Public behaviour – Behavioural Design

Co-WIN, casinos and luck

Published June 1, 2021June 1, 2021 by Anand Damani

This article of ours first appeared in The Hindu on 1st June 2021

The psychology behind trying our luck at booking a vaccine appointment is the same as in gambling.

The experience of booking an appointment to get vaccinated in India has been rewarding for some but frustrating for most. The procedure for a citizen to get vaccinated is to register on the Co-WIN website or Aarogya Setu app and schedule an appointment at a preferred centre. It sounds easy until you try it. Soon you realise that no matter how fast you click the confirm button, it’s not easy to get an appointment. That’s because vaccines are in short supply. And that is because the Government of India hasn’t placed enough orders.

People who have been trying to get an appointment find someone or the other in their social network who got lucky with an appointment. That motivates them to keep trying. The system of getting vaccine appointments has become gamified with vaccination centres releasing alerts of slot openings on social media. These alerts inform people about the openings of vaccination slots at any time of the day or night. They keep people hooked on to the game of ‘fastest finger first’ to book an appointment.

Vaccination and gambling

The psychology behind why random alerts and repeated log ins into the website to try one’s luck at booking an appointment works is the same as why people gamble money in casinos or buy lottery tickets. At a casino, people put money in the slot machine and press the button. People don’t know if they’ll win. They can’t predict it. But they believe that the odds of winning increase the more they play. So, they keep gambling. Of course, most people lose more than they win because the odds are always in favour of the casino, which makes most of the money. In the case of trying their luck at getting a vaccination appointment, people eagerly wait for alerts of slot openings, log in and press the confirm button. People don’t know if they’ll ‘win’ an appointment. They can’t predict it. But people believe that the odds of ‘winning’ an appointment increase the more they log in. So, people keep trying. Of course, most people don’t ‘win’ appointments because the odds are not in their favour. The only difference between gambling at casinos and booking vaccination appointments is that in gambling, the casino wins most of the time. But regarding vaccination, both the government and the people lose.

Active conditioning

In Ivan Pavlov’s experiment of classical conditioning, the dogs in the experiment would start drooling when they heard the sounds associated with food preparation. They would drool when the bell rang even though no food was present. After a while, the dogs would stop responding if no food appeared after the bell was rung. But psychologist B. F. Skinner found that rats and pigeons would continue doing the task much longer if they were rewarded occasionally rather than every time. Both are types of conditioning, but Skinner’s conditioning was active, whereas Pavlov’s was passive. The dog didn’t have to do anything conscious to get the reward, whereas the rat and pigeon had to undertake a task. Making the animal take an explicit action produced a stronger, longer lasting effect on behaviour.

Humans respond in similar ways as rats and pigeons when given an occasional reward for repetitive behaviour. Casinos give players the illusion of control by letting players place chips and play their cards. Giving them choices and making people take action makes them feel like they have some control, as opposed to giving purely luck-based unpredictable rewards. In case of vaccinations, the government is giving people the illusion of control by encouraging people to log in and try their luck at booking an appointment. Giving people the choice to take action towards booking an appointment makes people feel like they have some control, even though the odds are highly stacked against ‘winning’ an appointment. There is an element of surprise or uncertainty, so people are never sure when the appointment will come through. This is keeping people engaged. The question is, should the government be operating vaccinations like a casino?

No learning from the Spanish Flu

Published October 25, 2023May 20, 2021 by Anand Damani

Patients lie in an influenza ward at a U.S. Army camp hospital in Aix-les-Baines, France, during World War I.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CORBIS

Hey there, quick update before you proceed, we’re happy to be back after the very first break we’ve taken since we began in 2012. Here’s an article I wished I didn’t have to write. It did hurt. Behavioural scientists are human too 🙂

This article first appeared in The Hindu on 18th May, 2021

The governments of most countries have failed to understand and predict human behaviour

In the beginning of COVID-19 last year, thousands of people around the world shared an image on social media depicting the three waves of the 1918 influenza pandemic, commonly known as the Spanish flu. The image had the headline, ‘Humanity should never allow a repeat of the same mistake made in 1918, in the time of COVID-19’. The image read, “The most severe pandemic in history was the Spanish Flu of 1918. It lasted for 2 years, in 3 waves, with 500 million people infected and 50 million deaths. Most of the fatalities happened in the 2nd wave. The people felt so bad about the quarantine and social distancing measures that when they were first lifted, the people rejoiced in the streets with abandon. In the coming weeks, the 2nd wave occurred, with tens of millions dead.”

