Behavioral Design — What It Is And How It Works
Recently several clients have asked us what we mean by behavioral design. They want to know because they are either asked by their boss or they are curious themselves. In either case, there is some worry attached to their question. Is this some type of mind control as seen in each of the Manchurian Candidate movies, or is this just research company hyperbole intended too make their current service newer and more “shiny?” The reality is neither. The concept of behavioral design was first associated with therapy programs designed to change a specific behavior or psychological state, e.g. drug use, obsessive repetitive actions, anxiety, etc. These programs used cognitive psychology to give the patient insight into what psychological “false benefit” “caused” the unwanted behavior giving the patient a “heads-up” as to how to better control their behavior and extinguish those that were unwanted. Since there was a great deal of similarity in terms of which false benefit led to which unwanted behavior. Once this was known, success was achieved by developing those tools and techniques which best “reminded” the patient that what appeared to be a real gain from the unwanted behavior was neither real nor long-lasting. In short, once the common “causes” of the unwanted behaviors were known, tailoring the optimal treatment program to the patient became the primary task of behavioral design. Behavioral design then became the term of choice for a program which approached the behavior to be changed as the “output” of a psychological system which could be “managed” through specific intervention. This is the most common use of the term today.
Although the application to PR, politics, marketing or organizational development is obviously different from its original use, the components of successful behavioral design remain the same – there is a targeted behavior, an understanding to the “cause” of the behavior, and an effective intervention. Unfortunately, calling something behavioral design although it implies that these three components are present, does not guarantee that they are in the service delivered. In fact, the absence of the first two components, true “cause” and effective intervention may not be at all present in what is purported to be behavioral design and the entire process may be ineffective.
The other key difference between the original application of behavioral design and its application to PR, politics, marketing or organizational development is that the desired behavior or belief is not just the cessation of something undesired, but also the adoption of what the client wants. This puts an even greater strain on the understanding of what causes the behavior or attitude and on the effectiveness of the intervention, but also what causes adoption of a specific alternative, again what the client wants.
However, regardless of its complexity, the application of behavioral design to other areas is not only possible but can be highly effective. For example, delivering ads right-leaning presidential voters in the 2016 election which deprecated the Democratic candidate appear to have been an effective intervention by foreign organizations. Please note that this relatively simple behavioral system was effective because its intervention enhanced motivation to vote for the Republican candidate. The indirect mechanism used was Confirmation Bias, i.e. validating the inherent beliefs of the leaning swing voter, not by directly acting on candidate preference.
Please let us know if you would like Behavioral Science Lab to apply behavioral design to PR, politics, marketing or organizational development by modeling these more complex systems underlying the desired behavior your organization is seeking and estimating the effectiveness of a set of interventions on purchase preference, greater engagement or even identification.
Tim Gohmann Co-founder and Chief Science Officer 805.405.5420 | tim@behavioralsciencelab.com
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE LAB, LLC 500 WEST SECOND STREET, 19TH FLOOR, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78701 USA www.behavioralsciencelab.com
Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash