32 dog-phobic children were split into 3 groups and shown 8 videos of either one child playing with a dog, many children with different dogs or no dogs, and then asked to interact with a dog themselves.
Those who watched another child play with a dog performed far better. Those who watched many children also kept this up a month later.
Provide mental shortcuts through the judgements of others; the more people, the more persuasive. First-time consumers of your product will benefit the most from this approach.
Persuade with similarity. We're most influenced by those who we deem similar to ourselves. Communicate characteristics relevant to that segment, such as proximity, gender / age, profession or social class to successfully direct behavior.
Use role-models. Understand the emotional drivers of your audience and seek out positive, aspirational individuals to direct specific consumer decisions and reinforce behaviors.
Faced with a set of options, when we’re not sure what’s the “right” choice, Defaults offer a helpful guide.
They help people avoid expending vast amounts of cognitive energy to decide between what could be a large number of options.
This is especially the case for those who don’t know much about the products or services, where Default options can take away the fear of getting that first decision wrong.
They're also a powerful remedy to any potential Analysis Paralysis, and are particularly helpful when making multiple choices one after the other.
Consider that you’re buying a computer, with a range of possible customisations to various parts.
If there were no default choices set, we’d quickly become overwhelmed with what was the right choice in each step.
If you have complicated product ranges or customisations, are you setting helpful Defaults? If you are, think hard about whether these need improving to reduce effort further.
But also, a word of warning.
Defaults can be terribly misused to force people into decisions that they don’t want.
Take people down the wrong path and you’ll quickly trigger Reactance; an angry feeling where people will want to reclaim their independence, often doing the opposite of what you Default them to.
Ensure that your Defaults have peoples’ own intentions in mind and don’t deviate too far from what people would do of their own choosing.
What Defaults are you setting? How can these be improved to help smooth out decision-making and guide people to better outcomes, either for themselves (e.g. helping them save more money) or for the wider group (e.g. defaulting meeting times to 15 minutes instead of 30).
Defaults are set everywhere. They’re powerful and have a big influence on behavior with little effort.
Faced with a set of options, when we’re not sure what’s the “right” choice, Defaults offer a helpful guide.
They help people avoid expending vast amounts of cognitive energy to decide between what could be a large number of options.
This is especially the case for those who don’t know much about the products or services, where Default options can take away the fear of getting that first decision wrong.
They're also a powerful remedy to any potential Analysis Paralysis, and are particularly helpful when making multiple choices one after the other.
Consider that you’re buying a computer, with a range of possible customisations to various parts.
If there were no default choices set, we’d quickly become overwhelmed with what was the right choice in each step.
If you have complicated product ranges or customisations, are you setting helpful Defaults? If you are, think hard about whether these need improving to reduce effort further.
But also, a word of warning.
Defaults can be terribly misused to force people into decisions that they don’t want.
Take people down the wrong path and you’ll quickly trigger Reactance; an angry feeling where people will want to reclaim their independence, often doing the opposite of what you Default them to.
Ensure that your Defaults have peoples’ own intentions in mind and don’t deviate too far from what people would do of their own choosing.
What Defaults are you setting? How can these be improved to help smooth out decision-making and guide people to better outcomes, either for themselves (e.g. helping them save more money) or for the wider group (e.g. defaulting meeting times to 15 minutes instead of 30).
Defaults are set everywhere. They’re powerful and have a big influence on behavior with little effort.
161 people were told that they’d just moved to a new US state and that here, the default was (or wasn’t) to be an organ donor. They were then asked to accept or change this donation status.
Results showed that only 42% donated when the default was to opt out, but 82% when defaulted to opt in.
Defaults are powerful. They’re chosen because consumers take mental shortcuts (especially when tired) and because there’s implied trust that they’re the ‘right’ choice. Defaults also act as a reference point against better or worse options. (Dinner et al., 2011).
Defaults can be set around anything: from the standard package you offer to new subscribers, to the pre-set top-up amount for your mobile wallet, to whether each order of pizza should come with salad. Each default can dramatically affect conversion levels and behavior.
Get the balance. Ensure your defaults feel natural and in line with consumer aspirations. The more extreme the default you set (i.e. defaulting to the most expensive option), the more effort consumers will expend weighing up the cognitive / emotional costs of not choosing the default, impacting their experience and reducing overall trust.
306 people visited one of three coffee shops and were asked to buy a coffee at either: €0.99, €1, €1.01 or an orange juice that was €0.15 cheaper than the respective coffee price.
Results showed that, contrary to conventional research on pricing (shown by the dashed line), the round-priced coffee saw the highest % of sales.
150 students completed a simple task and were split into two groups and given either positive or negative feedback on their performance. They were then shown either a one-off print or a mass-produced one and asked how much they’d pay for it.
