Viewing Behavioral Science Team by the Types of Change They Pursue

Main Findings

• There appears to be an opportunity for groups across sectors to expand into the pursuit of judicial and policy changes using behavioral science.
• For-profit companies are most likely to be focused on increased purchasing and usage.
• Even though there is a great body of behavioral science research in education, health, and judicial space, it seems groups pursing this type of change struggle to leverage their previous insights.

Business Type

Our exploration starts with the business type classification variable. Starting with for-profit firms, the most used change type by them was increased usage. This trend runs parallel with the pursuits of many firms who desire to maximize use to maximize profits. Pursuing utilization of a product or service is part of a free market but has become more of a concern with the rise of technology. Groups like the Center for Humane Technology have begun to raise the alarm of the use of dark patterns (or negative nudges) in technology which led to increased usage at the cost of other aspects of the user’s life. The least selected use was judicial, which seems like an opportunity for the for-profit sector to expand.

Moving to non-profit firms, health was the most selected change sector. This result is a surprise but may point towards the explosion of wellbeing products/services over the past few years. Closely following, health, education, and energy were also frequently selected. Once again, judicial was the least selected, signaling another opportunity.

Next, unsurprisingly, looking at government entities, the top choice was pursuing energy change techniques. Since the revolution that OPower brought, the government has utilized behavioral science to pursue carbon-emission reductions. Alternatively and least reported was increasing purchasing, which agrees with intuition as purchasing behaviors are generally outside the realm of governments. One area of note is that the second most popular change technique for government was HR/Organizational changes. Lastly, academic groups selected the change types health, energy and finance, and education the most. This trend matches the focus areas of the most prominent Academic Behavioral Scientists.

Method of Change

Different methods used depends heavily on the type of change pursued. Those driving usage of a product were the most likely to apply existing behavioral science lessons, while with others, this was one of the least selected. Those in the health and HR change types were most likely to develop new interventions to solve their problems. When it came to experimentation to determine the correct method to drive change, finance selected this as their top method and increasing usage as their second. This trend came as a surprise as one would imagine this is incredibly important for health and education. Human Resources listed experimentation as their lowest used method, which is not surprising for those familiar with the field. Privacy and ethical concerns plague the practice preventing the collection of experimental data, let alone the random assignment of employees. With the rise in employee experience being a significant concern of Fortune 500 companies through startups, this is likely to begin to change. We may see that change in the survey results as HR change types selected the use of alternative methods of measuring behavioral impact as their top method.

Those increasing purchasing and usage predictably chose analyzing individual behavioral data the most. Those in the Health change sector also analyzed data more frequently than experimentation. Looking at the most quantitative method, the development of statistical or machine learning models, those in finance and energy were most likely to select this. Both change types, but especially finance, have significant amounts of data which lowers the barrier of entry to develop these sorts of models. Lastly, those in healthcare reported their primary method of change is advising others. This selection was also the most reported method across the group.

Struggles

Struggles exhibited a somewhat similar pattern to methods of change. This trend suggests that while there is some correlation, each change type may bring unique challenges. Starting with access to outcome data, this is something that education, energy, and finance all listed as their greatest challenge. This result is likely a symptom of their access to essential input data but their distance from their end-users. Data on outcomes is also more challenging for these groups to generate due to its less defined state, especially when compared to well-known metrics such as usage. This is further reinforced by those who pursue the change type of increased usage who reported outcome data as their lowest struggle. For those increasing purchasing and usage, getting approval was their biggest struggle. This result is read as a skew because the population consists of primarily for-profit groups who can be more risk-averse at trying new techniques, especially those involving data and behavioral change. The risk-aversion factor may also explain why judicial groups report this as their greatest struggle. HR and Health both said sharing their findings was their greatest struggle. Both handle sensitive data points towards the cause of this response.?

Shifting to the least common struggles, Health and Energy reported having an impact as being the lowest. This trend is encouraging, but unfortunately, the former has trouble sharing those results! Judicial groups indicated having limited struggle finding preliminary research, which causes one to question why their least common method of change is the application of Behavioral Science Lessons. Finance and HR seem filled with ideas on creating change, which the latter generally cannot share! Lastly, those in education seem to not struggle with measuring impact.

Importance

As was discussed in the general review of survey responses, the most important goals of all behavioral science teams were sharing research with stakeholders and directly changing behavior. This same pattern remained constant across almost all the change types. As one might expect when exclusively looking at the change types of increasing purchasing and usage, their most important goals were developing products and services and marketing materials. This effect is likely a skew caused by the for-profit firms who reported increasing usage as a change type but highlights that many groups see behavioral science as a profit driver by generating more interest in products and services. Similarly, the change sectors of Education, Energy, and Health all reported higher than the average importance of publishing externally. The one change type which was an outlier, likely due to the low sampling, was judicial. Those who selected this sector reported that policy creation and external publication were essential.

Examples of Sector

• Education: Every Child Reads: Bringing Literacy Home with Behavioral Science
• Energy: Saving Fuel by Changing Pilot Behaviour
• Finance: Getting People to Save Their Tax Refund, the Largest Check They Get All Year
• Health: How BEworks Helped Reduce Health Practitioner Error in Diagnosis
• HR: Behavioural Insights and Organisations
• Judicial: Strengthening the Metropolitan Police against cyber attacks
• Increase Purchases: How People Decide what to Buy Lies in the "Messy Middle" of the Purchase Journey
• Increase Usage: Lessons From the Front line of Corporate Nudging

This article is a follow up article to The State of Behavioral Science Teams and was originally posted on the ABSA website