This post contained a mix of accurate and inaccurate information. The estimates are accurate and the second wave was indeed the most deadly. However, according to James Harris, a historian at Ohio State University, part of the reason why the flu spread like wildfire causing a second wave was because officials were unwilling to impose restrictions during wartime despite the existence of a new mutated strain.

Lessons from the past

This shows that we haven’t been able to learn from history to prevent millions of infections and deaths worldwide. One would believe that knowledge makes one wiser. But in reality, knowledge doesn’t change behaviour. Knowing about the Spanish flu is very different from having to live through a similar pandemic. Knowing about masks being protective doesn’t make people wear them. Knowing about social distancing doesn’t make people practise it.

In most countries, people got tired of lockdowns, wearing masks, staying at home and not socialising last year. Human beings are social animals after all. Social ostracisation has been shown to cause pain in the brain similar to putting up with physical pain. So, as the number of cases began to fall by the end of the first COVID-19 wave, governments and people around the world started to let their guard down. Amongst many businesses that were allowed to resume, for example, restaurants which were suspected to be one of the major centres for the spread of COVID-19 were given permission to open. Signs outside their establishments read ‘No entry without mask’, but once inside, visitors could remove their masks even while not eating. They talked, laughed, sneezed and coughed in indoor non-ventilated spaces. These visitors would have known about the dangers of this behaviour, some of them may have read about the Spanish flu. But awareness and action often lie at opposing ends.

Lifting restrictions

Each one of us has to contribute to break the chain of COVID-19 infections. However, the ultimate responsibility of managing the pandemic cannot lie with the masses in today’s modern societies; it is the job of governments. But governments of most countries failed to learn from the Spanish flu because they failed to understand and predict human behaviour. In India, the government allowed election rallies and religious gatherings. It hesitated in imposing a lockdown despite the emergence of new strains of the virus. Leaders were often seen addressing crowds and conducting meetings without masks. Every politician wants to win over people and give them what they want (in this case, freedom from lockdowns). But declaring victory prematurely gave rise to policies that caused the second wave.

India had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries which opened up too soon after the first wave. But it didn’t. This has led to the huge spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Perhaps it was overconfidence in the government’s ability to manage the pandemic or an underestimation of the ability of COVID-19 to cause infections and deaths in the second wave or both that led to the surge in infections. While vaccines weren’t available during the Spanish flu, we have the benefit of curbing COVID-19 by vaccinating people now.

Categorising activities in the context of the pandemic

Published September 1, 2020September 1, 2020 by Anand Damani

This article first appeared in the opinion section of The Hindu on 28th August 2020.

In the initial days of COVID-19, towards the end of March 2020, India went into a lockdown. The number of daily new cases at that time was 87. But the fear of contracting the virus was very high. Now after five months, the number of daily new cases has crossed 75,000, but the fear of contracting the virus has reduced. Why do people misunderstand risk?

One reason is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not novel anymore. But more importantly, behavioural science studies show that numbers don’t move people. When we read that three million people in India have contracted COVID-19, most people can’t make much sense of it. But when someone close to us in proximity or relationship contracts COVID-19 or succumbs to it, the fear becomes tangible. People suddenly feel vulnerable. Otherwise, people feel invincible, even though the risk of contracting COVID-19 actually keeps increasing with daily cases increasing.

Guided by emotions

Emotions cause us to misunderstand risk. For example, flying is something that many people get scared of even though flying has become an extremely safe mode of transport. Zero people died in a plane crash last year in India, while over 1,50,000 people died in road accidents. Yet, people feel scared of flying, not of driving on Indian roads.

Flying evokes a powerful emotional response. You are literally up in the air, in the hands of a machine and two pilots. If something happens up there, there is nothing you can do about it. This makes flying feel unsafe even though it is among the safest modes of transport.

Likewise, some people believe that they should not step out of their homes because going out means that they will catch COVID-19. In reality, going for a walk in an uncrowded area with a mask on is relatively safe. Some of the same people believe that staying at home is far safer than stepping out. So, they have started keeping their househelps at home. This is relatively risky, because distancing may not be possible within a typical home in urban India and droplets exhaled, sneezed or coughed out tend to stay in the air indoors for longer.

The risk of contracting COVID-19 in any given situation can be categorised as ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘medium’, ‘low’ or ‘very low’. Visiting a gym generally would fall under ‘very high’ risk, while playing tennis would generally fall under ‘very low’ risk, even though both activities are related to fitness.

