This framework proposes a stagewise model for evaluating the effectiveness and sustainability of behaviourally and culturally informed interventions in complex settings, with detailed guidance and accompanying tools. It presents the theoretical background, addresses the challenges of assessing causality during times of change and of influencing factors, and provides a method for measuring the unintended positive and negative effects of interventions on well-being, trust and social cohesion.

Social and behavioral science research proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the substantial increase in influence of behavioral science in public health and public policy more broadly. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of 742 scientific articles on human behavior during COVID-19. Two independent teams evaluated 19 substantive policy recommendations (“claims”) on potentially critical aspects of behaviors during the pandemic drawn from the most widely cited behavioral science papers on COVID-19. Teams were made up of original authors and an independent team, all of whom were blinded to other team member reviews throughout. Both teams found evidence in support of 16 of the claims; for two claims, teams found only null evidence; and for no claims did the teams find evidence of effects in the opposite direction. One claim had no evidence available to assess. Seemingly due to the risks of the pandemic, most studies were limited to surveys, highlighting a need for more investment in field research and behavioral validation studies. The strongest findings indicate interventions that combat misinformation and polarization, and to utilize effective forms of messaging that engage trusted leaders and emphasize positive social norms.

A recent meta-analysis looked like good news for the effectiveness of “nudge“ theory. Does a new set of rebuttal letters throw the whole idea into doubt?

Research consistently shows evidence-based social and behavior change (SBC) programs can increase knowledge, shift attitudes and norms and produce changes in a wide variety of behaviors. SBC has proven effective in several health areas, such as increasing the uptake of family planning methods, condom use for HIV prevention, and care-seeking for malaria. Between 2017 and 2019, a series of comprehensive literature reviews were conducted to consolidate evidence that shows the positive impact of SBC interventions on behavioral outcomes related to family planning, HIV, malaria, reproductive empowerment, and the reproductive health of urban youth in low- and middle-income countries. The result is five health area-specific databases that support evidence-based SBC. The databases are searchable by keyword, country, study design, intervention and behavior. The databases extract intervention details, research methodologies and results to facilitate searching. For each of the five health areas, a “Featured Evidence” section highlights a list of key articles demonstrating impact.

Costing is the process of data collection and analysis for estimating the cost of a health intervention. High-quality cost data on SBC are critical not only for developing budgets, planning, and assessing program proposals, but can also feed into advocacy, program prioritization, and agenda setting. To better serve these data needs, these guidelines aim to increase the quantity and quality of SBC costing information. By encouraging cost analysts to use a standardized approach based on widely accepted methodological principles, we expect the SBC Costing Guidelines to result in well-designed studies that measure cost at the outset, to allow assessment of cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratios1 for SBC programming. Such analyses could also potentially help advocates for SBC to better make the case for greater investment in SBC programming.2 These guidelines lay out a consistent set of methodological principles that reflect best practice and that can underpin any SBC costing effort.

Before we dive in, here is a quick summary of the proposed taxonomy of behaviour change failures: No effect Backfiring Intervention is effective but it's offset by a negative side effect Intervention isn't effective but there's a positive side effect A proxy measure changes but not the ultimate target behaviour Successful treatment effect offset by later (bad) behaviour Environment doesn't support the desired behaviour change Intervention triggers counteracting forces

The behavioural change enterprise disproportionately focuses on promoting successes at the expense of examining the failures of behavioural change interventions. We review the literature across different fields through a causal explanatory approach to identify structural relations that impede (or promote) the success of interventions. Based on this analysis we present a taxonomy of failures of behavioural change that catalogues different types of failures and backfiring effects. Our analyses and classification offer guidance for practitioners and researchers alike, and provide critical insights for establishing a more robust foundation for evidence-based policy. Behavioural change techniques are currently used by many global organisations and public institutions. The amassing evidence base is used to answer practical and scientific questions regarding what cognitive, affective, and environment factors lead to successful behavioural change in the laboratory and in the field. In this piece we show that there is also value to examining interventions that inadvertently fail in achieving their desired behavioural change (e.g., backfiring effects). We identify the underlying causal pathways that characterise different types of failure, and show how a taxonomy of causal interactions that result in failure exposes new insights that can advance theory and practice.

Currently Available Costing and Economic Evaluation Products The Business Case for Investing in Social and Behavior Change (report) new Guidelines for Costing Social and Behavior Change Interventions (report) new The Added Value of Costing Social and Behavior Change Interventions (brief) new Social and Behavior Change Business Case and Costing Webinar Generating Evidence to Inform Integrated Social and Behavior Change Programming in Nigeria Making the Business Case for Social and Behavior Change Programming (activity brief)

When people make decisions with a pre-selected choice option – a ‘default’ – they are more likely to select that option. Because defaults are easy to implement, they constitute one of the most widely employed tools in the choice architecture toolbox. However, to decide when defaults should be used instead of other choice architecture tools, policy-makers must know how effective defaults are and when and why their effectiveness varies. To answer these questions, we conduct a literature search and meta-analysis of the 58 default studies (pooled n = 73,675) that fit our criteria. While our analysis reveals a considerable influence of defaults (d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval = 0.53–0.83), we also discover substantial variation: the majority of default studies find positive effects, but several do not find a significant effect, and two even demonstrate negative effects. To explain this variability, we draw on existing theoretical frameworks to examine the drivers of disparity in effectiveness. Our analysis reveals two factors that partially account for the variability in defaults’ effectiveness. First, we find that defaults in consumer domains are more effective and in environmental domains are less effective. Second, we find that defaults are more effective when they operate through endorsement (defaults that are seen as conveying what the choice architect thinks the decision-maker should do) or endowment (defaults that are seen as reflecting the status quo). We end with a discussion of possible directions for a future research program on defaults, including potential additional moderators, and implications for policy-makers interested in the implementation and evaluation of defaults.

