There is much to do regarding the psychology of behavior change. On the one hand, behavioral insights are embraced by governments and companies. On the other hand, the same behavioral insights are not found in scientific replication studies. A discrepancy that harms not only science, but also corporate and government decision-making.

Replication Crisis

About 5 years ago, the psychology of behavior change hit the news negatively. Various fraud cases came to light and scientific behavioral insights proved not replicable. Just last month, important research by psychologist Dan Ariely widely highlighted in the media. His findings related to encouraging honest behavior are not found in studies with larger numbers of participants.

It is easy to draw the conclusion that studies of behavioral insights are currently deficient. We still do not know how behavior comes about and exactly what the influence of the environment is. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions from replication studies in which, for example, the environment is yet slightly different from the original study. A dilemma in behavioral science that does not seem easy to solve.

Applying behavioral insights

Despite the fact that we still know little about the influence of the environment, behavioral insights are increasingly being used by governments and companies. Usually, extensive research is conducted into the use of behavioral insights, but measurements of the actual effect are lacking. And yet these measurements are crucial. Because of the limited insight into how behavior is influenced, we cannot know whether the intervention has achieved the desired effect with possible crucial consequences for the well-being of people.

We are getting better at measuring behavior

Fortunately, behavior has never been more measurable. More and more decisions are taking place online and in this way the influence of the environment can be measured in detail. A treasure chest of information that is there for the taking. In the past 4.5 years, I have been able to measure the effect of a change in the environment on behavior at more than 50 clients for Online Dialogue. Besides the fact that the environment is controllable (a website page) we also deal with large numbers of visitors and natural behavior (compared to a survey in a controlled environment like a lab). Valuable data that we are currently using mainly to help companies move forward.

However, in this data we also find a lot of issues that are not directly aligned with the results of scientific studies. We may well run into nuances that were previously not readily measurable in scientific research. Nuances and insights that are crucial to validate scientific understanding and can help map the effect of behavior change techniques.

The long-term effect of nudging

In collaboration with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Professor Kobe Millet and Peeter Verlegh, we have been busy for the past six months setting up a PhD. The goal of this PhD is to validate scientific behavioral insights and also to develop a method to make behavioral change techniques more measurable. In this way, business, government and science will gain a better understanding of which behavioral change techniques work and which do not and, more importantly, why this is so.

To build a bridge between science, business and government, an advisory board has been established in which several major companies and government agencies have already confirmed their participation. This month, to our great joy, we even received positive news from Dan Ariely that he will be present at the first meeting!

Hopefully we will hear more soon and can start the research. Would you like to know more about the whole process or maybe you are interested in thinking/collaborating. Then please especially contact me at: eline@onlinedialogue.nl.