chatbot conversational “game“

Good intro to behavioral design - plus parts 2&3 also helpful for toolbox plus process

I - Intended Behavior N - Non-targeted Audiences C - Compensatory Behaviors A - Additional Behaviors S - Signalling E - Emotional Impact

It’s not just about really liking a product (although you definitely want users to really like your product). With the right design elements, your users might embark on a meaningful bond with your technology, where they feel engaged in an ongoing, two-way relationship with an entity that understands something important about them, yet is recognizably non–human. This is a true emotional attachment that supplies at least some of the benefits of a human-to-human relationship. This type of connection can help your users engage more deeply and for a longer period of time with your product. And that should ultimately help them get closer to their behavior change goals.

The following is from Dr. Bucher’s forthcoming book, Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change. I chose this section because it touches upon a PeopleScience theme: being successful and effective behavioral practitioners while also, and primarily, being good.

This is an excerpt from Amy Bucher’s book Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to structure [users’ meaningful choices on their behavior-change journey] so that it’s easier for people to select good options that ultimately support their goals.

Key Takeaways When customers want to leave, don’t ask why. Shift their attention to why they committed to your product or service in the first place. Instead citing reasons for leaving back to you, they’ll need to recall all the benefits they could lose if they chose to leave. Don’t underestimate the power of opportunity and impact of the environment on behaviors. Keep in mind that preparation meets opportunity. Do your people have all the tools to commit to change? Do they understand and know what to do each step of the way? If not, they are unlikely to change their behavior. Allow people who will be using the new solution to co-create it. This way, implementing change will be much easier. It’s easier to toss aside talking points someone else has created, but not those you came up with - they seem much more valuable thanks to the IKEA effect.

Ultimately, the greatest threat to controlling the pandemic is the failure of people to get tested as soon as they have symptoms, and to provide their contacts and self-isolate. Providing adequate support for isolation is critical to all of these. And so, by deprioritising the case for support, blaming the public fuels the pandemic. The government’s psychological assumptions have, in fact, squandered the greatest asset we have for dealing with a crisis: a community that is mobilised and unified in mutual aid. When an inquiry is eventually held about the UK’s response to COVID-19, it is essential that we give full attention to the psychological and behavioural dimensions of failure as much as the decisions and policies implemented. Only by exposing the way in which the government came to accept and rely upon the wrong model of human behaviour can we begin to build policies that work.

The framework comprises 6 key stages. Each building on the insights of the previous and each with its own objectives, tools and resources: 1. What - are the target behaviours? 2. Who - should we focus our resource on? 3. Why - do/don’t those people manifest the target behaviours? 4. How - can we empower people to change? 5. So What? To what extent were our interventions effective? 6. What Now? How do we apply our learnings at scale?

Key Terms in this Chapter Behavioural Policy Cube: The policy cube encapsulates three core features of the ‘libertarian paternalism’ framework; namely if an intervention or policy tool is informed by the standard axiomatic assumptions of rational man theory or by insights from behavioural theories, if it is internality or externality targeting, and if it is regulatory or libertarian in nature (Oliver, 2017b). Nudge: A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009). Boost: A boost improves the competency of a decision-maker by enriching his or her repertoire of skills and decision tools and/or by restructuring the environment such that existing skills and tools can be more effectively applied (Grüne-Yanoff & Hertwig, 2016). Think: A think is a schooling strategy that involves large-scale deliberations to enable citizens to own the process of behavioural reforms. These often include citizen forums and large-scale behavioural therapies. Nudge Plus: Nudge plus refers to an intervention that has a reflective strategy embedded into the design of the nudge. It can be delivered either as a one-part device in which the classic nudge and the reflective plus are intrinsically combined, or as a two-part device whereby the classic nudge is extrinsically combined with a deliberative instrument that prompts individual reflection on the nudge. (Banerjee & John, 2020).

