Behavior modification by Corona
If you had read this headline in 2019 your first reaction would probably have been: drank too much Mexican beer and did weird things?” Things can move that fast, and the association we now have with the word Corona has completely changed. What else is going to change in the post-Corona era? An exploration.
The question that has concerned me from the beginning of the Corona crisis is our behavioral change. How can we influence people’s behavior so that we do the “right thing”? In the short term, an entire population must change their habits and step into the RIVM’s inspection line. Voluntarily. In the medium term, a population must be comfortable in the straitjacket and abide by the “social contract” that the government wants to make with its population. And for me the most important question is about the long term: “Is the Corona crisis going to change the behavior of the population?”.
To achieve behavior change, a number of conditions must be met. There must be high motivation. Positive such as pleasure, hope and acceptance of others. Or negative motivation like pain, fear or (social) rejection. Besides motivation, the ability to change is an important2nd factor. Think of money, time, the degree of routine and the mental and physical effort it takes to demonstrate a certain behavior. And there must be a stimulus that triggers the motivation and ability to change, so to speak. For example, a crisis, but also simple incentives like an email at the right time, an action of company you can join or someone encouraging you at the right time. The above comes from 1 of the most interesting behavioral models today, widely used by tech companies.
The Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) shows that the best chance of changing behavior is in the upper right quadrant: “successful triggers.
An application of this model to 4 frequently mentioned Post-Corona behaviors and effects:
- Finally accepting tech solutions for home working and schools;
- Out of traffic jams, getting to work
- Depending on production chains, Asia is
- Personal health
- Acceptance of tech solutions. We now see that it is technically possible to work from home, just not with children around. So a high ability. But what is the motivation to work from home more often in the post-corona era? Positive or negative? Schools are finally going digital. The masters and teachers have gotten rid of their ICT fears and are going all out. The ability is there. But what would be the motivation? And perhaps more importantly, the trigger? What will be the sence of urgency in a few months?
- What a time we keep, we travel much less and are therefore much more effective and, of course, more environmentally friendly. We need to keep that up! A positive motivation to travel less. And ability is also high here because of the time savings but also by now the degree of routine. So what we need to find in the post-Corona are the right incentives to make the behavior permanent. This is where employers have a role to play.
- More local procurement because too fragile a supply chain has developed. Let’s assume that local is often just a little bit more expensive and just a little bit better quality. A nice thought, motivating too. We get pleasure from purchasing local products and also want to be among that group that consciously does so. But a recession is predicted, money is running out and fear also plays a role. And what trigger is activated to turn this intention into actual behavior?
- If the corona did teach us 1 thing is that personal health is very important. The virus apparently attaches itself easily to fat, so overweight people are at greater risk. Are we going to get much healthier very soon in the post-corona era? Healthy living is a trend that has been around for some time, especially among the highly educated. You might expect the motivation for healthy living to be even higher now. The ability is there, too. Now all that remains is the incentive: what incentives are needed to turn behavioral intention into action? For example, encouraging cycling as a mode of commuting if we don’t work from home? I expect that, for example, limited access to health care for unhealthy people is going to have much more effect than any incentive. Of course, this is not socially acceptable.
Never waste a good crisis, therefore mostly questions and fewer answers in the above. It is appealing to think through, though. How can we use the lessons of our time in shaping the society of the future? What behavior of a resident, government and company fits this? And how do we create lasting change? My next 2 blogs will be scenarios how does a post-corona era looked at from 2 different perspectives.