Behavioural insights and Environmental Policy · WORKSHOP 25 TH OF FEBRUARY 2020 Behavioural insights and Environmental Policy Evelina Gunnarsson [email protected]

WORKSHOP 25TH OF FEBRUARY 2020

Behavioural insights and Environmental Policy

Evelina Gunnarsson

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND OUR CHOICES AND BEHAVIOUR

OUR SOCIETY IS FILLED WITH UNSUSTAINABLE PATTERNS OF CONSUMPTION

SOMETIMES TRADITIONAL POLICY TOOLS ARE NOT ENOUGH

Intention-behaviour gap

Attitude-behaviour gap

Value-action gap

Knowledge-action gap

Behavioural Economics

• Homo economicus

• Perfect rationality and decision making

• Unlimited capability to process availableinformation

• Fixed preferences that do not changeover time

Traditional economic theory

• Our decisions are influenced by emotions, social factors and how options are framed

• We are predictably irrational

• Our self-control is flawed

WE HAVE DUAL THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT WE USE WHEN MAKING DECISIONS (DUAL PROCESS THEORY)

SYSTEM 1SYSTEM 2

Kahneman, D., & Egan, P. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow (Vol. 1). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Fast

Unconscious

Automatic

Everyday decisions

Slow

Conscious

Reflective

Complex decisions

7

OUR JUDGMENTS, DECISIONS AND BEHAVIOURS ARE INFLUENCED BY A VARIETY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS

Confirmation bias

Availability heuristics

Loss aversion

Information overload

WYSIATILimited self control

Inattention

Hyperbolic discounting

Social proof

The Ikea effect

Anchoring

The Endowment effect

Overconfidence effect

Overconfidence effect

Stereotyping

Halo effect

Gambler’s fallecy

Choice overload

8

WE TEND TO PROCRASTINATE

PRESENT BIAS AND HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING

Rubinstein, A. (2003). “Economics and psychology”? The case of hyperbolic discounting. International Economic Review, 44(4), 1207-1216.

• People typically perceive immediate threats as more relevant and of greater urgency than future problems.

• Indeed, many social scientists believe that this is one of the top reasons that it is hard to motivate people to take action to prevent climate change

WE TEND TO FAVOUR INFORMATION THAT CONFIRMS OUR

WORLDVIEW

CONFIRMATION BIAS

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of general psychology,2(2), 175-220.

• People often exhibit a strong preference for their existing mental models about climate change, making them susceptible to confirmation biases that lead them to misinterpret scientific data.

• Both believers and sceptics find it tempting to over-interpret short-term hot or cold swings in temperature as evidence for or against climate change.

VEGETARIAN AS DEFAULT

Group 1:

At the conference a non-vegetarian buffet will be served for lunch.

Please state here if you would like to have a vegetarian dish prepared

for you: ______.

Group 2 (veg default):

At the conference a vegetarian buffet will be served for lunch. Please state here if you would like to have a non-

vegetarian dish prepared for you:______.

Hansen, P. G., Malthesen, M., & Schilling, M. (2019). Nudging healthy & sustainable food choices: Three field experiments using a vegetarian lunch-default as a normative

signal. Journal of Public Health.

VEGETARIAN AS DEFAULT

Hansen, P. G., Malthesen, M., & Schilling, M. (2019). Nudging healthy & sustainable food choices: Three field experiments using a vegetarian lunch-default as a normative

signal. Journal of Public Health.

6%

87%94%

13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Group 1 Group 2

Veg. Option Standard option

SO – WHAT IS BEHAVIOURALINSIGHTS ALL ABOUT?

14

NUDGING DOES NOT ALWAYS FACILIATE FOR CHANGE

The right intention has to be there

Example: Having the good intention of recycling is a good first step.

External conditions support the desired behaviour

Example: In order for students to walk or cycle to campus there must be safe cycle lanes and footways.

In most cases, a person who do not have the intention to perform the desired behaviour will not be influenced by a gentle nudge.

The external structure of incentives supports the behaviour

If the external structure of incentives does not support the behaviour it will most likely be hard to achieve behavioural change through nudging.

Relevant competence is present

Example: If we want more people to pay their taxes online they need basic IT knowledge.

