Take the stairs-Gina Smith & Danielle Parnes

Post date: Jan 31, 2011 3:29:15 PM

Our team was interested in behavior change, and our goal on this project

was to prompt people to change a quick, everyday behavior in benefit of

the environment. Our target behavior was people's tendency to take the

elevator instead of the stairs.

We discovered that multiple factors effect whether or not people change

their behaviors when prompted. We would ask friends and strangers to

kindly take the stairs instead of the elevator and found, unsurprisingly,

that friends were more likely to comply than strangers. Group size,

number of flights, and the speed of the elevator also affected people's

choices.

We were able to convince some people to perform a task that they might

view as difficult, so in many ways this project was a success. We gained

useful information on behavior change and saw some green acts performed in

the process.