While behavioural science is often thought of as a tool for social wellbeing, especially for tackling global problems like economic disparity, famine, public health and environmental sustainability, the actual focus at the heart of this discipline is to help people change their behaviour.
As such, it’s a fantastic discipline filled with tools, concepts and strategies to help people effectively implement change, regardless of whether it’s for their own personal lives, their companies or the wider world.
Some of the ways behavioural science helps with the effective implementation of change include:
- Understanding of the importance of context
- Awareness of the risk of spillover effects
- When to try and actively persuade people vs when to nudge them in the desired direction by modifying the environment
- The role of messengers
- Different incentive structures
The utility of any one strategy very much depends on the type of change in question along with the audience and wider circumstances.
Michelle holsman 