However, since each situation demands assessing the risk of contracting COVID-19, it complicates people’s decision-making.

Colour-coding different tasks

To simplify decisions, people rely on short-cuts. For example, if you stay at home, you are safe. If you believe in god, you are safe. If you are healthy, you are safe. If you have a particular deity at home, you are safe. Such simplifications, using which people assess the risk, make COVID-19 a dangerous pandemic.

To help people get a better understanding of risk, the government needs to devise a simple behavioural design. Just like a traffic signal communicates ‘stop’, ‘ready’ and ‘go’ with ‘red’, ‘orange’ and ‘green’ colours respectively, our daily activities need to be categorised as ‘red’, ‘orange’ and ‘green’.

Having outsiders visit your home would be ‘red’, visiting retail stores would be ‘orange’ and meeting a friend at an uncrowded park while keeping a safe distance and wearing a mask would be ‘green’.

If people can’t judge risks accurately, COVID-19 is likely to continue to spread like a raging fire in a forest.

Forced to adopt new habits

Published June 10, 2020June 10, 2020 by Anand Damani

This article first appeared in The Hindu on 14th May 2020.

Starting new habits is tough and requires overcoming inertia. Most of the time humans like maintaining the status quo. The majority of us don’t change the default settings when we buy a new mobile phone. Nor we do change the default settings of any new app we download. The tendency to stick with defaults happens across different aspects of our lives, from personal to social to office work. But this pandemic has jolted us out of our inertia.

We’re now doing new things that we haven’t done before. Those not used to cleaning their own dishes or homes are doing so now. Those not used to working from home are forced to do so now. Managers who wouldn’t allow their teammates to work from home have no choice but to ask them to work from home now. The pandemic has forced us to start new habits.

One habit that we Indians are not used to is maintaining sufficient physical distance from one another in public spaces. There are many reasons for this. Urban cities are densely packed with people. Houses in slums are cramped. Few roads have footpaths, forcing pedestrians to take up a portion of the road. Lanes are narrow; even main roads are narrow. Trains and buses are always packed. Queues are long. The population is overwhelming.

Environmental factors

Behavioural science studies are showing evidence that a large part of human behaviour is led by environmental factors. In normal times we don’t pay much attention to our environment because we don’t need to. If one has to take a crowded train to work because of lack of better choice, we get used to it because the goal is to get to office, in time. The environment becomes part of our sub-conscious. We navigate through life, lanes, stations, etc. without paying much attention to our surroundings. But the pandemic is now making us aware of our surroundings. Besides behaviours like hand washing, sanitising and wearing masks to prevent contracting COVID-19, the pandemic is driving another big behavioural change — keeping safe distance.

Merely informing people that they need to maintain at least six-feet distance from one another is not enough. People tend to forget about distancing while talking to one another. Maintaining distance is an alien concept for us.

That’s why we’re now seeing examples of behavioural design nudges in our environment that help us in maintaining distance in public spaces. Markings in the form of circles and squares are being painted outside grocery stores and pharmacies to help people maintain distance. People are now standing in these circles and squares while waiting in queues. I hope relevant authorities implement this rule, wherever crowds need to be managed.

Maintaining physical distancing

Around the world behavioural design nudges are being implemented to help people keep safe distance from one another. Restaurants in Hong Kong are putting tapes over alternate tables so that people do not occupy tables next to each other. A bus station in Thailand has put stickers on alternate seats so that people sit leaving one seat empty. Schoolchildren in Hangzhou, China are being made to wear caps with fan-like blades so that they cannot come close to other children. A police station in Thailand has placed transparent protective shields on desks creating a barrier between the police inspector and civilians.

We are likely to see many more examples of such behavioural design in the near future that help us keep safe distance, because the lockdown will eventually be lifted.

To see examples of Behavioural Design for keeping safe distance, click here – Instagram

Creating social bonds while physical distancing

Published April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 by Anand Damani

This article first appeared in Mint on 6th April 2020

Till a few weeks ago almost nobody in the world knew what social distancing meant. But since the spread of Covid-19, the term ‘social distancing’ has gone viral too. It implies steps that need to be taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It involves keeping a distance of six feet from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups. It is critical in curbing the spread of the virus and must be followed as far as humanly possible.

