Social Benchmarking

BEHAVIOR CHANGE TACTIC

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.

Studies involving Social Benchmarking

PAPERS

Nudging Guideline-Concordant Antibiotic Prescribing

AUTHORS

Daniella Meeker, Tara Knight, Mark Friedberg, Jeffrey Linder, Noah Goldstein, Craig Fox, Alan Rothfeld, Guillermo Diaz, Jason Doctor

BEHAVIOR

Prescribing Medications, Healthcare Delivery

TACTICS

Public Commitments, Commitment Devices

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

PAPERS

Public Praise vs. Private Pay: Effects of Rewards on Energy Conservation in the Workplace.

AUTHORS

Kirstin Appelt, Margriet van Lidth de Jeude, MJJ Handgraaf

BEHAVIOR

Conservation Behaviors

TACTICS

Social Benchmarking, Micro-Incentives, Feedback, Non-Financial Incentives

PAPERS

Goals and Social Comparisons Promote Walking Behavior

AUTHORS

Elliot Coups, Kimberly Convery, Helen Colby, Gretchen Chapman

BEHAVIOR

Physical Activity

TACTICS

Goal Setting, Social Benchmarking, Feedback

PAPERS

Conditional Cooperation in the Field.

BEHAVIOR

Charitable Giving

TACTICS

Social Benchmarking

PAPERS

Evidence from Two Large Field Experiments that Peer Comparison Feedback Can Reduce Residential Energy Usage.

BEHAVIOR

Conservation Behaviors

TACTICS

Feedback, Social Benchmarking

PAPERS

The Impact of Downward Social Information on Contribution Decisions.

BEHAVIOR

Charitable Giving

TACTICS

Framing Effects, Social Benchmarking

Related behavior change tactics

AI or Chatbot

TACTICS

AI or Chatbot

Using a chatbot or simulated conversational interaction.‍

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

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.‍

Active Choice

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.”‍

Automation

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.‍

Behavior Substitution

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.‍

Behavioral Activation (BA)

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.‍