BEHAVIOR CHANGE TACTIC
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.
Studies involving Reduce Friction or Barriers
PAPERS
Source Dispensers and Home Delivery of Chlorine in Kenya
AUTHORS
C Casarotto, S Asman
TACTICS
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers
PAPERS
Did you get your shots? Experimental evidence on the role of reminders
AUTHORS
Humpage, Cristia, Busso
BEHAVIOR
Vaccination
TACTICS
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers
PAPERS
Member Centered Credit Union Banking: How behavioral insights can help credit unions better serve members
BEHAVIOR
Savings
TACTICS
Social Norms, Checklists, Micro-Incentives
PAPERS
Keeping College Students in School: "You Belong"
TACTICS
Social Norms, Identity Priming, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers
PAPERS
Reducing the Complexity Costs of 401(K) Participation Through Quick Enrollment.
AUTHORS
James Choi
BEHAVIOR
Savings
TACTICS
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Reduce Cognitive Load
PAPERS
Financial Literacy, Information, and Demand Elasticity.
BEHAVIOR
Savings
TACTICS
Education or Information, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Reduce Cognitive Load
PAPERS
Using no-cost mobile phone reminders to improve attendance for HIV test results: A pilot study in rural Swaziland.
TACTICS
Social Support, Reminders, Cues, & Triggers
PAPERS
Effects of a mobile phone short message service on antiretroviral treatment adherence in Kenya (WelTel Kenya1): A randomised trial.
TACTICS
Social Support
PAPERS
Web-Based Access to Positive Airway Pressure Usage with or without an Initial Financial Incentive Improves Treatment Use in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea.
AUTHORS
ST Kuna
BEHAVIOR
Adherence (Medication or Treatment), Sleep
TACTICS
Reminders, Cues, & Triggers, Feedback
Products leveraging Reduce Friction or Barriers
PRODUCTS
PlateJoy
Behaviors
Diet & Nutrition
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation, Skill Coaching +1 more
PRODUCTS
Parsley
Behaviors
Mental Health & Self-Care, Substance Use or Addiction
Tactics
Feedback, Self-Monitoring or Tracking
PRODUCTS
Fresh EBT
Behaviors
Savings
Tactics
Financial Incentives, Reduce Friction or Barriers
PRODUCTS
Steady
Behaviors
Savings, Employment
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation, Implementation Intentions
PRODUCTS
Mission Lane
Behaviors
Savings, Financial Behaviors
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Financial Incentives, Automation
PRODUCTS
Acorns
Behaviors
Savings
Tactics
Framing Effects, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation +2 more
PRODUCTS
Lemontree
Behaviors
Diet & Nutrition
Tactics
Reduce Friction or Barriers, Environmental Restructuring
PRODUCTS
Roman
Behaviors
Smoking Cessation, Medication Adherence, Mental Health & Self-Care +1 more
Tactics
Automation, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Commitment Devices
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
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
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.