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Behavior change and behavior design models

Tactics that change behavior

Lotteries
Lotteries

Lotteries are any form of assigning an award where there is an element of randomness or chance.

One example is a prize-linked savings account (PLSAs). One of the earliest of these was the Million a Month Account (MAMA) in South Africa, where First National Bank offered account-holders with qualifying deposits a chance to win up to one million rand each month (along with other smaller prizes given out at random).

Lotteries may be used with non-financial rewards as well, e.g. offering tickets to a sold-out play or sporting event for employees reaching certain performance benchmarks.

Social Benchmarking
Social Benchmarking

Social benchmarking refers to comparing a person's behavior, trends, or status to others. Often, merely providing data on others can change behavior by leveraging social norms.

For example, letters comparing homeowners' use of electricity with peers were found to significantly reduce the amount of energy used by high-consumption households compared to non-comparison messages.

Reduce Friction or Barriers
Reduce Friction or Barriers

Reducing friction or barriers to performing a behavior is simply making it easier or removing things that may be preventing someone from doing something.

This is a foundational technique in changing behavior, and part of the UK Behavioural Insights Team's 4-point approach ("Make it easy"). That said, knowing where the friction and barriers exist may not always be straightforward, and different groups of people may experience different barriers in different contexts.

Note: It is possible to remove too much friction. In a well-popularized study, a travel booking site found that delays in loading the best deals or travel options actually increased conversions. Similarly, longer input forms in digital interactions sometimes outperform, as people may consider the results more personalized or experience greater cognitive dissonance after having invested so much time in exploring the service.

Lotteries
Lotteries

Lotteries are any form of assigning an award where there is an element of randomness or chance.

One example is a prize-linked savings account (PLSAs). One of the earliest of these was the Million a Month Account (MAMA) in South Africa, where First National Bank offered account-holders with qualifying deposits a chance to win up to one million rand each month (along with other smaller prizes given out at random).

Lotteries may be used with non-financial rewards as well, e.g. offering tickets to a sold-out play or sporting event for employees reaching certain performance benchmarks.

Social Support
Social Support

Social support refers to the perception or reality that other people will provide assistance in a given context. It is a key component of several behavior models and plays an important role in mediating behavior change.

Checklists
Checklists

Checklists are an age-old tactic for remembering to do certain tasks. Checklists are sometimes used to measure behaviors that should take place with a certain frequency, e.g. every day or X times per week, and other times, to ensure certain steps are followed every time a person does a complex behavior.

For behavior designers, the challenges of checklists often entail choosing the right behaviors, breaking them down to the correct level of granularity for a given population, and serving them up in the proper context or sometimes with personalization. They are likely underutilized and consistently improve the performance of even experts, like pilots and surgeons.

Social Support
Social Support

Social support refers to the perception or reality that other people will provide assistance in a given context. It is a key component of several behavior models and plays an important role in mediating behavior change.

Tracking cognitions or emotions
Tracking cognitions or emotions

Tracking cognitions or emotions (often both) refers to a person recording when they have certain thoughts or feelings. The person might note every time they experience a given thought or specific feeling whenever it comes up, or alternatively simply keep a diary of any notable thoughts or feeling at pre-determined times. Often, this also includes noting what triggered or occured before or alongside these thoughts and emotions.

Many therapuetic approaches utilize this tool, even if only for brief periods, to help a system, clinician, or patient better understand the patterns around their thoughts and feelings. Often, this data is integrated into additional behavior change approaches, like behavioral activation or implementation intentions.

Products that change behavior

Research on behavior change