But the term ‘social distancing’ means to avoid being social. That’s unnatural for most humans. Humans are a social and emotional beings. We survive and thrive being social. Children are attached to their parents. Grandparents love spending time with grandchildren. Siblings are emotionally close to each other. We all have friends who are our life supports. In India, house helps are like extended family. But now because of Covid-19 we suddenly need to follow social distancing from the people who are always there for us precisely in times like these. It goes against human nature. That makes using the term ‘social distancing’ inappropriate.

Matthew Liebermann, a social neuroscientist, has conducted several studies on how our brains processes social pain. He finds that to the brain, social pain feels a lot like physical pain. The more rejected the participant felt, the more activity there was in the part of the brain, that processes the distress of physical pain. What’s surprising is that studies show that drugs that treat physical pain, like paracetemol, can also reduce emotional pain like social rejection, because similar brain circuitry is engaged when we feel physical pain. That’s perhaps why we express social pain in terms of physical pain, like “she broke my heart”, “he hurt my feelings”. Social pain is real pain. Social pain is associated with decreased cognitive functioning, increased aggression and engagement in self-defeating behaviors, like excessive risk taking and procrastination. So its safe to assume that social distancing in today’s times must be causing real pain too.

Over the past few days we’ve been seeing people in various countries come out in their balconies and sing songs, play music and cheer the people who have been dedicating their time, risking their lives serving patients and delivering essential supplies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed the nation twice requesting we all stand in solidarity. It may not mean much for people who can easily take care of themselves during these times. But for the rest of us, his aim is to boost morale, because levels of stress and anxiety are rising. We humans don’t like uncertainty. We don’t know how long it may take for the vaccine to be made available for most of our population. We don’t like being caged in our little homes away from our social bonds. These times call for social bonding, not social distancing. Thankfully social bonding is possible today because of being able to stay connected over voice and video calling. We can talk to each other about how we are feeling, what we cooked, the jokes our children are cracking, the dreams we’re getting at night and details about the quarrels between couples.

On March 20, the World Health Organization officially changed its language. “We’re changing to say ‘physical distancing,’ and that’s on purpose because we want people to still remain connected,” said WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove. Language matters. Just like how ‘climate change’ is now refered to as ‘climate crisis’ by media, ‘social distancing’ needs to be refered to as ‘physical distancing’. So start exercising physical distancing and social bonding, because this pandemic is going to last quite some time.

The limitations of asking questions in research

Published February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Anand Damani

Researchers ask people for their opinion about their product, packaging or concepts to pick insights about their appeal, and get wonderful feedback that is sincere, detailed, and emphatic but has little relation to the truth.

We wrote about ‘Why focus groups cannot be relied’ earlier on the blog. Here’s another perspective – impression management. Impression management is one of a diverse array of forces that influence our truthfulness. Here’s a behavioural science study in which White college students were asked to state their level of agreement (ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’) with the following two statements:

It is a bad idea for Blacks and Whites to marry each other.
Black people are generally not as smart as Whites.

Half the participants who were asked these questions received them the Black researchers and other half from White researchers. All participants were assured that the answers would be confidential.

When the questioner was Black, the participants’ responses were noticeably more Black-favorable than when the questioner was White. The impression management effect occurred without the subjects being aware that their answers had been influenced by the race of the questioner.

Impression management produces flawed, inaccurate responses to many questions, not just race related. That’s why we don’t ask people questions or conduct surveys or focus groups. We rely on the knowledge of the human brain, cognitive neuroscience, behavioural economics and thousands of proven experiments conducted by behavioural scientists on human behaviour, to create Behavioural Design solutions that make the impact.

Source: J.B McConahey, B.B. Hardee & V. Batts – Has racism declined in America? It depends on who is asking and what is asked – Journal of Conflict Resolution 25, 563-579. (1981)

How to get people to stop littering?

Published July 1, 2019July 1, 2019 by Anand Damani

Let’s explore few ways in which one could reduce littering:

1. You could fine people for littering.

2. You could place CCTVs in the area.

3. You could incentivize people for using garbage bins.

4. You could create a social stigma for people who litter.

5. You could make throwing stuff in bins fun.

6. You could use social proof to indicate that a high percentage of people use the bin.

But behavioural scientists did something better in the 2011 Copenhagen study that reduced littering by 46%.

They placed green footprints on the ground, pointing the way to the nearest garbage bin. Simple, low cost, effective Behavioural Design.

India, though is a different story. Usually there are no trash bins in public places, because the trash bins get stolen by people who sell it to make some money, even though they are fixed to the ground with screws. Everything in India has re-sale value.

