Behavioral Drivers - The (Often) Hidden Factors that Influence Human Behavior | Part 1: Means
Get ready to start a journey into the core drivers of human behavior. Over the next months, we will delve into critical barriers and motivators - providing details of their impact on decision-making and action.
[Sneak Peek from the book Making Shift Happen | Drivers of Behavior]
?? Why the Means, Motivation, and Memory Matter
Behavioral drivers can refer to both the things that motivate and facilitate action, as well as the barriers that can deter action. Whether they function as a barrier or motivator for your audience, drivers can be more external (e.g., financial status, physical environment, laws and policies), or more internal (e.g., our knowledge, values, attitudes). Of the internal drivers, some are temporary (state-like) and are relatively easy to change (e.g., emotions), while others are more lasting (trait-like) and are relatively stable (e.g., values, ideology).?
There are three major groups of drivers. We’ve found that the most useful and intuitive way to think about the many drivers of behavior is to think about your audience’s Means (Can they do it?), Motivation (Do they want to do it?), and Memory (Can they remember to do it?). We call these the “Three Ms.”
We will explore each of these drivers, providing a more nuanced explanation of their impact on behavior. Up this month: Do people have the MEANS to perform pro-environmental behaviors. By mastering these fundamentals, you gain the power to influence positive change and drive desired outcomes.
Means—can you do it?
People cannot engage in a behavior if they do not have the means to do so. The Means group of drivers includes both internal factors (e.g., whether we believe we have the ability to do the behavior) and external factors that can influence our ability to take action. External factors that may prevent or facilitate behavior include the complex systems we live in (e.g., laws, regulations, common practices), the resources that may or may not be available to us (e.g., time, money, social support), and our physical environment. On the other hand, some of these factors may be in perception only. For example, we might think there is a law in place that is not actually there or believe that a behavior will take more time than it will. So even if we “technically” have the means to do the desired behavior, we might believe we do not—and the belief or perception that we lack the means can prevent us from trying.
Policies and practices
Every behavior your audience does or does not adopt takes place within multiple systems (e.g., cultural customs, formal and informal institutional practices, laws and policies), each with an impact on the behavior. These systems can necessitate specific behaviors, or, at the opposite extreme, can prohibit them. Even if a policy or practice doesn’t require or prohibit a behavior outright, policies and practices can make behaviors easy or difficult for your audience. It can be challenging, if not impossible, to change behavior without first addressing these systemic factors in some way.?Examples of policies and practices that can influence environmental behavior include:
Physical environment
Whether we live with cold winters in Chicago or hilly topography in San Francisco, our physical environment has a tendency to heavily influence what we do and what we think we can do. Specific characteristics of our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and cities can all constrain or facilitate our ability to enact a behavior. For instance, our ability to take public transportation can be determined by the distance between our home and workplace, infrastructure (e.g., roads, sidewalks, bicycle lanes), and transit services along the way.
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Access to resources
Even when your audience is motivated and cares about your issue, behavior change can be impeded if they lack information, necessary tools, services, or social support. Importantly, the audience’s perception of their access to these resources matters most. You may have reason to believe the audience has the resources needed to complete a behavior, but if the audience doesn’t think they do, they are unlikely to perform it. Some examples of resources that people may need access to include:
Ability and self-efficacy
Willingness to engage in a new behavior or to continue a behavior once we have begun is? highly influenced by whether we have the ability to do the behavior and whether we believe we have the ability (also known as self-efficacy). If someone has the ability to perform a behavior, this generally means they know the steps that are necessary to complete the behavior, how to perform the steps, and they have the skills to do so. Ability is different from access to resources. Someone can have the ability to play a sport (e.g., knowing the rules and having the technical skills to play) but still not be able to access the resources (e.g., having equipment and a field to play on) to do it.
Closely related to ability is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy turns out to be one of the most important drivers of behavior (Armitage & Conner, 2001). Even if your audience is capable of carrying out a behavior, if they are not confident in their ability—if they think that performing the behavior requires more knowledge and skills than they have—their self-efficacy will be low. When self-efficacy is high, we are more likely to be motivated to do the behavior and more likely to make progress (Bandura, 1977). It’s important to understand which of many possible factors are causing our audience to feel low self-efficacy so we can design shifters that address the root cause.
Curious to learn more?
?? You can learn more about Key Behavioral Drivers from "Making Shift Happen" - a comprehensive guide, backed by academic studies and real-world initiatives.?
?? Grab your copy on New Society or Amazon today and gain access to a wealth of knowledge for designing effective policies and initiatives for environmental protection and regeneration.
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