Those given negative feedback were willing to pay almost 4x more on average for the unique print than those with positive feedback, showing how we use consumption to heal our sense of status.
There are multiple ways to elevate brand status:
Form strategic alliances with successful others with whom you share compatible goals (Thorndike, 1920), e.g. Go-Pro and Red Bull.
Develop your core purpose to raise your products’ perceived value (Chernev & Blair, 2015), e.g. Patagonia who “use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
Create and control new ways of promoting industry excellence. Dribbble, a platform for design teams to show off their work provides paid-for "Pro Business" status badges to distinguish the best from the rest.
Invest in a tiered loyalty scheme to elevate consumers’ status & brand attachment (Nunes & Dréze, 2006), e.g. British Airways Executive Club.
205 people were shown a description of a digital camera printed in a font that was either easy to read (high fluency) or hard (low fluency).
Results found that when easy to read, only 56% delayed choosing the camera, next to 71% when hard. Why? Fluency breeds familiarity, which we value greatly, because it’s unlikely to be harmful (Zajonc, 1968).
Keep it short. Whether for marketing, nudges or political persuading, low syllable, easy-to-conceptualize slogans will feel dramatically more intuitive for consumers. Next to a competing message, they’ll believe the one that’s easier to understand (Schooler & Hertwig, 2005).
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The mere act of repeating your message will increase its familiarity, which itself increases the extent to which it’s seen as true (Reber & Schwarz, 1999). Keep it consistent across your team and put it everywhere.
Keep product benefits concise. Consumers actually like a product less the more positive traits they bring to mind (Menon & Raghubir, 2003). This is because they start to associate your product with greater complexity and lower fluency.
Information has a wonderful way of looking very different, depending on how it’s communicated.
From turning glasses half empty into those half-full, as Designers, we have a great role to play in using framing to help people see things differently and hopefully, for the better too.
Framing is one of your most powerful behavioral tools. Everything can be reframed, depending on what you want.
For example, online second-hand clothing marketplace Vinted has devised a clever strategy to reframe the commonly-used “Service Fee” as a “Buyer protection fee”. By reframing it as buyer protection and clearly communicating how this amount is calculated, this assurance goes beyond merely paying for the item.
Now, customers will also feel confident that they’re taking extra steps towards safeguarding their purchase.
Information has a wonderful way of looking very different, depending on how it’s communicated.
From turning glasses half empty into those half-full, as Designers, we have a great role to play in using framing to help people see things differently and hopefully, for the better too.
Framing is one of your most powerful behavioral tools. Everything can be reframed, depending on what you want.
For example, online second-hand clothing marketplace Vinted has devised a clever strategy to reframe the commonly-used “Service Fee” as a “Buyer protection fee”. By reframing it as buyer protection and clearly communicating how this amount is calculated, this assurance goes beyond merely paying for the item.
Now, customers will also feel confident that they’re taking extra steps towards safeguarding their purchase.
96 people were told they’d be given some ground beef to taste, with half told it’d be “25% fat” (negative frame) and half told it’d be “75% lean” (positive frame). They were then asked to rate the quality of the beef out of 7.
Those presented with a positive frame rated the beef as higher quality than those presented with a negative one.
Create a frame using context, words or imagery to help others to see things according to your needs.
Wildly different perceptions are made possible by reframing the same evidence.
Reframe statistics as factually-accurate positives against competitors.
Facts are dramatically reinterpreted when set amongst different data.
• Create an opportunity to act.
We’re more likely to take up a special offer when the marketing message is framed as a potential loss than a gain (Gamliel and Herstein, 2012).
• The Afterlife Effect states that if people are more explicitly shown what the products they are being asked to recycle will become, they will recycle more.
• It's driven by a mix of inspiration, a short story being told and a sense of closure from feedback as to what will happen if they choose to recycle.
• Producers should invest more time in closing this narrative loop to create the aha moment that compels people to recycle.
• The Afterlife Effect can be used to drive new circular economy partnerships and even rewards for the most environmentally-conscious consumers.
Did you know that since plastic was invented in 1907, a staggering 91% of the 8.3bn tonnes produced since has not been recycled (Geyer, Jambeck, and Law 2017)?
It's true that certain companies such as PepsiCo and Evian have already committed to 100%-recycled manufacture by 2020 and 2025, respectively. But more generally, we're still a long way off; plastics recycling actually fell in recent years from 9.5 to 9.1% (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] 2018a).
How then might we use our understanding of behavioral economics to improve the policies of government, industries and companies and speed up this process?
So far, a lot of behavioral research has been done on the more negative side of persuasive messaging to affect decisions to recycle (Bilandzic, Kalch, and Soentgen, 2017) which, though effective on some, can come across as coercive and trigger angry reactance in others, reducing its effectiveness (Griskevicius, Cantu, and Van Vugt 2012).
