Learn how to change behavior.
The world's largest collection of resources and data on behavioral science.
Behavior change and behavior design models

MODELS
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
TYPE
Therapeutic approach
PEOPLE
Aaron Beck
PRODUCTS USING
NASH, Sleepio, Learn to Live, Ieso Digital Health, myStrength, MoodHacker, Sanvello, UpLift, TAO Connect, Stoic, wayForward, Daylight, Braive, Youper, MoodMission, MoodKit, MindBeacon, Workit Health, Woebot

MODELS
BASIC | Behavior, Analysis, Strategy, Intervention, Change
TYPE
Behavior design process / heuristics
ORGANIZATION
OECD

MODELS
Social Cognitive Theory
TYPE
Behavior model
PEOPLE
Albert Bandura

MODELS
Attention, Belief, Choice, Determination
TYPE
Behavior design process / heuristics
ORGANIZATION
OECD

MODELS
Health Action Process Approach
TYPE
Behavior model
PEOPLE
Ralf Schwarzer

MODELS
Operant Conditioning
TYPE
Behavior model
PEOPLE
BF Skinner, Edward Thorndike
Tactics that change behavior

TACTICS
Behavioral Economics
Behavioral economics is the exploration of how people make consequential decisions where psychological and sociological factors may influence the outcome or process. It is often considered the fusion of economics and psychology (which itself was an interdisciplinary field entailing medicine and philosophy). The exploration of psychological factors in economic decision-making, including deviation from rationality, traces well back to classical and neoclassical economics (i.e. Gabriel Tarde, Wilfredo Pareto, and John Maynard Keynes) and prior to psychology becoming a formal discipline. Behavioral economics is often associated with behavior change tactics like smart defaults, reducing friction or barriers, increasing salience, incentives, active choice, and commitment devices.

TACTICS
Automation
Automation refers to having another person, group, or technology system perform part or all of the intended behavior. A prominent example is Thaler & Bernartzi's Save More Tomorrow intervention, which invested a portion of employees' earnings into retirement funds automatically and even increased the contribution level to scale with pay raises. Other examples include automatically scheduling medical appointments so the patient needn't do it themselves and mailing healthy recipe ingredients to the person's home to reduce the burden of shopping.

TACTICS
Depression rating
Depression rating simply refers to having someone rate their mood. Often, this may be an informal method like a smiley-face based Lickert scale or choosing a word from a list, rather than using a standardized instrument like the Beck Depression Inventory.

TACTICS
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT is a therapeutic approach originalled developed by Steven Hayes. It borrows from previous concepts like cognitive behavioral therapy and Morita therapy. The principles of ACT are fairly systematic and lend themselves well to program design, finding empirical support in adaptations like 2morrow's smoking cessation and pain management interventions.

TACTICS
Active Choice
Active choice, sometimes referred to as enhanced active choice or forced choice, refers to removing default options and often increasing the salience of potential decisions through emphasizing the consequences of one or more of the options. Coined by Punam Anand Keller and colleagues in 2011, it was originally intended to address concerns around paternalistic nudging for use in situations where forcing the default option may be considered unethical. In one of the original studies, CVS customers were given the choice to enroll in automatic refills of medications via delivery. The choices they were presented were ""Enroll in refills at home"" vs “I Prefer to Order my Own Refills.”

TACTICS
Behavioral Activation (BA)
Behavioral activation is a therapeutic approach that typically pairs activity scheduling with either monitoring tools or goal-setting. For example, someone might aim to balance activities they "should" do but underperform, like self-care behaviors, with activities they enjoy. Users of this technique may also track which activities cause certain cognitions or affective states, like those associated with depression.

TACTICS
Education or Information
Education refers to empowering a person with more knowledge or training than they had previously. While providing information alone is often a suboptimal way to drive meaningful behavior change or long-term interventions, the right message at the right time can be a powerful part of a behavior change strategy.

TACTICS
Clawback Incentives
Clawback incentives refer to a framing effect applied to rewards where participants are intended to experience losing the reward via noncompliance rather than accruing it for successful performance of the behavior.For example, a hypertension management program may credit its participants $200 at the beginning of the month, and reduce or "claw back" the amount by $3 each time the patient does not take their medication. The alternative would be starting the month at zero or the previous ballance and adding $3 each time the patient takes the medication.
Products that change behavior

PRODUCTS
AbleTo
Behaviors
Mental Health & Self-Care
Tactics
Personalization, Skill Coaching, Coaching or Counselling

PRODUCTS
Aaptiv

PRODUCTS
APDS
Behaviors
Crime
Tactics
Social Support, Reminders, Cues +5 more
PRODUCTS
Accupedo
Behaviors
Physical Activity
Tactics
Education or Information, Reminders, Cues +3 more

PRODUCTS
Aduri
Behaviors
Mental Health & Self-Care
PRODUCTS
ALICE
Behaviors
Medication Adherence

PRODUCTS
Accion

PRODUCTS
Advanced Brain Monitoring
Research on behavior change
PAPERS
The effects of a multimodal intervention trial to promote lifestyle factors associated with the prevention of cardiovascular disease in menopausal and postmenopausal Australian women.
BEHAVIOR
Physical Activity
PAPERS
Pathway to health: cluster-randomized trial to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among smokers in public housing.
BEHAVIOR
Diet & Nutrition
TACTICS
Motivational Interviewing
PAPERS
Interrupting pathways to sepsis: Effectiveness of an intervention to reduce delays in timely care for sick children in rural Bangladesh.
BEHAVIOR
Other
PAPERS
Value-Based Insurance Design Improves Medication Adherence Without An Increase In Total Health Care Spending
PAPERS
The program for rheumatic independent self-management: a pilot evaluation.
BEHAVIOR
Physical Activity
PAPERS
Increasing screening mammography in asymptomatic women: evaluation of a second-generation, theory-based program.
BEHAVIOR
Other
PAPERS
A comparison of two delivery modalities of a mobile phone based assessment for serious mental illness: native smartphone application vs text-messaging only implementations.
BEHAVIOR
Mental Health & Self-Care
PAPERS
Nutrition education worksite intervention for university staff: application of the health belief model.
BEHAVIOR
Diet & Nutrition
PAPERS
Designing prenatal care messages for low-income Mexican women.
BEHAVIOR
Other
TACTICS
Education or Information