Experts leverage the power of behavioural insights and joy to tackle urgent crises
On November 1, 2024, the BIG Difference BC conference convened for its seventh edition. This year, industry and government experts and researchers gathered together to harness the power of Behavioural Insights (BI) to tackle the most pressing issues of our times: from climate change and organ donation to the fentanyl crisis and AI scams—and many other topics.
Over 1,500 participants signed up from 48 countries for the day-long virtual event. Dr. Kirstin Appelt, Research Director of UBC’s Decision Insights for Business and Society (UBC-DIBS), said the objective of this year's theme was to instil hope and spur new ideas.
Kirstin Appelt
Research Directory of UBC's Decision Insights for Business and Society
"For the last several years, it's felt like we live in a time of crisis. The climate emergency, the opioid epidemic, and the urgent need for anti-racist and anti-colonial action are just the tip of the (melting) iceberg," said Appelt.
"We wanted to create a sense of hope by highlighting all of the amazing work applying behavioural insights to urgent challenges, and to suggest actions we can all take to tackle these challenges."
The power of BI…and joy!
The event kicked off on a note of hope and happiness. Dr. Jiaying Zhao, UBC Sauder Distinguished Scholar and Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, delivered a keynote address. In it, she talked about the need to shift away from the 'doom and gloom' messaging on climate change, and towards a new, radically different approach she calls 'happy climate.'
Jiaying Zhao
Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia
"We're behind on our climate action and adaptation goals. So my call to action was:
let's do something different, because what we've been doing is not working."
What's not working, according to Zhao and her team, is climate action messaging that's driving fear and anxiety and focussing far too much on the 'devastations' of climate change—even if they're true.
Zhao presented a study that juxtaposed the doom and gloom messaging against the happy climate approach. "I simply changed the framing. Instead of saying 'eat less meat', I said 'eat more plants.' Instead of saying 'reduce shopping for new clothes,' I reframed it as 'increase the lifespan of your clothes,'" explained Zhao.
The result? The positive framing increased people's willingness to take those actions. Zhao said the behavioural insight at play is obvious.
"It's 'joy'! Use joy as a nudge. Using too much of the dread and fear is not good," said Zhao.
Zhao also made a case for using this framing for pressing crises beyond climate change. "I want more BI researchers to use this shift in framing towards rewards and positive reinforcements. I would like to see how this can be used to fight poverty, inequality, and other kinds of environmental, health, and social problems that we face," said Zhao.
Using BI to combat the fentanyl crisis
Zhao's keynote address resonated with Penny Norman, Group Director of Strategy at Rescue Agency, a communications agency that creates health campaigns aimed to drive behaviour change. Norman pointed out that negative framing is prevalent around substance use, where historically, the default communications strategy was to stir fear.
Penny Norman
Group Director of Strategy at Rescue Agency
"The problem we found was that it drove the 'ostrich effect.' The messaging was so scary that users just avoided the topic and didn’t talk about it," said Norman of the risk of using drugs laced with fentanyl, which can cause a fatal reaction.
Avoiding the discussion increased the risk of overdose amongst those who use drugs, and using scary imagery around substance use further stigmatized the community. This is when Norman and her team leveraged a key behavioural insight: 'downward social comparison.' It's a phenomenon where we compare our behaviour with that of our friends to make ourselves feel safer and more responsible, because we perceive their lifestyle to be more high-risk than ours.
"So instead of emphasizing the [personal] risk of fentanyl, we flipped the question to be about friends. We wondered: if they believe their friends do more risky behaviour, would they take harm reduction measures to protect them,” said Norman.
Norman explained the outcome: "We immediately saw a breakthrough in communications. Many people care about other people more than themselves, and the reality is that they do have friends who are substance users and this could potentially save them."
The angle of 'protecting friends' yielded positive results. Norman’s team saw significant increases in online engagement with information about harm reduction techniques as well as a 31 per cent increase in procurement of Naloxone, a medication that reverses overdose. These results confirm the effectiveness of this new behaviourally-informed approach. "It's huge when you see that change," said Norman.
BI, Organ Donation, and AI
Other experts who recognized the big changes brought about by BI were Karen Smallwood, Product Manager at the BC Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness; and Amna Raza, Senior Advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team Canada.
Karen Smallwood
Product Manager at the BC Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness
Smallwood presented the results of a capstone project she completed with fellow students as part of UBC’s Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights. The team's study revealed that many public service employees believed they had already registered as organ donors, when in fact they had not. With the help of a study powered by four key messages and a newsletter—all of which leveraged unique behavioural insights—Smallwood and her team were able to register 114 new donors from the B.C. public sector.
Raza led a joint project between the Behavioural Insights Team and the Ontario Securities Commission on AI-enhanced online scams, which found that AI-enabled scams were more effective and led to significant financial losses. Her team introduced two mitigation strategies to combat these scams, including a browser extension that red-flagged these scams in real time. It decreased investments in fraudulent offers by 31 per cent.
Both Smallwood and Raza predict that BI will play a more integral role in enhancing health and economic benefits for society. And they encouraged the next generation of researchers to apply the BI approach when they tackle a new or ongoing crisis.
Amna Raza
Senior Advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team Canada
"I think one of the fundamentals of BI is to test; it is to try things wherever possible," said Raza. She continued: "In any study, there will be constraints, urgencies and timelines. But wherever there's a possibility, researchers should stop and think, and then come up with measured responses and solutions to any kind of crisis."
And for folks considering pursuing training in BI, Smallwood has a simple message: "Do it, and don't be scared. It's a lot to comprehend at the start, but it gets easier. It starts to build off and makes more and more sense. So that by the end of it, you feel really confident in what you're doing," said Smallwood.
"And hopefully you can have a really useful project that makes a difference to people."
To learn more, visit the conference website to view videos and pdf files of the conference presentations at: https://bigdifferencebc.ca/program-2024
Stay in touch
Join our monthly newsletter and stay up-to-date on our innovative academic programs, world-leading faculty and research, and student and alumni achievements.