Based on their comprehensive review of available research, Duckworth, Milkman, and Laibson propose a framework that organizes evidence-based self-control strategies along two dimensions based on how the strategies are implemented and who is initiating them. They observe that in some cases the best self-control strategy involves us changing the situation to create incentives or obstacles that help us exercise self-control, such as using apps that restrict our phone usage or keeping junk food out of the house. In other cases it’s more effective to change how we think about the situation — for example, by making an if­-then plan to anticipate how we’ll deal with treats in the office — so that exercising self-control becomes more appealing or easier to accomplish. Other strategies work better when someone else implements them for us. For example, our electricity company might use social norms to prompt a change in our thinking, showing us how our energy usage compares with that of our neighbors. And policymakers often use situational constraints to prompt behavior focused on the long-term. Examples range from incentives (e.g., tax rebates for eco-friendly building materials) to penalties (e.g., raising taxes on cigarettes and alcohol). Employers are increasingly using another type of situational constraint, defaults, to encourage employees to save for retirement; many are requiring people to opt out of an employer-provided retirement plan if they don’t want to participate.

Giving advice, as opposed to receiving it, appears to help unmotivated people feel powerful because it involves reflecting on knowledge that they already have. So if you’re completely clueless about the resources or strategies necessary for progress, asking for help is probably the best first step. But if you (like most of us), know what you need to do, but are having trouble actually doing it, giving someone advice may be the push you need.

In a study, the researchers said that smokers who had limited familiarity with information technology were more likely to consider antismoking messages manipulative and boring when they browsed those messages on a website with interactive features, such as sliders, mouseovers and zooming tools.

short video re: different modes of decisionmaking

This article reports on new research that finds certain messages reduce fear of sharks, key to promoting conservation-minded responses to shark bites. Here it is argued that the sophistication in public feelings toward these highly emotional events has allowed new actors to mobilize and given rise to the ‘Save the Sharks’ movement. In a unique experiment coupling randomly assigned intent-based priming messages with exposure to sharks in a ‘shark tunnel’, a potential path to reduce public fear of sharks and alter policy preferences is investigated. Priming for the absence of intent yielded significant fear extinction effects, providing a viable means of increasing support for non-lethal policy options following shark bite incidents. High levels of pride and low levels of blame for bite incidents are also found. In all, this article provides a step towards improving our understanding of fear and fear reduction in public policy.

The Subtask 8 deliverable was to create a testable toolbox for behaviour change interventions: • A description and evaluation of the validity and effectiveness of the Collective Impact Approach in the energy arena, as a peer-reviewed paper (Rotmann, 2016 and 2017a, Cobben 2017). • A Decision-making Tree that enables Behaviour Changers to better utilise the findings of ST1 & 2 • A peer-reviewed paper on the impact of storytelling in energy research (Rotmann, 2017b; Moezzi, Janda and Rotmann, 2017; Rotmann, 2018). • A collection of sector stories from each Behaviour Changer (see ST6 Final reports & Rotmann, 2017b) • This includes a list of behavioural intervention tools each Behaviour Changer has at their disposal in each of their national and sectoral contexts (see Task 24 workshop minutes and ST6 Final reports). • Continued testing and development of evaluation tools created in ST 3 & 9 (Rotmann and Chapman, 2018). • Testable toolbox for national Behaviour Changers (when choosing to take part in ST11, see Cowan et al 2017 and 2018) and/or synthesis of internationally-valid tools to feed into the Overarching Story

Week 1 When Everything Looks Like a Nail: Building Better “Behavioral Economics” Teams By Jason Collins Nudges Alone Won’t Save Nemo: Conservation in the Great Barrier Reef By John Pickering From Ph.D. to Policy: Facilitating Connections Between Junior Scholars and Policymakers By Ashley Whillans and Heather Devine Shouldn’t We Make It Easy to Use Behavioral Science for Good? By Manasee Desai RCTs Are Not (Always) the Answer By Tania Ramos and João Matos Week 2 Why Governments Need to Nudge Themselves By Michael Hallsworth and Mark Egan Behavioral Development Economics By Syon Bhanot and Aishwarya Deshpande Why Governments Should Treat Cybersecurity the Way They Do Infectious Diseases By Karen Renaud and Stephen Flowerday Pour One Out for Nudge’s Forgotten Peers By Jesse Dashefsky Helping Parents Follow Through By Nadav Klein, Keri Lintz, Ariel Kalil, and Susan E. Mayer Week 3 A New Model for Integrating Behavioral Science and Design By Sarah Reid and Ruth Schmidt Applying Behavioral Science Upstream in the Policy Design Process By Kate Phillips Lessons in “Nudging” From the Developing World By Abigail Goodnow Dalton Choice Architecture 2.0: How People Interpret and Make Sense of Nudges By Job Krijnen What the Origins of the “1 in 5” Statistic Teaches Us About Sexual Assault Policy By Alexandra Rutherford BONUS Nudge Turns 10: A Q&A With Cass Sunstein By Elizabeth Weingarten Nudge Turns 10: A Q&A With Ricard Thaler By Evan Nesterak

Government policies and services can be hard to navigate for people who are already under pressure. By understanding the effects of scarcity, we can make these easier to access for the people who need them. https://bi.dpc.nsw.gov.au/blog/2018/12/13/a-guide-to-reducing-the-effects-of-scarcity/

Whenever you're trying to change a behavior, you should ask yourself the following four questions: 1. Am I clearly prompting the target person to do the behavior I want? 2. Is the behavior really hard to do? 3. Is the target person motivated to do the behavior I want them to do? 4. Am I rewarding the target person for doing the behavior? That's it. That's your behavior-design checklist.

