Behavior Change
Behavior change is an extremely interesting topic for me. When it’s clear that a behavior is bad for us, why is it so difficult to do something different? It seems so simple, yet I have empirical evidence (n=1) that it surely is not.
I’ve been aware of popular explanations of habit and behavior change, such as in Charles Duhigg’s book, but I hadn’t studied any of the most prevalent scientific models directly — or participated in a dedicated program like Tiny Habits. The past two weeks have been a massive learning experience; I’m quite confident in saying that I’ll never think about what I do, why I do it, and how I might change in the same way again.
The Duhigg video was nice as a way into the topic, but since I’ve seen it before and read his habit story in the Times, I’m going to focus instead on Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model and the Fogg Model. They have a lot in common although BJ has the benefit of compelling videos and visual aides that make his explanation more compelling for designers of products and policies. At their core, both view change as a process, which, I was surprised to learn from Prochaska, et al, was not the prevailing view at the time. As part of this process view, both models agree that there are prerequisites for effective change. Prochaska describes them as stages that one needs to pass through from pre-contemplation to contemplation to preparation before action. Fogg describes them as ingredients — motivation and ability — that, presumably, are acquired over time.
Where the two models differ most pronouncedly is in their views of how the prerequisites are satisfied and whether intervention is effective in moving people to action. BJ effectively says no — or that’s not his focus. His model is action-oriented — when an intervention program is not working, he advocates starting at the trigger for the action, then looking at whether the new behavior is easy enough to do; if designers consider motivation at all, it is as a last resort. He believes that there are enough people motivated to change that are being poorly served by existing programs, so he wants to focus on improving the efficacy (and within that, retention) of the programs, rather than increasing the participation rate of individuals in those programs.
The Tiny Habits program is an outgrowth of this view. It’s all about triggers and ability, and I found it to be incredibly effective — with a couple of caveats. Tying the new behavior to an existing behavior that I already do on auto-pilot is a genius conceit. My new behaviors were tied to 1) getting out of bed, 2) turning on the water for a shower, and 3) brushing my teeth — all three activities that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the house each morning without doing. By the end of the week, I was priming myself for a good day, banging out push-ups, and flossing without even thinking — pretty incredible results, especially for flossing, which has been a terribly difficult habit to acquire. My caveats are two: first, it’s not clear to me how to scale up once the tiny habit is ingrained — I’m not sure how much benefit I’ll get from flossing one tooth per day for the rest of life. Maybe this decision is simply up to me to figure out, but it feels like I would benefit from a roadmap. Second, BJ acknowledges that our ability to do the new behaviors will change as our anchor behaviors change. I’m traveling this week, and I’ve seen it firsthand — whereas my new behaviors were automatic yesterday, I forgot 2 of 3 in my new environment. It makes me wonder how robust my new habits are if a simple change of scenery (I’m still doing the anchor behaviors just in a different place) can knock me completely out of whack. That said, I really think the program is fascinating and I plan to try to find new anchors and add more tiny behaviors on my own.
In the paper outlining the Transtheoretical Model, Prochaska, et al, take a different view. They describe participation rate as the forgotten lever; when others focus only on efficacy, they mistakenly prioritize great results for a program in which only a handful of individuals are able to stick it out over decent results with a much higher participation rate — a combination that could yield much greater overall positive impact. As long as interventions focus only on moving people from preparation to action, they will be neglecting perhaps 80% of the population with the bad behavior. This is a compelling argument. However, I tend to lean more to the Fogg view, and I don’t think I’m cynical for doing so. Motivation is a big hurdle, and Prochaska admits that it can take months or years to move users to the point of action when their current behavior provides high short-term benefits. I would invest more in getting the interventions right for those who have already gotten to that point; then, once we have found the programs that work really well, we can circle back to the earlier stages where the Transtheoretical Model has already laid the groundwork.
As I said at the outset, this was a really impactful module for me. I look forward to exploring these techniques when designing for behavior change – both for myself and for others.