Accountability partner

An accountability partner is someone who supports another person to keep a commitment or maintain progress on a desired goal. They will often be a trusted friend or acquaintance who will regularly ask an individual about their progress or receive confessions of moral wrongdoing. Accountability partners can interact through regular in-person meetings, through the internet, or through a mixture of interactions. Within evangelical Christianity, accountability partners and groups are used in efforts to resist sexual temptation, including masturbation, viewing pornography, or pre-marital sex. In recent years, numerous kinds of accountability software have been developed, surveillance apps which track a user's internet use and send reports to a predetermined accountability partner.

Outside of evangelical Christianity, accountability partners have been used in a range of contexts for individuals who want to keep commitments, improve their productivity, or maintain self-care routines. This includes use in health and wellbeing, business, and academia. Studies of accountability partnership programmes have found improved results in practices such as self-examination for skin cancer in at-risk groups or the production of scholarship in a university department.