Despite the doom and gloom that surrounds the bigger question of our collective future, how instead might behavioral economics appeal to a more positive, inspirational side of our decision-making?
Well, some brilliant new research has just been released showing us how. It's called the Afterlife Effect, part of a growing trend of more positive behavioral nudges that you'll start to see a lot more of in future.
The concept
The researchers propose a new, positive way of increasing recycling that focuses on the story of what happens to old products after they've been recycled and what they turn into.
What lies at the core of these stories told? Inspiration, defined as an awareness of a new idea or concept that we didn't know before, so-called "aha moments" ("Oh, so that's what the cups become!"), followed by a new-found motivation to act on it ("That's so cool. It's great to see the impact of my recycling").
This short story provides a powerful, positive and understandable feedback loop as to why we should recycle.
Let's take a look at the research that demonstrates this concept to see the effect on people's recycling.
The research
Study 1 - Showing how a product's afterlife can boost recycling behavior
111 people were split into two core groups (a control and a product afterlife condition) and asked to perform a 'mind-clearing task' of doodling on a sheet of paper.
All were then shown one of three advertisements for product recycling (shown below) and asked to rate it for how likely they'd be to recycle.
They were then asked to clean away their desks, putting their paper either in a recycling container or the trash.
The results fascinatingly showed that those that saw the control with no afterlife information recycled their paper 51% of the time, whereas those in the Afterlife condition recycled 80% of the time! A staggering increase.
Study 2 - Higher click-throughs for ads with product afterlife
The researchers also wanted to see what impact the Afterlife Effect would have on click-throughs on a real advertising campaign.
They worked with clothing company Madewell, who were running a jeans recycling campaign at the time, where old jeans would be turned into household insulation.
Two Google Adwords variants were set up to test to see if the effect held both with and without the Afterlife Effect applied.
After running the campaign for 5 days, the researchers found that click-throughs were significantly higher (26%) for the Afterlife ad over the control (18%), even without any optimization!
The paper lists a further four studies that show the impact of the Afterlife Effect on decision-making.
In summary, given the urgency to act, there is a strong motivation to find new ways to help people to change their environmental consumer behavior.
Using storytelling, feedback loops and triggering inspiration in people can act as a much more positive and powerful motivator for behavior change that won't trigger negative reactions.
• The Afterlife Effect states that if people are more explicitly shown what the products they are being asked to recycle will become, they will recycle more.
• It's driven by a mix of inspiration, a short story being told and a sense of closure from feedback as to what will happen if they choose to recycle.
• Producers should invest more time in closing this narrative loop to create the aha moment that compels people to recycle.
• The Afterlife Effect can be used to drive new circular economy partnerships and even rewards for the most environmentally-conscious consumers.
Did you know that since plastic was invented in 1907, a staggering 91% of the 8.3bn tonnes produced since has not been recycled (Geyer, Jambeck, and Law 2017)?
It's true that certain companies such as PepsiCo and Evian have already committed to 100%-recycled manufacture by 2020 and 2025, respectively. But more generally, we're still a long way off; plastics recycling actually fell in recent years from 9.5 to 9.1% (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] 2018a).
How then might we use our understanding of behavioral economics to improve the policies of government, industries and companies and speed up this process?
So far, a lot of behavioral research has been done on the more negative side of persuasive messaging to affect decisions to recycle (Bilandzic, Kalch, and Soentgen, 2017) which, though effective on some, can come across as coercive and trigger angry reactance in others, reducing its effectiveness (Griskevicius, Cantu, and Van Vugt 2012).
Despite the doom and gloom that surrounds the bigger question of our collective future, how instead might behavioral economics appeal to a more positive, inspirational side of our decision-making?
Well, some brilliant new research has just been released showing us how. It's called the Afterlife Effect, part of a growing trend of more positive behavioral nudges that you'll start to see a lot more of in future.
The concept
The researchers propose a new, positive way of increasing recycling that focuses on the story of what happens to old products after they've been recycled and what they turn into.
What lies at the core of these stories told? Inspiration, defined as an awareness of a new idea or concept that we didn't know before, so-called "aha moments" ("Oh, so that's what the cups become!"), followed by a new-found motivation to act on it ("That's so cool. It's great to see the impact of my recycling").
This short story provides a powerful, positive and understandable feedback loop as to why we should recycle.
Let's take a look at the research that demonstrates this concept to see the effect on people's recycling.
The research
Study 1 - Showing how a product's afterlife can boost recycling behavior
111 people were split into two core groups (a control and a product afterlife condition) and asked to perform a 'mind-clearing task' of doodling on a sheet of paper.
