Behavior Levers

What are Behavior Levers?

Behavior levers are mechanisms that move people toward desirable behavior and away from undesirable behavior.

Vehicles refer to the diverse ways to implement levers.

For example, providing individuals the different types of knowledge (information) they may need to adopt a behavior or all the ways we could influence that person’s decision through their environment, the timing and/or presentation of potential options (choice architecture).

Behavior Levers

1. Information: The information or awareness that supports an individual’s understanding of a behavior.

or overharvesting, information would describe what it is; how it leads to decreases in biodiversity and

2. Material incentives/disincentives: Monetary/external rewards (or the equivalent like food, access) or penalties that motivate behavior. : For choosing to adopt certain fishing practices, community members would

3. Rules and regulations: The laws or rules that are in place that constrain decisions by influencing individual options or create punishments if behaviors are not adopted.

4. Emotional appeals: Leveraging emotions (e.g., compassion, pride, gratitude) to influence behavior, as emotions can be more motivating and powerful than reason or logic.

5. Social incentives: The social norms, relationships, and networks that influence an individual’s decision or behavior; it is the social context in which decisions are made.

6. Choice Architecture: designing a decision-making environment that is aware of mental shortcuts and biases as well as human information processing needs to influence behavior.