Breakthrough ACTION has distilled guidance on social and behavior change (SBC) monitoring methods into a collection of technical notes. Each note provides an overview of a monitoring method that may be used for SBC programs along with a description of when to use the method and its strengths and weaknesses.

In a meta-analysis of real-life experiments drawn from food science, nutrition, health economics, marketing and psychology, the authors find that behavioural nudges - facilitating action rather than providing knowledge or inducing feelings - can reduce daily energy intake by up to 209 kcal, the same number of calories as in 21 cubes of sugar.

***Psychology offers three general propositions for understanding and intervening to increase uptake where vaccines are available and affordable. The first proposition is that thoughts and feelings can motivate getting vaccinated. Hundreds of studies have shown that risk beliefs and anticipated regret about infectious disease correlate reliably with getting vaccinated; low confidence in vaccine effectiveness and concern about safety correlate reliably with not getting vaccinated. We were surprised to find that few randomized trials have successfully changed what people think and feel about vaccines, and those few that succeeded were minimally effective in increasing uptake. The second proposition is that social processes can motivate getting vaccinated. Substantial research has shown that social norms are associated with vaccination, but few interventions examined whether normative messages increase vaccination uptake. Many experimental studies have relied on hypothetical scenarios to demonstrate that altruism and free riding (i.e., taking advantage of the protection provided by others) can affect intended behavior, but few randomized trials have tested strategies to change social processes to increase vaccination uptake. The third proposition is that interventions can facilitate vaccination directly by leveraging, but not trying to change, what people think and feel. These interventions are by far the most plentiful and effective in the literature. To increase vaccine uptake, these interventions build on existing favorable intentions by facilitating action (through reminders, prompts, and primes) and reducing barriers (through logistics and healthy defaults); these interventions also shape behavior (through incentives, sanctions, and requirements). Although identification of principles for changing thoughts and feelings to motivate vaccination is a work in progress, psychological principles can now inform the design of systems and policies to directly facilitate action.

We applied a Hidden Markov Model* (see Figure 1) to examine how and why behaviours did or did not change. The longitudinal repeated measure design meant we knew about food waste behaviour at two points (the amount of food wasted before and after the program), changes in the amount of food wasted reported over time for each household (more or less food wasted) and other factors (e.g. self-efficacy). By using a new method we could extend our understanding beyond the overall effect (households in the Waste Not Want Not program group wasted less food after participating when compared to the control group).

This report is a summary of the work of the Behavioural Insights Team and its partners from September 2017 to November 2018. It includes highlights from our six offices around the world – in London, Manchester, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Wellington. We also cover our growing portfolio of BI Ventures, products that draw on behavioural insights to make positive social impact.

The objective of this review was to summarize the literature supporting narrative interventions that target health-promoting behaviours. Eligible articles were English-language peer-reviewed studies that quantitatively reported the results of a narrative intervention targeting health-promoting behaviours or theoretical determinants of behaviour. Five public health and psychology databases were searched. A total of 52 studies met inclusion criteria. In all, 14 studies found positive changes in health-promoting behaviours after exposure to a narrative intervention. The results for the changes in theoretical determinants were mixed. While narrative appears to be a promising intervention strategy, more research is needed to determine how and when to use these interventions.

Our work published this week analyses all 111 cases studies of behavioral techniques used by governments compiled by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Our analysis demonstrates that none of the techniques used have scientific proven effectiveness.

To provide practitioners with useful information about how to promote proenvironmental behavior (PEB), a meta-analysis was performed on 87 published reports containing 253 experimental treatments that measured an observed, not self-reported, behavioral outcome. Most studies combined multiple treatments, and this confounding precluded definitive conclusions about which individual treatments are most effective. Treatments that included cognitive dissonance, goal setting, social modeling, and prompts provided the overall largest effect sizes (Hedge’s g > 0.60).

Lifestyle Gamification Case Stats and Figures OPower: reduced measurable energy consumption by over $100M Aetna: increased daily healthy activities by 50% with an average engagement of 14 minutes on the site ClinicalAdvisor.com: embedded a social platform that improved user submission by 300%, comments by 400%, and Slideshow Visualizations by 53% Bottle Bank Arcade: gamified bottle bank was used 50 times more than conventional bottle bank. The World’s Deepest Bin: 132% more trash collected compared to conventional bin Piano Stairs: 66% more of people use the stairs, if they can produce music with it Speed Camera Lottery: a lottery system that causes a 22% reduction of driving speed Toilette Seat: 44% of increase in lifting the toilet seat when urinating Nike: used gamified feedback to drive over 5,000,000 users to beat their personal fitness goals every day of the year Recycle Bank grew a community of 4 million members by providing a gamified recycling platform. Chevrolet Volt: uses a green/amber indicator to give drivers visual feedback of their driving style and reduced the number of people exceeding the speed limit by 53%

Supporting USAID's “renewed emphasis on the application of research and evaluation to inform strategic thinking about development for low- and middle-income countries with a focus on “achieving the social and behavior changes needed to end preventable child deaths and improve under five development“. All 1,313 papers identified can be accessed, searched and filtered to your interests