Learn how to change behavior.

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.”‍

Coaching or counselling here refers to having a trained person provide guidance to someone attempting a behavior. Many mental health and lifestyle programs utilize coaching in various forms, including phone calls, video chat, text messaging, or in-person sessions. Some programs have replaced some or all of these traditionally human-delivered touchpoints with AI or rules-based interactions.

Changing effort refers to modifying the difficulty, or sometimes perceived difficulty, of a behavior in order to change its likelihood of occurrence. This often entails making a behavior easier by reducing its intensity or frequency. This is a tactic advocated by BJ Fogg’s model of behavior change.

Covert learning refers to imparting educational information into non-traditional methods of delivery. For example, a film where someone learns cognitive behavioral therapy techniques or receives training on body-weight fitness exercises may teach someone how to do these (or at least generally what they are). People may also learn the consequences of a behavior through watching someone else experience them, and this concept (viarious experience) is a key component of Bandura's social cognitive theory.

Using a chatbot or simulated conversational interaction.‍

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.

Behavior substitution refers to attempting to eliminate a problematic behavior by replacing it with another one. Often, the substituted behaviors are intended to have similar sensory qualities (e.g. drink flavored sparkling water instead of soda). The goal is typically to disassociate the original behavior from its cue, enabling the more positive behavior to be triggered automatically.‍

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.‍

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