ādrop-outā meaning 0 engagement, right? so the claim has the form of āthe more you do X, the less likely you are of stopping doing X completelyā. itās not clear to me to which extent itās causal, but yeah, still seems useful info!
I can see why āwe do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out ratesā might sound like a somewhat empty/ātautological sentence. (Then thereās also the question of causality, which Iāll get to at the the end.) But I think itās meaningful when you consider Toddās definitions (which I perhaps shouldāve quoted before).
He defines the drop out rate as āthe rate at which people both (i) stop engaging with the effective altruism community and (ii) stop working on paths commonly considered high-impact within the communityā (emphasis added).
And I donāt think he precisely defines engagement, but he writes:
My guess is that the most significant factor [in drop-out rates] is someoneās degree of social integrationāi.e. I expect that people with friends or colleagues who are into EA are less likely to drop out of the community.
Relatedly, I think the degree to which someone identifies with EA will be important. For instance, someone who has been featured in the media as being into EA seems much less likely to drop out. We could think of both of these as aspects of āengagementā.
So I think the claim is something like āmore social integration into EA and identification as an EA at time 1 predicts a higher chance of staying engaged with EA and still pursuing paths commonly considered high-impact at time 2ā.
(Iād encourage people to read Toddās post for more details; these are just my quick comments.)
Then there is of course still the question of causality: Is this because engagement reduces drop out, or because some other factor (e.g., being the sort of person who EA really fits with) both increases engagement and reduces drop out? My guess is that both are true to a significant extent, but Iām not sure if we have any data on that.
I can see why āwe do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out ratesā might sound like a somewhat empty/ātautological sentence. (Then thereās also the question of causality, which Iāll get to at the the end.) But I think itās meaningful when you consider Toddās definitions (which I perhaps shouldāve quoted before).
He defines the drop out rate as āthe rate at which people both (i) stop engaging with the effective altruism community and (ii) stop working on paths commonly considered high-impact within the communityā (emphasis added).
And I donāt think he precisely defines engagement, but he writes:
So I think the claim is something like āmore social integration into EA and identification as an EA at time 1 predicts a higher chance of staying engaged with EA and still pursuing paths commonly considered high-impact at time 2ā.
(Iād encourage people to read Toddās post for more details; these are just my quick comments.)
Then there is of course still the question of causality: Is this because engagement reduces drop out, or because some other factor (e.g., being the sort of person who EA really fits with) both increases engagement and reduces drop out? My guess is that both are true to a significant extent, but Iām not sure if we have any data on that.
I see, thanks!