3.3 Handout. Behavioral Approach

Behavioral
Diagnostics
The Behavioral Approach

The Behavioral Approach brings psychological, social, and contextual explanations of
human behavior to policy design and provides innovative, complementary and usually
inexpensive solutions for policy improvement. The aim of the approach is to identify
potential bottlenecks in existing systems and mechanisms of service delivery by giving
emphasis to design details.
Traditional Approach Behavioral Approach
What drives Fixed preferences, values and Context, variable preferences, values,
behavior? monetary incentives costs and benefits
How is behavior Provide information and Remove barriers and create easier
changed? incentives channels for decision and action
Reasons for Lack of value (preferences) or Preferences, needs, context

inaction need for resources complexities or barriers
Approach to Investigate deviations from Investigate effect of poverty and

Poverty assumptions or structural barriers context over decisions and actions
Adapted from Ideas42 (2015)
The approach follows a simple cycle of implementation:

1. The first stage is to define the problem by identifying the stakeholders, their relevant
behaviors, and the context.
2. Then, the following stage is to diagnose the bottlenecks that prevent stakeholders
from attaining the desired behavior. For this, the context is carefully examined to then
provide hypothesis about which psychological concepts may cause the problem.
3. Once potential bottlenecks and drivers have been identified, it comes the time to
design interventions to address the challenge.
4. In the implementation and evaluation stage, multiple interventions are carried out
and assessed.
5. Subsequently, after drawing lessons from the interventions comes a stage to adapt
the initial assumptions. The problem statement, hypothesized bottlenecks, and
potential interventions are redefined, re-diagnosed, and redesigned until an
effective intervention has been identified.
Behavioral Initiatives
1
Behavioral
Diagnostics
Under the iterative and adaptive process of the behavioral approach, the definition of
problems, diagnosis of bottlenecks, and design of solutions become the fundamental
stages to achieve an effective policy. Lastly, this is a learning process in itself, on that
brings information, knowledge, experience, and most important, policy lessons.
Adapted from WDR (2015)
Define Problems
Defining a problem is a challenging task. Problems are multi-faceted and are caused by
various factors that are usually intertwined. Furthermore, these root causes are often
distorted and difficult to identify, because we tend to formulate problems in a way that
subsumes our assumptions.
The elements of a clearly defined problem statement are the following:
- A stakeholder or an identifiable actor whose behavior we want to change,
- A well-defined behavior (or few key behaviors) that we are aiming to change in order
to meet the desired outcome,
- A setting and explicit assumptions that could bring further information on the
bottlenecks that are preventing the desired behavior.
2
Behavioral
Diagnostics
Some tactics and questions to ask when defining a problem in terms of a behavior are:
Change the scope. Problems too broadly defined could fall out of the reachable scope
of the project, and those defined too narrowly could yield to irrelevant outcomes.
Zoom in:
- What are the components of the problem?
- Of these, what is the highest priority and achievable?
Zoom out:
- Is this part of another problem?
- Would fixing this problem just be one of many other fixes necessary to solve that
other problem?
Change representation. The idea is to approach the problem from all the relevant
stakeholders’ perspective and to assess it. In particular, is fundamental to think of the
problem from the end user’s perspective and from those who interact or who influence
decisions of the user.
- How do the stakeholders view this situation?

- Would they think there is a problem?
- How would they define it?
Remove assumptions. By asking “how” we could open up the range of possible

solutions to try out.
- Instead of asking “Why is something happening?”,

- ask “How could that something happen?”

References
- Helpful Tactics to Define a Problem, The BETA Project, 2013
- Poverty Interrupted. Applying Behavioral Science to the Context of Chronic Scarcity, Ideas42, 2015.
- World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior, The World Bank, 2015.
3
Behavioral
Diagnostics
Diagnose Bottlenecks
The Behavioral Process Map
Is an analytical tool that represents through a flow chart the necessary steps an end-user
has to undertake in order to attain a desired behavior or policy outcome. The goal of the
map is to diagnose possible barriers, drop-out or stress points, known as bottlenecks,
that prevent users from achieving the outcome, and that could potentially become entry
points for intervention.
Source: BI team
In the map, each step is classified between decisions (moments of choice) or actions
(moments when something is accomplished). The making of the decision-process is
depicted consecutively and linearly until the desired outcome is finally reached. All
assumptions are made explicit in order to guarantee the validity of the map’s
representation. Finally, an identified bottleneck will be represented on the map as a barrier
that prevents users from continuing to the subsequent step.
For each of the elements of the process map, there are several questions that should be
asked in order to identify bottlenecks, following the Decision Process Checklist proposed
by Ly, Mažar, Zhao, and Soman (2013).
Decisions
- How is the choice perceived by the end user? Is the decision important or does it
receive little attention?
- What moments or events motivate an end user to act on the decision?
- Is the choice an active or an automatic, passive one?
- What is the field of choice? How many options are available? What is the default
option if an individual decides not to do anything?
- Is feedback available and is it received immediately?
4
Behavioral
Diagnostics
- What are the incentives? Which ones are most prominent, which are not?
- What are the associated costs (financial, social, and psychological)?
- How does the person understand the consequences of her choice? How are the
consequences of her choice valued?
Actions
- Is there time for the individual to change her mind?
- Does the person complies with the action or postpones it at a later time?
- Are there any resources necessary to make the action?
- Does it depend on someone else’s decisions or actions?
Features of the mindset

- Are the benefits of making a good decision delayed or experienced immediately?
- Is the decision usually made when the individual is in an emotional state?
- Does the decision require the exertion of willpower or self-control (such as in the
domains of smoking, dieting, exercising)?
Sources of information
- What knowledge or expertise is needed to make a decision?
- How is information or knowledge communicated to the individual (visually, verbally,
in a text)?
- Does the information flow sequentially? What information is presented first?
Presented last?
Context, environmental and social factors

- Is the decision made in isolation or in a social environment?
- Is the decision influenced by what is presented in the media or by expert opinions?
- Are peers a major source of information?
- Is there an application process and is it difficult to navigate?

References
- A Practitioner’s Guide to Nudging. Kim Ly, Nina Mažar, Min Zhao and Dilip Soman, 2013
5

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Behavioral

The Behavioral Approach

Traditional Approach Behavioral Approach

Reasons for Lack of value (preferences) or Preferences, needs, context

Approach to Investigate deviations from Investigate effect of poverty and

The approach follows a simple cycle of implementation:

Adapted from WDR (2015)

- How do the stakeholders view this situation?

Remove assumptions. By asking “how” we could open up the range of possible

- Instead of asking “Why is something happening?”,

Features of the mindset

Context, environmental and social factors

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