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Behaviour change

Gathering notes on behaviour change from my notes for talk pitches and a DADG session.

Working in accessibility often involves persuasion and behaviour change. Having to Understand the pros and cons of doing accessibility work, and being able to communicate that to (and with) other people. I’ve read a bunch on books on (the psychology and philosophy of) behaviour change over the years. Here are three of my favourites: Switch, Atomic Habits, and Tiny Habits.

All models are wrong, but some are useful / The map is not the territory

No model or map or framework will be perfect. But, we can make our own cocktail of helpful, useful, fruitful, bits from the ones that appeal to us.

Table of Contents:

Switch

  • Direct the Rider
    • Follow the bright spots
    • Have a destination postcard
    • Script the critical steps
  • Motivate the Elephant
    • Find the feeling
    • Shrink the change
    • Promote a growth mindset
  • Shape the Path
    • Tweak the environment
    • Rally the herd
    • Make it a habit

Troubleshooting

Be clear on the problem, then apply the framework.

  • People keep saying “it’ll never work”
    • Find a bright spot that shows it can
    • Engineers a small win to change people’s attitude
    • Carve out a “free space” for those who believe
  • You don’t know my people, they hate change
    • What have they already done that’s smaller?
    • Are you committing the Fundamental Attribution Error
  • I’ll change tomorrow
    • Shrink the change so you can start today
    • Set an action trigger for tomorrow
    • Make yourself accountable to someone
  • People simple aren’t motivate to change
    • Is there an identity conflict you can leverage?
    • Create a destination postcard
    • Lower the bar to get people moving
    • Use social pressure to encourage change
    • Smooth the path so even an unmotivated person will slide along
  • People don’t see the need to change
    • Not a Rider problem. Find the feeling. Do a dramatic demo.
    • Create empathy. Show the problem with not changing.
    • Tweak the environment so that whether they see the need or not is irrelevant
  • We’re getting bogged down in analysis
    • Find a feeling to get the Elephant moving
    • Create a destination postcard so the Rider focuses on how instead of whether
    • Simplify the problem by scripting the critical moves

Atomic Habits

  • Attractive
    • Link a reward with a good action
  • Satisfying
    • Use a habit tracker, visual record of progress
  • Easy
    • Start with small, quick, wins
  • Obvious
    • Use Implementation Intentions, tweak the environment

Flip it to create friction

Positive reinforcement gets better long-term results. Short-term negative reinforcement can occasionally be useful. Flipping ASEO (Attractive, Satisfying, Easy, Obvious) can help us see where we’re getting stuck.

  • Unattractive
    • Highlight the costs of the old behaviour
    • Highlight the benefits of the new behaviour
  • Unsatisfying
    • When failure is public and painful
  • Difficult
    • When there’s increased friction or number of steps
  • Invisible
    • When there’s reduced exposure or missing cues

Tiny Habits

We change by feeling good, not by feeling bad. Emotions create habits more than information or repetition or frequency.

Pick a behaviour that’s high impact, high motivation, easy ability.

  • Behaviour = Motivation × Ability × Prompt
    • Sufficient Motivation and Ability are required to cross “The Action Line”
      • Motivation is complex and unreliable
      • Motivation towards an abstraction doesn’t work
      • Big actions have good narrative, but small, consistent, incremental actions succeed
      • Making actions easier is a reliable lever
        • time, money, effort, routine
      • Prompts: Person, Action, Context. Action is most reliable: location, frequency, theme.
    • Motivation and Ability can compensate for each other somewhat
  • Celebrate immediately after the habit because emotions form habits via dopamine
  • Rehearse a habit to make it sink in more quickly
  • Remove fear and demotivators rather than increase hope and motivators
  • Embrace a new identity

Troubleshooting

  1. Is there a Prompt? (Action prompts are more reliable than Person or Context Prompts)
  2. Is there an Ability blocker? (Make the Behaviour easier. Check time, money, physical effort, mental effort, routine)
  3. Is there enough Motivation? (It’s unreliable. Motivation towards an abstract doesn’t work.)

Bonus: “Tripping over the truth”

From The Power Of Moments.

Viscerally seeing, feeling, the scale and scope of the problem, to motivate toward and appreciate a solution.

It’s effective because it’s not being pushy, forceful, or opinionated.

  1. Clear insight
  2. Compressed in time
  3. Discovered by the audience