So Briefcase has created a Behavioural Design solution in the form of non-stealable, waste-segregated, long-lasting, low cost, low maintenance, all weather, endorsable trash bins. But unfortunately, the local government authorities here in Mumbai – the officers from BMC, aren’t interested because of apathy. How can we change their behaviour? Can you help us?

Source: http://www.inudgeyou.com/green-nudge-nudging-litter-into-the-bin/

Behavioural Design for Urban Planning

Published June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 by Anand Damani

We were happy to be invited to speak at Milano Arch Week 2019 on applying Behavioural Design to urban planning or as they liked to refer to it ‘Urban Regeneration’. We are happy that architects are opening up to our practice of Behavioural Design to build cities that work for people living in it and to use architecture to modify public behaviour.

Our talk included Behavioural Design examples from my Instagram feed. Some of the examples we referred to were the Ballot Bin that gets cigarette smokers to stub their cigarette buds at the Ballot Bin because they are motivated to vote for their choice, whether the choice is about your favourite football player or some other topical question. We were asked about Bleep horn reduction system as a Behavioural Design nudge to reduce drivers’ honking. We spoke about how the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in India has made it mandatory for appliances to come with star ratings and how it’s nudging people to choose higher star rated appliances so that people can save money and in doing so also consume lower power and contribute towards climate crisis in a positive manner. Some of the other examples we spoke about were Behavioural Design nudges to reduce overspeeding, getting people to – use trash bins in the outdoor, use sanitizers in hospitals, use stairs instead of escalators, and many more. If you’re curious to know more, click here.

Behavioural Design & Sustainability Workshop

Published April 13, 2019April 13, 2019 by Anand Damani

We were very happy to be invited by a foundation known as Acting for Good based out of Hong Kong, for a workshop on applying behavioural science for sustainability, conservation and climate change conducted by persuasion stalwarts Influence at Work (UK). Nature, wildlife and conservation is very close to our heart. Sure we’ll continue to work with commercial clients on consumer, employee and investor behaviour change, but solving behavioural aspects of climate change is something we are likely to dedicate a big portion of our time towards, because we all need to begin reversing the damage we’ve been causing to our planet. There isn’t a bigger challenge facing mankind and we’d like to be on the side of creating sustainable Behavioural Design solutions.

We loved interacting with environmentalists, ecologists, wildlife protectors, conservationists, trainers working in Asia as well as catching up with behavioural scientists from Influence at Work (UK). The workshop was very well put together. And the participants’ understanding of the behavioural science principles was also amazing. We got along so well, it felt our meeting had to happen. We already miss them. We’ve also begun thinking about behavioural challenges related to climate change and conservation. We can’t wait to spread the workshops and to work on some of the tough behavioural challenges in Asia being faced by workers on ground. We’ll communicate on this topic as and when we make progress. The journey has just begun and we’re hungry to make a big difference.

To change the habit, change the environment

Published March 11, 2019March 11, 2019 by Anand Damani

Habits get automatically activated by our environment, especially so in stressful situations like when you get home hungry and tired – that time our habits are in full control of us. An effective way to change the habit is to change the environment.

Behavioural scientists Neal and colleagues had participants sit in a cinema watching trailers while others sat in a meeting room watching music videos. None were aware that the study was about eating habits; they were told it was about attitudes and personality.

When sitting in the cinema, strong habits cued by familiar circumstances had their familiar effect – people ate popcorn like robots. In the cinema, it didn’t matter whether the popcorn was stale or fresh or whether the person was starving or had a full stomach. Liking for popcorn had very little effect on how much they ate. Those with weaker popcorn eating habit did eat less of the stale popcorn.

In contrast, participants in the meeting room, all behaved, more thoughtful, whether or not they had a strong habit of eating popcorn at the cinema. They ate less of the stale popcorn, and less overall if they weren’t hungry. Even for those with strong popcorn eating habit, the change of environment was enough to disrupt their automatic behaviour. Overall, in the meeting room, people ate 50% less popcorn than those in the cinema.

Then some people in the cinema were told to eat with their non-dominant hand. If they were right-handed, they were told to eat with the left hand. This jolted them out of their habitual behaviour and brought the conscious mind back into action.

Take a close look at your kitchen. Is the first thing you see healthy or unhealthy? What’s easily accessible – fruits or packaged snacks? How big are the containers in which food is stored? How big are the plates you eat out of?

Source: D.T. Neal, W. Wood, M. Wu, D. Kurlander – The pull of the past – personality and social psychology bulletin 37, no. 11 (2011): 1428-1437