If the target behaviour requires some kind of competence it is important that the target group possess this.

It is important to analyse the situation to make sure that basic conditions facilitating for a change are present.

There are some prerequisites for a nudge to be effective (see examples below)

Example: If the managers in a company don’t encourage/support their staff to travel by train instead of flying, you can’t in most cases except the staff do that.

SOMETIMES A NUDGE IS NOT ENOUGH

C. Gravert och L. Olsson Collentine. When nudges aren’t enough: Incentives and habit formation in public transport usage. Center for economic and behaviour inequality (CEBI). Working paper, 2019.

Did you know that most people in Skåne travel with us? In total,

72 % of the people in Skånetravel by public transport. So -

join your new neighbours and try it out.

A COMPLEMENT TO THE TRADITIONAL POLICY TOOLBOX

Incentives Laws/Regulations Information Nudging

Behavioural Insights

DEFINITION OF BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS

“An inductive approach to policy making that combines insights from psychology, cognitive

science, and social science with empirically-tested results to discover how humans actually make

choices” (OECD, 2019).

“An evidence-based approach to integrating insights and methodologies from the behavioural

sciences in the policy cycle in order to provide better and more effective regulation”

(David Halpern, Chief Executive, Behavioural Insights Team)

BEHAVIOURAL PUBLIC POLICY

• We live in an age of large public policy problems that governments find hard to solve

• Many of these problems originate from human behaviours

• Governments and public authorities have a number of policy tools at their disposal; taxes, laws, bureaucracies etc., which traditionally have been used to solve policy problems

• Sometimes these tools have not been able to fully solve all issues, e.g. obesity, smoking, pollution.

• Governments are increasingly consulting behavioural science as it facilitates for addressing fundamental aspects of human behaviour

Human centered design – we must develop services that are centered around the user

Evidence based policy – is the way forward for moreeffective public sectors. Governments need to becomebetter at evaluating interventions, e.g. through RCTs

Global agenda – the field of behavioural science is still in its infancy and there is a need for a common understanding of how it should be applied in real worldcontexts

1

2

3

Problem-solving method

Evidence based policy

Beyond nudging 1.0

Silver bullet

One-size-fits-all

Only for behaviouralexperts

BASIC (OECD, 2019)

Behaviour Change Wheel (Michie et al., 2011)

Design for Behaviour Change (CREATE) (Wendel, 2014)

EAST (Behavioural Insights Team, 2013)

MINDSPACE (The Behavioural Insights Team, 2010)

TEST (Behavioural Insights Team, 2016)

MINDSPACE AND EAST (BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS TEAM)

https://www.bi.team/

https://www.bi.team/

THE BASIC FRAMEWORK

- TOOLS AND ETHICS FOR APPLIED BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS

“BASIC follows a five-step approach that guides practitioners through the problem

diagnosis, design, implementation and evaluation stages of behavioural public

policy making from start to finish”

OECD 2019

http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/tools-and-ethics-for-applied-behavioural-insights-the-basic-toolkit-9ea76a8f-en.htm


B A S I C

Identify and understand your

behavioural problem

Analyse the available evidence to identify the

behavioural drivers of the problem

Identify and conceptualise policy strategies

Design experiments to evaluate the

effectiveness of the intervention

Develop plans to scale up and sustain behaviour and

dissipate information.

STEP

SEX

AM

PLES Make more people

choose vegetarian dishes People tend to choose what they always do

(status-quo) and might be unaware of other

possible choices (limited attention)

Test and measure the effect to determine

whether the intervention resulted in increased probability to choose

vegetarian dishes

Share the results, measure and evaluate long term results and

monitor potential undesired side-effects

Present vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes under the

same menu section



SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AT SWEDISH COMPANIES

STRATEGIC DOMAINS

BEHAVIOURS

Transport to and from meetings

Etc. Etc.

Choice offuel

Etc. Etc.

Choice oflunch

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

Food served at meetings

Etc.

Consumptionof paper

Use of air conditioner

Etc. Etc.

Etc. Etc.

