BEHAVIOR CHANGE TACTIC
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.
Studies involving Automation
PAPERS
Mobile-izing Savings with Automatic Contributions: Experimental Evidence on Dynamic Inconsistency and the Default Effect in Afghanistan.
AUTHORS
T Ghani, M Callen, J Blumenstock
BEHAVIOR
Oral Self-Care
TACTICS
Automation, Smart Defaults
PAPERS
Behavior Change Programs: Status and Impact
PRODUCT
Nest Thermostat
BEHAVIOR
Conservation Behaviors
TACTICS
Education or Information, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers, Self-Monitoring or Tracking, Social Norms, Automation, Environmental Restructuring
PAPERS
Active Vs. Passive Decisions and Crowdout in Retirement Savings Accounts.
AUTHORS
Raj Chetty
BEHAVIOR
Savings
TACTICS
Framing Effects, Active Choice, Automation
PAPERS
Applying Behavioural Insights to Charitable Giving 5
BEHAVIOR
Charitable Giving
TACTICS
Automation
PAPERS
Job Centre RCT for Employment Seeking
BEHAVIOR
Employment
TACTICS
Identity Priming, Commitment Devices
Products leveraging Automation
PRODUCTS
Nest Thermostat
Behaviors
Conservation Behaviors
Tactics
Environmental Restructuring, Automation, Social Norms +6 more
PRODUCTS
PlateJoy
Behaviors
Diet & Nutrition
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation, Skill Coaching +1 more
PRODUCTS
Acorns
Behaviors
Savings
Tactics
Framing Effects, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation +2 more
PRODUCTS
Mission Lane
Behaviors
Savings, Financial Behaviors
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Financial Incentives, Automation
PRODUCTS
Roman
Behaviors
Smoking Cessation, Medication Adherence, Mental Health & Self-Care +1 more
Tactics
Automation, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Commitment Devices
PRODUCTS
Nurx
Behaviors
Smoking Cessation, Medication Adherence, Mental Health & Self-Care +1 more
Tactics
Automation, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Commitment Devices
PRODUCTS
Pillo
Behaviors
Medication Adherence
Tactics
Environmental Restructuring, Coaching or Counselling, Automation
PRODUCTS
TrueLink Financial
Behaviors
Savings, Financial Behaviors
Tactics
Automation, Smart Defaults, Environmental Restructuring
Related behavior change tactics
TACTICS
AI or Chatbot
Using a chatbot or simulated conversational interaction.
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
Behavior Substitution
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.
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
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.