EA - EA Survey 2022: What Helps People Have an Impact and Connect with Other EAs by WillemSleegers

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Survey 2022: What Helps People Have an Impact and Connect with Other EAs, published by WillemSleegers on August 3, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.SummaryPersonal contact with EAs was the most commonly selected influence on EAs' ability to have a positive impact (40.9%), followed by 80,000 Hours (31.4%) and local EA groups (19.8%).Compared to 2020, EA Global, the EA Forum, EAGx, and 80,000 Hours one-on-one career discussion showed a small increase in being reported as important sources for greater impact. Relatively more sources decreased, some quite significantly, in being reported as important (e.g., GiveWell, 80,000 Hours website and podcast).Local EA groups were the most commonly cited source for making a new connection (35.5%), followed by a personal connection (34.1%), EA Global (26.2%), and EAGx (24.0%).Compared to 2020, relatively more respondents indicate having made an interesting and valuable new personal connection via EA Global and EAGx, and fewer via most other sources.IntroductionIn this post, we report on what factors EAs say helped them have a positive impact or create new connections. Note that we significantly shortened the EA Survey this year, meaning there are fewer community-related questions than in the previous EA Survey.Positive InfluencesWe asked about which factors, within the last 12 months, had the largest influence on your personal ability to have a positive impact, allowing respondents to select up to three options. On average, respondents selected 2.36 options (median 3).Personal contact with EAs stood out as the most common factor selected by respondents (40.9%), followed by 80,000 Hours (combined, 31.4%), and local EA groups (19.8%).Personal contact, 80,000 Hours, and EA groups were also the top three factors that respondents reported as being important for getting them involved in EA.2020 vs. 2022We asked the same question in 2020, although we changed some of the response categories. This year we included 80,000 Hours (job board), the online EA community (other than EA Forum), and Virtual programs, but dropped Animal Charity Evaluators, The Life You Can Save, and Animal Advocacy Careers. These categories were dropped due to low endorsement rates in previous years.Compared to 2020, we see an increase in EA Global, the EA Forum, EAGx, and 80,000 Hours one-on-one career discussion as important sources for greater impact. These increases were quite small in most cases, with the biggest change observed for EAGx (from 6% to 13%). We saw multiple decreases, some quite sizable, in local EA groups, 80,000 Hours (both the website and podcast), Books, GiveWell, Articles/blogs, Giving What We Can, LessWrong, Slate Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten, podcasts, and Facebook groups.A portion of the decrease of the website of 80,000 Hours can be attributed to the addition of the 80,000 Hours job board category in this year's survey. Last year, respondents may have included this category in the website category of 80,000 Hours, while this year it was its own category. Including the job board category with the website category leads to a smaller decrease between 2022 and 2020, although it does not fully account for it.It's important to recall that these questions asked about which factors had had the largest influence within the last 12 months. Thus, the percentages of respondents who have been influenced by these factors at some point are likely larger than those reporting having been influenced in the last 12 months within this survey. Responses to this question might also be expected to change more, across years, than our questions which are not limited to the last 12 months.GenderRespondents who indicated identifying as a man were more likely to select the EA Forum, GiveWell, the 80,000 Hours podcast and one-on-one career discu...