PROBLEM

Transport Food Energy


BIDENTIFY POTENTIAL BEHAVIOURAL PATTERNS THROUGH A BEHAVIOURAL REDUCTION


WHY A BEHAVIORAL REDUCTION?

1. It shows how the work with the overall problem is related

to specific behaviours.

2. It will be easier to discuss and to get an overview of which

behaviours would be possible to address.

3. It gives the ‘behavioural insight-practitioner’ an overview of

potential behaviours that he or she may potentially apply

behavioural insights on.

B


BIDENTIFY POTENTIAL INTERVENTION POINTS WITH A BEHAVIOURAL FLOWCHART

STARTPARKING FINE

SENT30 DAYS DELAY

PARKING FINE PAID

END

SURCHARGE ADDED &

REMINDER SENTREMINDER

PAID

HANDED OVER TO

TAX AUTHORITY

YES

NO YES

NO


1. Is a change in behaviour an institutional priority?

2. Are internal resources available and are everyone on board?

3. Is baseline data available? Does it support our hypothesises?

4. Are there any risks or unwanted consequences?

5. Will changing the target behaviour translate to a significant societal

impact?


BPRIORITIZE THROUGH THE PRIORITY FILTER



B

Who:

SCHEMA FOR CONCEPTUALISING BEHAVIOUR AS A DECISION POINT

Where/When:

Preferred behaviour:

Non-preferred behaviour:

Visitors at a lunch restaurant

At the restaurants when deciding what to order for lunch

Ordering a vegetarian dish

Ordering a non-vegetarian dish

N= On average 130 per day 18 %

82 %



A S


Problem Analysis (ABCD) Strategy

Households do not make enough efforts to save energy

Households do not recycle enough

Attention: Ourattention is limited and easily distracted

Belief formation: We rely on mental shortcuts or intuitive judgments and often under/overestimate outcomes and probabilities

Choice: We are influenced by the framing and social as well as situational context of choices

Determination: Our willpower is limited and subject to psychological biases

Remind people of switching of the lights when leaving the room / Or install timers

Use the messenger effect and identify a relevant “change makers” to communicate your message.

Highlight neighbours’ consumption of energy

Make recycling easier, quicker and more convinient

A S


People tend to have a hard time to relate to climate change related issues.

People tend to leave the lights on when leaving a room.


CONTROL TREATMENT 1

Example: Householdswho decreased their energy consumption

Randomallocation

EVALUATE TO DETERMINE EFFECTIVENESS BY A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Target group: Households whose energyconsumption is above the average in community A TREATMENT 2

Control

Treatment 1

Treatment 2

Onlyinformation

Information + Social norm

Information + Social norm + messengereffect

**

*

*p<0,05, **p<0,01, *** p<0,001n= 12 000

I

DEVELOP PLANS TO SCALE AND SUSTAIN BEHAVIOUR

”Positive” results means that the initiative might be scaled up to a broader context

Negative results provides an opportunity to reflect upon what did not work and what be modified in the future

Important to report all findings – both negative and positive ones

Important to assure that society gains the broadest possible value from the insights achieved from the experiment

Monitor long-term effects of the intervention

C

B A S I C

EX

AM

PLES


THE BASIC FRAMEWORK PROVIDES ETHICAL GUIDELINES

Beware of simplifying behaviour too much.

Only collect necessary data and ensure secure handling.

Ensure the policy intervention serves the public interest.

Be aware that interventions unavoidably intervene in

people’s lives.

Report on what works and what does not.


OTHER OECD REPORTS

1. Skapa engagemang, motivation framför förbud, morot framför piska

3. Arbeta tvärvetenskapligt!

1. Follow up and measure results and be transparent even if things did not work out as expected

2. Make sure that you have the right competences in your project group (Behavioural economists, psychologist, data experts etc.)

3. Work interdisciplinarily!

4. Start small and then go bigger! Start with low hanging fruits in your organisation, get proof of concept and subsequently initiate new and bigger Behavioural Insights projects.

5. Trust the process! Learn from others and find inspiration. Use framework to systematise and create real change.

Documents

Behavioural insights and Environmental Policy · WORKSHOP 25 TH OF FEBRUARY 2020 Behavioural insights and Environmental Policy Evelina Gunnarsson [email protected]