate this)
This will work to motivate community builders with clear evidence of their better position with respect to uptake than a gen pop community builder. As well as presumably (based on the findings shared by David) active outreach (speaking to people etc.) over passive methods even within university outreach. Also comparing passive take-up in gen pop and University populations will also provide empirical support for the “stages of change” model too right?
Thank you again!
Hi Arthur—just to be clear I wouldn’t call any part of your post ‘lazy’!
Certainly a university group wouldn’t be actively speaking to every person on campus. We may just need to be very precise about what we mean, and perhaps even a single dimension of active vs. passive might not cut it. For example I’d say that flyering or mailing lists are more active forms of outreach/exposure than the type of exposure I’m imagining often happens in the general population (like just seeing a news article that mentions EA, possibly disparagingly), and they also offer a route to participation for those interested. Some other dimensions would likely be whether the context of the exposure presents EA as positive or negative, and whether it is coming from the EA community or simply something about EA.
We don’t have a direct assessment of ‘uptake rates’ although maybe, at least for the US, we could look at making something that at least sheds some light on it (e.g., looking at % hearing of EA in US adult demographics, vs. US respondent demographic % in the EA survey—though I think you are right that the EA survey definitely does not capture everyone and we don’t strictly know the composition of the ‘EA community’, unfortunately, which may limit the value of doing this). Of possible interest is that we observed in the most recent Pulse results that ‘elite’ universities in the US (~top 20 ranked) had higher awareness of EA than other universities. David may have more insight into other findings/data from the EA survey that would be of relevance in terms of outreach/exposure types.
Thanks Arthur! Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this data exists. It seems that we’d need to know both how many EA members there are at different universities and where they first heard of EA (perhaps CEA could gather this in future groups surveys).
We do have data about where people on campus in general had heard of EA.[1] Interestingly, ~0 of the people in our sample who seemed to have encountered EA (~220 people) seemed to be EAs themselves, which is itself somewhat suggestive of conversion rates.
As we can see, people on campus are more likely to say they heard of EA due to an EA group (14%), or a club fair (7%), that is probably likewise attributable to direct group activity. Some of the people who simply heard about EA around campus or from friends may also be attributable to group activity, but not have been directly outreached to. Many people clearly encountered EA only through more indirect means though, e.g. wider media, school or classes.[2]
This excludes responses which did not give an interpretable answer as to where they had heard of EA.
Though it is worth bearing in mind that what we count as direct/indirect or higher/lower quality outreach is somewhat theoretically laden (and these dimensions can come apart). I recall, many years ago, it was more common to believe that people reading books would be ‘high fidelity’, and that groups might be ‘lower fidelity’; now a minority view.