Innovative solutions based on how people act and make decisions in the real world are often buried in academic journals. The Behavioral Evidence Hub (B-Hub) brings them into the light of day. On the B-Hub you’ll find strategies proven to amplify the impact of programs, products, and services—and improve lives. Projects + checklists

We demonstrate that the mere-measurement effect occurs because asking an intention question is not perceived as a persuasion attempt. In experiments 1 and 2, we show that when persuasive intent is attributed to an intention question, consumers adjust their behavior as long as they have sufficient cognitive capacity to permit conscious correction. In experiment 3 we demonstrate that this finding holds with product choice and consumption, and we find that persuasionknowledge mediates the effects. In experiment 4, we show that when respondents are educated that an intention question is a persuasive attempt, the behavioral impact of those questions is attenuated.

"Pink alert" story - bearing silent witness - nurses

Special Issue on Paternalism - open access

In April 2018, almost 1,200 people gathered in Indonesia for the Summit on Behaviour and Social Change Communication. Practitioners, researchers, donors, and leaders from more than 400 organisations travelled to Nusa Dua from the Asia Pacific region, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America. This issue features ten papers prepared by SUMMIT participants based on their presentations. They cover a range of challenges from using story-telling to help fishermen in Belize deal with threats to their occupations, and influencing adolescent girls and boys in India to address gender discrimination and stereotyping – to the use of social media to change norms regarding babies’ health in Malawi.

1) Manufacture and maintain progress; 2) I don't vs I can't; 3) Implementation intentions

Cowry developed three interventions to tackle these challenges and improve health and safety: painting the canteen a shade of pink proven to reduce stress hormones; introducing a gold card system whereby workers who demonstrated safe behaviours entered a weekly prize lottery; and having specialists walk around site asking scripted questions that prompt workers to think about safety.

•Despite its sequential nature, healthcare seeking is often analysed as single event. •We demonstrate the value of sequential healthcare data analysis. •Descriptive analysis exposes otherwise neglected behavioural patterns. •Sequence-insensitive indicators can be inconsistent and misleading. •Sequence-sensitive evaluation hints at adverse behaviours of wealthy patients.

Good list of buying nudges

The Theory & Techniques Tool is an interactive resource providing information about links between behaviour change techniques (BCTs) and their mechanisms of action (MoAs). This information is based on MRC-funded research triangulating evidence of links made by authors in published scientific studies and by expert consensus [Project Website - http://www.ucl.ac.uk/behaviour-change-techniques]. It was developed to support intervention designers, researchers and theorists in the development and evaluation of theory-based interventions.

Videos from Behavioral Exchange Conference 2018

A wise intervention has two key components: precision and recursion.

This report discusses the use and reach of behavioural insights, drawing on a comprehensive collection of over 100 applications across the world and policy sectors.

But to be effective, nudges should be calibrated; “one size fits all” approaches tend to fall short of expectations. Instead, policymakers can tailor their nudges to align with these three dimensions: Spectrums of acceptability (and deviance). How strictly must targets adhere to the rule? While driving a couple of miles over the speed limit is unlikely to result in a traffic violation, attempting to bring a weapon onto an airplane requires zero-tolerance enforcement. Frequency of action. How often must the target group provide input? It may be easier to have targets make a single decision to contribute or obey, as opposed to encouraging them to repeatedly make the same decision over time. For example, people usually only need to choose to be an organ donor once, but drivers put their seat belt on every time they get into a car. Target group diversity. How heterogeneous is your target group? People may come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, have different interests, or may speak another language, all of which makes it challenging to apply a blanket rule with universal success. Moreover, targets can be geographically scattered or online, making it difficult for policymakers to surveil the target group. For example, all vehicle owners must register their cars, but not everyone should seek the same preventative medical treatments. And even those that do require similar treatments may have different motivations for doing so.

Our work published this week analyses all 111 cases studies of behavioral techniques used by governments compiled by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Our analysis demonstrates that none of the techniques used have scientific proven effectiveness.

To provide practitioners with useful information about how to promote proenvironmental behavior (PEB), a meta-analysis was performed on 87 published reports containing 253 experimental treatments that measured an observed, not self-reported, behavioral outcome. Most studies combined multiple treatments, and this confounding precluded definitive conclusions about which individual treatments are most effective. Treatments that included cognitive dissonance, goal setting, social modeling, and prompts provided the overall largest effect sizes (Hedge’s g > 0.60).

A new study published in Science has quantified the number of people who need to take a stand before they can affect societal change on important topics like sexual harassment and human rights. And that number? It’s a mere 25% of any group. Only 25% of people need to adopt a new social norm to create an inflection point where everyone in the group follows.

Our results show that 48% of people who were exposed to the ads made future searches for weight loss information, compared with 32% of those in the control group—a 50% increase. The advertisements varied in efficacy. However, the effectiveness of the advertisements may be greatly improved by targeting individuals based on their lifestyle preferences and/or sociodemographic characteristics, which together explain 49% of the variation in response to the ads. These results demonstrate that online advertisements hold promise as a mechanism for changing population health behaviors.