Dr Rory Gallagher's presented 'Behavioural Insights: Just Low Hanging Fruit?'

1. Behavioural insights:
Just low-hanging fruit?
Dr Rory Gallagher

2. Nudges moving into more complex behaviours and
systems

3. © The Behavioural Insights Team
The EAST framework for changing behaviour
Easy
Attractive Timely
Social

4. Defaults / Simplification / Remove friction
Easy

5. Flexible working
90% of people looking for
work prefer flexibility - but
only 10% of jobs offer
flexibility in their job
advert
Can we nudge employers
to explicitly offer more
flexible work?

6. Impact on job adverts offering flexible working
Increased jobs offering flexible working... … and these jobs attracted more applicants

7. Attractive
Salience / Messenger / Personalisation /
Affect / Incentive design

8. Antimicrobial resistance is a serious and
growing threat to public health

10. Chief Medical Officer letter to 3,227 GPs
[Presenter Name]
“The great majority
(80%) of practices in
London prescribe fewer
antibiotics per head
than yours.”
3 clear
actionable steps
Influential messenger

11. CMO letter achieved a significant reduction in
antibiotic prescribing rates
n=1,581
73,406 fewer
prescriptions

12. Local adaptations

13. Norms / Networks / Reciprocity /
Active commitments / Eyes & faces
Social

14. Sexual harassment is prevalent in Australia
1 in 4 students at Australian
Universities reported experiencing
sexual harassment in the previous
year (Australian Human Rights
Commission Survey)
In most cases (40-50%), there
was a witness (a bystander).
But bystanders only took
action in 1/3 of cases
In a recent survey of
Australian workplaces,
the most common
reported outcome of
bystanders taking
action was that the
harassment stopped.

15. Example messages
Most of us studying on campus
think it’s right to call out a friend
for making sexist jokes or
comments…
And 78% said they themselves
would intervene if they saw
sexism and sexual harassment.
Majority norm
Most of us studying on campus
think it’s right to call out a friend for
making sexist jokes or
comments…
But only 36% of us actually do.
Minority norm
Here’s what you can
do:
In the moment: call out
the joke or comment
and let the person who
made it know that it
was unacceptable.
Know how

16. Sample: Participants
who reported
witnessing sexual
harassment in the last
two months.
n=830
Active bystanding
against sexual
harassment
Majority norms increased active bystanding against sexual harassment

17. Timely
Priming / Framing / Key moments

18. ● Peak-demand events = hot days
when everyone turns up the AC.
● Energy usage can increase by 45%
+ on these days, particularly
between 3pm and 6pm when both
households and offices are running
their air conditioning.
● Powershop ‘Curb Your Power’
customers are prompted by text
message to curb their electricity
usage during a 1-4 hour period. If
meet personalised targets they are
later rewarded with a $10 discount
on their next electricity bill.
18

19. CYP sends SMS to customers before and during a peak-demand event
The current CYP communications timeline

20. Headline finding: Sending the message by default was the most effective approach, by a large margin
Total impact on energy reduction during
peak-demand events
Relative energy usage during peak-demand
events per household

21. © Behavioural Insights ltdThe Behavioural Insights Team
To tackle the toughest problem, need to work across
sectors = more ideas + experiments + failures
“Field grown” nearly twice as popular
as “Meat-free Breakfast”

22. Thank you!
Dr Rory Gallagher
B_I_Tweets
The Behavioural Insights Team
bi.team
rory.gallagher@bi.team