Community Engagement and Behavior Adoption (CEBA)

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

Provide step-by-step instructions

• Offer training on the target behavior

• Provide materials that give instructions on how to do the target behavior

Build awareness and understanding

• Provide informational forums, meetings, or materials that describe the target behavior and its importance

• Communicate about the target behavior in a clear, concrete, and unambiguous way

• Give feedback on performing the target behavior

Monetary/external rewards (or the equivalent like food, access) or penalties that motivate behavior.

Make it easy or the alternative hard

• Make the target behavior more convenient and accessible to do (e.g., remove barriers, provide substitutes)

• Make the undesired behavior more difficult to do (e.g., create friction points, barriers)

Give rewards or penalties

• Incentivize or reinforce the target behavior

• Penalize or fine for cases of the target behavior

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

Mandate behavior

• Enact mandates that require or encourage the target behavior

Prohibit behavior

• Enact prohibitions that limit or forbid the undesired behavior

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

Personalize the message

• Put a human face on campaigns and focus on a single story over abstract statistics

• Tailor messages to make them personally relevant, relatable, and appealing

Leverage emotions in specific contexts

• Pride: Use to motivate people to show others what they have done when they have achieved a goal or done the right thing

• Joy: Use to motivate people to talk to others or reinforce their behavior when they have achieved a goal or gained resources

• Hope: Use to motivate people to start a behavior when they can achieve a desired outcome while facing a threat

• Fear: Use to motivate people to avoid risks when they experience uncertainty or an immediate threat

• Anger: Use to motivate people to confront others when they witness injustice or experience threats to personal autonomy

• Amusement and surprise: Use to motivate people to seek information when something is novel and complex

• Prospect of shame: Use to motivate people to avoid an action when others might find out about socially-undesirable actions

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

Make engaging or not engaging in the target behavior observable

• Publicly broadcast who has and has not engaged in the target behavior

• Provide a way for people to show they are doing the target behavior

Make the target behavior the perceived norm

• Highlight possibility of social sanctions for doing the undesired behavior

• Share that people are currently doing the target behavior

• Create conversation around shared beliefs and expectations

• Promote cases of success with the target behavior

• Leverage credible and trusted messengers doing the target behavior

• Facilitate peer or community exchanges where others can observe and gain support for the target behavior

Eliminate excuses for not engaging in the target behavior

• Encourage public commitments or pledges to drive the target behavior

• Provide visible indicators that signal support for the target behavior (e.g., hats, badges)

Designing a decision-making environment that is aware of mental shortcuts and biases as well as human information processing needs to influence behavior.

Direct attention

• Make the target behavior the default option

• Draw attention to the target behavior by making it salient

Simplify messages and decisions

• Streamline complex decisions to focus on key information or actions

• Provide shortcuts for a target behavior with many steps or options

Use timely moments and prompts

• Target moments of transition and habit formation

• Provide prompts and reminders about the target behavior

Facilitate planning and goal setting

• Provide support in making a plan to achieve the target behavior

• Use commitments to bind or limit future decisions