All were then shown one of three advertisements for product recycling (shown below) and asked to rate it for how likely they'd be to recycle.
They were then asked to clean away their desks, putting their paper either in a recycling container or the trash.
The results fascinatingly showed that those that saw the control with no afterlife information recycled their paper 51% of the time, whereas those in the Afterlife condition recycled 80% of the time! A staggering increase.
Study 2 - Higher click-throughs for ads with product afterlife
The researchers also wanted to see what impact the Afterlife Effect would have on click-throughs on a real advertising campaign.
They worked with clothing company Madewell, who were running a jeans recycling campaign at the time, where old jeans would be turned into household insulation.
Two Google Adwords variants were set up to test to see if the effect held both with and without the Afterlife Effect applied.
After running the campaign for 5 days, the researchers found that click-throughs were significantly higher (26%) for the Afterlife ad over the control (18%), even without any optimization!
The paper lists a further four studies that show the impact of the Afterlife Effect on decision-making.
In summary, given the urgency to act, there is a strong motivation to find new ways to help people to change their environmental consumer behavior.
Using storytelling, feedback loops and triggering inspiration in people can act as a much more positive and powerful motivator for behavior change that won't trigger negative reactions.
111 people were split into two groups and asked to perform a mind-clearing task of doodling on a sheet of paper.
People who were shown the afterlife information (doodled paper being recycled into a new paper or a guitar) were more likely to recycle their paper than those who were not given this information (control).
Close the loop with a simple, inspiring story.
Consumers value the powerful stories told by products made from recycled material (Kamleitner, Thuerridl, and Martin 2019).
Get people to think about the transformative effects of turning old products into new ones with a story.
For instance, UK retailer Marks & Spencer is now rolling out a scheme where you can recycle any plastic in-store to be turned into shop fixtures and playground equipment for schools. They could use the box to show off the intended afterlife to inspire customers, as shown here.
If you sell a physical product, how can you build in and communicate the story of its afterlife?
Positivity is persuasive!
We are seeing a growing trend away from negative interventions (Moller, Ryan, and Deci 2006) with new research showing that positive, inspirational nudges can be more effective in motivating behavior change!
Although triggering Loss Aversion, for instance, can be effective, you may see greater results with a positive nudge.
How might you use inspirational nudges over negative, shaming ones in an environmental context?
Make it timely.
Organisations and Governments can also do a better job of motivating recycling at the point of disposal with the Afterlife Effect.
Recycling rates will be increased if we can see, at the point of disposal, what our efforts will turn into.
Consider tie-ups with complementary products / brands.
Though Nespresso recycle the aluminium from their coffee pods, they currently have no Afterlife Effect in place.
They could alternatively use recycled materials to make some of the complementary metal-based products on their site and gift them to those with a decent level of recycling.
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
Over 10 days, millions of people using online ticket marketplace Stubhub were put into two groups, where 15% ticket fees were either made salient up front during ticket browsing, or hidden until checkout.
Results found that for those with delayed salience of the fee, revenue increased by 21%, with a quarter of this due to higher priced tickets being bought.
What is seen is what is done
Surfacing key information in a timely fashion can prompt us to do more of what we aspire to. For instance, Amazon have redesigned their Kindle so that when it's not in use, the screensaver becomes the cover of the book you're currently reading. This acts as a salient reminder to read as one notices the Kindle throughout the day. We can use the same approach to boost healthy eating, having a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table over one filled with salty cashews. What do you want users to do more of? How do you want them to feel? What unique or delightful features can you surface that will help inspire action and make Tiny Habits that much more likely to form?
More knowledge isn't necessarily better
There's a trade-off between what's presented to us now and making good decisions for our future. For instance, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase choose to omit the % gained or lost from one's investments. Research shows that if they instead showed this, people may incorrectly sell coins that have increased in value, while keeping coins that have dropped in value, known as the Disposition Effect.
Differentiate by removing information
Whereas knowledge can be power, it can also demotivate. For example, weight loss scales Shapa does away with the number telling you how much you weigh, instead providing 5 colour bands denoting averaged performance. Omitting the number shifts us away from short term fluctuations in weight that can lead to feelings of failure causing us to give up. What information or options could you hide that could otherwise lead users to short term or harmful outcomes? What can you remove that could confuse or overwhelm?
Delayed salience can trigger shock
Also consider the ethical implications of hiding key information, as in the study above. In this case, any reactance felt will be relative to the proportion of the extra fees incurred, customer expectations, industry norms and how frequent the transaction is. Hidden fees on more regular transactions like grocery shopping will be subject to higher levels of reactance than one-offs like a car purchase. There is an art to surfacing such painful information at the correct time in order to generate a sale. Try adding an explanation of why the fee exists to reduce drop-off, like Airbnb do.
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