BEHAVIOR CHANGE TACTIC
Rules of Thumb
Rules of thumb refer to simplifation heuristics used in dealing with uncertainty, situations where tracking behaviors can be onerous, or areas where one-size-fits-all approaches may not be successful. They can be a useful tool to reduce the cognitive load of complying with a new behavior.For example, a person may find it easier to "eat out at restaurants only 4 times per month" rather than "limit monthly restaurant spending to $200." Similarly, avoiding eating certain types of foods, e.g. fried foods or high-calorie drinks, may be easier to recall and comply with than hitting a daily calorie goal.
Studies involving Rules of Thumb
PAPERS
Keeping It Simple: Financial Literacy and Rules of Thumb
AUTHORS
A Schoar, G Fischer, A Drexler
TACTICS
Rules of Thumb, Reduce Cognitive Load
PAPERS
Risking it all for love? Resetting beliefs about HIV risk among low-income South African teens
AUTHORS
Saugato Datta
BEHAVIOR
Sexual Health Behaviors
TACTICS
Rules of Thumb, Feedback
PAPERS
Integrating a Parenting Intervention With Routine Primary Health Care: A Cluster Randomized Trial
AUTHORS
SM Chang
TACTICS
Rules of Thumb
PAPERS
Reducing Household Water Consumption
AUTHORS
Saugato Datta, Matthew Darling, Karina Lorenzana, Oscar Calvo Gonzalez, Juan Jose Miranda, Laura de Castro Zoratto
TACTICS
Social Benchmarking, Rules of Thumb
PAPERS
The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation
AUTHORS
H Allcott, Todd Rogers
BEHAVIOR
Conservation Behaviors
TACTICS
Social Benchmarking, Rules of Thumb, Feedback
Products leveraging Rules of Thumb
PRODUCTS
Acorns
Behaviors
Savings
Tactics
Framing Effects, Reduce Friction or Barriers, Automation +2 more
PRODUCTS
Charlie
Behaviors
Savings, Financial Behaviors
Tactics
Automation, Smart Defaults, Reduce Friction or Barriers +1 more
PRODUCTS
Rise
Behaviors
Diet & Nutrition
Tactics
Coaching or Counselling, Skill Coaching, Reminders +9 more
PRODUCTS
Zero
Behaviors
Diet & Nutrition
Tactics
Education or Information, Reminders, Cues +5 more
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.