The five psychobehavioral segments of Americans Surgo identified from its survey are: 1. The “Enthusiasts” (40% of the U.S. population). Every person in this group said they would get the vaccine as soon as it is made available to them. There are no barriers to vaccination 1 for people in this group—in fact, the key challenge will be ensuring vaccine supply meets their demand before they lose enthusiasm, as we’re seeing now as people struggle to sign up. 2. The “Watchful” (20% of the U.S. population). For this segment, social norms are important: Before they get the shot themselves, people in this segment first need to see that others in their peer group or community are getting vaccinated and having safe, positive experiences. 3. The “Cost-Anxious” (14% of the U.S. population). For this segment, time and costs are the primary barriers to getting the vaccine. Every member of this group reports having delayed seeking care for their health in the past due to the expense. The irony: Only 28% of people in this group lack health insurance, indicating that their concerns about costs override having insurance to cover them. 4. The “System Distrusters” (9% of the U.S. population). This group primarily believes that people of their own race are not treated fairly by the health system. Members of this group are likely to belong to, but are not exclusively, communities of color. There are multiple, complicated barriers for this segment, but most of them are related to trust in and access to a health system that has an inequitable history. 5. The “Conspiracy Believers” (17% of the population). This segment has perceived barriers around COVID-19 vaccination that Surgo believes are simply too hard to shift in the short term. It includes people who don't believe in vaccines in general, but the primary barrier for people in this group is their very specific and deeply-held beliefs around COVID-19. Every person in this group believes in at least one conspiracy theory: ○ 84% believe that COVID-19 is exploited by government to control people ○ 65% believe COVID-19 was caused by a ring of people who secretly manipulate world events ○ 36% believe microchips are implanted with the COVID-19 vaccine The three most persuadable psychobehavioral segments Surgo recommends prioritizing are the “Watchful”, “Cost-Anxious” and “System Distrusters” for maximum benefit. Each segment has specific barriers to overcome:...

INSIGHT PAPER How Interventions Can Generate Green Behaviour: Nudging for Good

In this presentation Liz Barnes, Vice Chair of the CIM Charity and Social Marketing Group, will discuss which tactics we should be worried about, which techniques might be considered unethical and ways we can influence and persuade with integrity.

Here’s an informal list of 20 Heuristics from Weinshenck and Barker in 2000. Jakob Neilsen identified 10 principles for user interface design in 1990. Gerhardt-Powals identified 10 principles of cognitive engineering in 1996. The point is that there is substantial agreement and overlap – and most of it makes sense on the face of it.

There were some significant differences between BCTs reported in implementation and de-implementation interventions suggesting that researchers may have implicit theories about different BCTs required for de-implementation and implementation. These findings do not imply that the BCTs identified as targeting implementation or de-implementation are effective, rather simply that they were more frequently used. These findings require replication for a wider range of clinical behaviours. The continued accumulation of additional knowledge and evidence into whether implementation and de-implementation is different will serve to better inform researchers and, subsequently, improve methods for intervention design.

Costing is the process of data collection and analysis for estimating the cost of a health intervention. High-quality cost data on SBC are critical not only for developing budgets, planning, and assessing program proposals, but can also feed into advocacy, program prioritization, and agenda setting. To better serve these data needs, these guidelines aim to increase the quantity and quality of SBC costing information. By encouraging cost analysts to use a standardized approach based on widely accepted methodological principles, we expect the SBC Costing Guidelines to result in well-designed studies that measure cost at the outset, to allow assessment of cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratios1 for SBC programming. Such analyses could also potentially help advocates for SBC to better make the case for greater investment in SBC programming.2 These guidelines lay out a consistent set of methodological principles that reflect best practice and that can underpin any SBC costing effort.

Psychological reactance theory (PRT; Brehm, 1966) posits that when something threatens or eliminates people’s freedom of behavior, they experience psychological reactance, a motivational state that drives freedom restoration. Complementing recent, discipline-specific reviews (e.g., Quick, Shen, & Dillard, 2013; Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Traut-Mattausch, & Greenberg, 2015), the current analysis integrates PRT research across fields in which it has flourished: social psychology and clinical psychology, as well as communication research.

BehaviourWorks Australia and the Victorian Government Behavioural Insights Unit have developed an evidence-informed toolkit to help behavioural insights researchers and practitioners to start with scale up in mind, including how to: Learn about scale up, its challenges, and useful frameworks. Identify which behaviour to target with an intervention. Assess the feasibility of different intervention ideas. Select a scalable behaviour change intervention. Design or adapt an intervention for testing and scale up. Test scale up assumptions about your intervention in a pilot or trial. This website provides videos and tutorials on how to use the toolkit, and extra resources to help achieve behavioural impact at scale. All content will be iterated upon; we welcome feedback and the opportunity to develop better tools.

Our project tracks behavioural science evidence and advice about COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The handbook is for journalists, doctors, nurses, policy makers, researchers, teachers, students, parents – in short, it’s for everyone who wants to know more: about the COVID-19 vaccines, how to talk to others about them, how to challenge misinformation about the vaccines. The handbook is self-contained but additionally provides access to a Wiki of more detailed information, found here: https://sks.to/c19vax.