bj fogg behavior model

Anxieties

When developing interventions, it’s essential that you don’t forget about anxieties.

“Anxieties: Everything that drives people away from the desired behaviour”

Only when you know why people don’t display the desired behaviour can you make interventions to remove these barriers.

Many companies focus too much on positive points. Take for examples gyms. They want more people who are not yet exercising to come to their gym to get fit. To achieve this, you will see many messages such as ‘you can run a 10K soon’ and ‘get a six pack’. But when people have too many fears about going to the gym, these rewards won’t win them over.

Instead, it would help if you get rid of people’s anxieties. Do you have clients who are intimidated by other muscular people at the gym? Remove the mirrors in some areas. Do you have customers who still find it too scary to independently step on the oblique machines? Changed the name to a six-pack wonder. Or start beginner classes so they don’t have to worry about not being good enough.

Anxieties are often forgotten but are always present. So focus on what’s stopping someone from engaging in the behaviour and remove those barriers first.

Uncertainty vs choice freedom

We all want more control in life. We, as humans, don’t like uncertainty. That is why we all think we enjoy the freedom of choice. We believe that it will make us happier if we have control over our decisions. But behavioural research revealed that it doesn’t work like this.

‘More choice often leads to more doubt, less satisfaction and worse decision making‘.

Practical examples

Do you have children yourself? Then you probably have problems with getting them to eat vegetables. That’s why it’s time to start using behavioural design. What we often say is: ‘eat your peas’. But it is better to formulate the option to eat vegetables differently. Make your kids feel like they have control over what they eat by saying, “Would you like to eat your carrots or peas first?” As a result, you have given them an option while giving them so little autonomy that they have to eat vegetables anyway.

You can also apply this during salary negotiations as an employer. Often it comes down to the employee wanting a higher salary. How can you give them options without paying the highest price yourself? You can do this, for example, by offering a higher salary but attaching a condition to this. For example, include fewer days off in the contract.

So start using limited options to give people a sense of control and promote the desired behaviour unconsciously.

Beat your phone addiction

Do you sometimes have trouble focusing on your work? Your phone is one of the most disruptive signals that distracts your attention from a task at hand. It has even been investigated that the development of smartphones has gone so fast that we have not had time to adjust our behavior accordingly. So we literally do not know how to deal with all the distractions and information flows.

That is why you need a Behavioral Design intervention to change your behavior. I want to show you how to regain focus. The most important advice I have for you is to make the unwanted behavior as difficult as possible. For this I have two concrete tips that you can use right away.

1. Turn off all your app notifications: They are little dopamine shots you constantly get that you don’t need. You become addicted to constantly checking what is new on your screen.

2. Install a pomodoro app: This is a timer that prompts you to get to work. It helps you to work periods of 25 minutes. Your phone transforms into a countdown clock, without seeing all the other distracting apps and messages. It’s a nudge to stick to your pre-set time that you wanted to work.

So remember, the best way to stop certain behaviors is to make the unwanted behavior as difficult as possible to perform.

Good luck beating your mobile addiction. With the help of Behavioral Design you will be cured in no time.

Behavioural Science for Daily Life: introduction

Hi, my name is Astrid Groenewegen. This video series will help you unlock the power of behavioural science to help you make better decisions in work, life, and play. Why do people do things? Or don’t they? Why do so many of our good intentions of changing our behaviour fail? How can we shape positive behaviours or help people make better decisions for themselves or the planet we live on? I will debunk the myths about motivation, shed light on the hidden psychology of human decision-making, and foremost, show you how to apply the groundbreaking insights from behavioural science to shape desired behaviours yourself. My goal is to make science practical and show you that some basic understanding of human psychology will give you far more control over successful outcomes than you might have ever thought. So, join me on a journey to learn what most of us didn’t get taught in school. Welcome to Behavioural Science for Daily Life!