The Human Exposed

Crawford Hollingworth

MRS October 2014

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We have learnt more

about human behaviour in the last 10 years than the last

100 years!

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The Behavioural Science in and in particular BE has given us both the frameworks and

concepts to think about behaviour,,to understand

behavioural blueprint

And HOW to change it!

Behaviour-led research

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Inspire behavioural intervention / change

Behavioural understanding

Behavioural blueprint

Behavioural insights

Unlock

Critically these behavioural concepts are underpinned by science

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The “oops area” of

the brain becomes more active when we

go against the herd

[social norms]

The “reward area” of

the brain becomes more active when we go with

the herd

[social norms]

The “pain area” of the

brain becomes more active when we are paying money or lose something

we care about

[loss aversion]

Behavioural concepts underpinned by science

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Power of priming We know we can subconsciously prime people to engage or not to engage their pre-frontal cortex or

executive function

Cognitive misers or efficiency Go with the flow, our gut, our intuition

[heavily linked to optimism / over confidence bias]

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We are witnessing the unravelling of the human

Behavioural Blueprint

Leaving humans potentially exposed

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Powerful behaviour architecture underpinned by science, we have power in our hand – let’s bring alive this power.

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Anchoring

System 1 / salience

Status quo bias / default

Power of Now

Priming

Chunking

Discounting the future

Commitment bias

Social norms

Mental accounting

Unlocking the power – BE concepts

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Unlock the power of social norms

Using BE to get elected (both times!)

Obama nudged voters to the polling stations by suggesting that everyone else was voting

“A Record Turnout is Expected”

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BEHAVIOURAL IMPACT

The increase in voters in 2008 included about 2,000,000 more black voters, 2,000,000 more Hispanic voters and about 600,000 more Asian voters.

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HMRC using social norms to increase tax payment

Source: Behavioural Insight Team Debt, “Applying Behavioural Insights to Reduce Fraud, Error and Debt”, February 2012

The UK’s HMRC was losing millions of pounds sterling worth of potential tax revenue from people not paying their taxes on time.

A 15 percentage point rise in response from 67.5% to 83%

Estimate to save £30m annually

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Unlock the power of commitment bias

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Shake my hand

Write it down

Sign a contract

Read it back

Pledge an oath

Unlock the power of the commitment bias

Taking fewer drugs!

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Fewer Drugs!Using BE to reduce the unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics

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In the US, adults receive over 41 million prescriptions for antibiotics each year, yet 50% of these are unnecessary and inappropriate

BE INSPIRED SOLUTIONLeveraging commitment bias by asking doctors to sign a letter stating their commitment to avoid un-judicious use of antibiotics and then enforcing the commitment by making it public

50% inappropriate prescriptionReduced to 33%

Taking more drugs!

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Eyes & image of loved one – a simple prime to encourage ‘good’ behaviour,

dialing up visual saliency via a System 1 shortcut

Use of daily stickers for adherence & specific healthy lifestyle behavioursto mentally chunk, prime & reward (give feedback for) greater disease

engagement

“Promise Contract” – leveraging commitment bias and setting

realistic personal goals to anchor behaviour against

RewardTrigger

Routine

A BE-inspired intervention poster to live in patient’s home

Taking More Drugs!Using BE to increase diabetes medicine adherence

Taking more drugs!Using BE to increase diabetes medicine adherence

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Promise Contract designed by TBAA BE-inspired intervention poster

living in patient’s home

+51%Healthier

Diet

7 out of 10 showed increase in drug compliance

HealthierLifestyle+45%

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Getting people to spend money!

Designing US tax rebates using BE mental accounting

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2008 US needed to boost economy.So how to give $235 billion tax rebate back

and make people spend it? Without people even knowing?

Behavioural scientists showed that people are not sensitive to small proportional gains [or losses] –

they don’t mental account

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Context is King & Queen

Anchors Framing

How anchors can potentially reduce the time it might take to pay off a credit card bill!

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Anchoring effects can make a significant difference to the amount we repay each month – consumer research has found that we anchor to the minimum repayment sum

on our credit card bill.

£435.76

Using BE to create engagement and cognitive ease in complex and potentially boring areas

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Behavioural problemAfter enrolling in a retirement plan people often stick to their default investment plan

BE INSPIRED SOLUTION• Framing the letter - ’You need to make

an important decision about your pension’.

• Increases saliency of what is the no action default

• Increase cognitive ease• Yet also create simple steps (chunking).

BEHAVIOURAL IMPACTIncrease responses from 20,000 to 50,000 -that’s 30,000 more people making an active decision about their pension investment or 67% increase.

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Going with the flow – Power of default [the status quo]

Getting people to eat more healthily

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BEHAVIOURAL CHALLENGEBehavioural research shows that what we consume is heavily affected by what default options are given to us – essentially we go with the flow

BE INSPIRED SOLUTIONRecognising the power of default, Disney carefully altered the default in kid’s complete meal at theme parks so that healthy items were the default.

BEHAVIOURAL IMPACT65-98% adoption rates in the US, Hong Kong and Paris

Maybe questionable use of anchor and default ?

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Visual saliency, position of defaults and playing to power of now all suggest you would only go up the scale!

Defaults play to the cognitive miser in us all!

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Personalised defaults can remove the pleasure of discovery and choice with over-active algorithms – be careful not to lose serendipity!

“

”-- Professor Cass Sunstein

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BE also inspires simple executional ideas

Playing to system 1 and injunctive social norms

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• The presence of the posters cut bike theft by 62%.

Playing to system 1 and injunctive social norms

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• The presence of the posters cut bike theft by 62%. • In the control areas, bike theft actually rose instead

by 64% - Kicking the can down the road issue

A BE executional masterclass by booking.com

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Loss aversion

Power of now

Authoritybias

Socialproof

“You cannot understand the success of sites like Amazon, Groupon or Booking.com without understanding BE principles like social proof, loss aversion and scarcity to name but a few”.

Laurence Boschetto, President of Draft FCB

Scarcitybias

Socialnorms

But beware, a little knowledge can be dangerous

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Powerful behaviour architecture underpinned by science, we have power in our hand.

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With great knowledge comes great power and

greater responsibility.

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Crawford@thebearchitects.com

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