Business & Society with Senthil Nathan

#9 Changing Minds - How to Harness Behavioural Science for a Sustainable Future with Liam Smith

• Senthil Nathan • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Unlock the secrets of sustainable development through the lens of behavioural science with our special guest, Liam Smith, Director of BehaviourWorks Australia. Discover how understanding human behaviour can accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the role of incentives in driving change. From the highs and lows of solar panel adoption to the balance between financial motivations and intrinsic environmental values, this episode offers compelling insights into how behavioural science intersects with policy and private sector initiatives.

We also tackle some hard-hitting ethical questions that sustainability leaders face, such as the legitimacy of influencing others' behaviours and the boundaries of ethical tools used in these efforts. Real-world examples, like using a fictitious photographer at Port Campbell National Park, shed light on the delicate moral terrain. Finally, we explore the dual impact of social media on societal movements and the significant behavioural shifts post-COVID-19, emphasizing resilience and pragmatism in the face of global challenges. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that could transform your understanding of sustainable development.

More inspirations from Liam Smith:
Link to the latest book he edited: https://publishing.monash.edu/product/inspiring-change/
MOOC-Changing Behaviours for Sustainable Development: https://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/blog/this-is-massive-open-online-and-about-change


If you want to follow this podcast, please subscribe to the Business and Society with Senthil Nathan on Apple and Spotify. We welcome your comments and suggestions at bspwithsn@gmail.com.

 

Senthil

00:03

Hey, it's Senthil here. Welcome to the Business and Society podcast. Every fortnight, we speak to a world-leading thinker to better understand the role of business and society. Joining me today is Liam Smith. He's one of the Australia's leading authorities on behaviour change. Liam is the Director of BehaviourWorks Australia, a research centre that he co-founded at Monash University. Since 2010, the centre has collectively delivered over 600 projects with governments and industry partners. Liam has published close to hundreds of research papers and over 250 reports and is the lead editor of a new book, Inspiring Change. He's also on the board of Inclusive Australia, a lead counsellor for the Biodiversity Council and member of Southeast Waters Customer Engagement Council. I sat with Liam to discuss his research and understand the role of behavioural science for a sustainable future. Liam, thanks so much for joining me today. 

Liam

01:10

Thanks for having me, Senthil, I appreciate it. 

Senthil

01:13

What role do you see for behavioural science in helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals? 

Liam

01:19

That's a great question and one that is not an easy answer. Actually, well, easy in one sense, because it's fair to say that the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, which of course, are sort of the agenda for the world in terms of what's fair and right and good for the planet we live on, invariably involves people doing things differently. We're going to need different actors, whether they be leaders or businesses, as entities, or indeed citizens or civil society groups or other groups that want to see change. We're going to need to see them doing things differently. And so behavioural science that's its core proposition is that we help to understand why people are doing the things they're doing and then, on the basis of that, try and design interventions, as we call them, to try and change behaviour. So, I guess, at the simple level, it's fair to say that, yes, people need to do things differently, and that's a fundamental question of behavioural science. So therefore, it ought to have a very large role to play. 

02:16

I guess the counter to that is that there are, of course, other things that need to happen to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. There's a lot of policy and government and private sector action that also needs to happen in order to enable behaviour change to occur. So, it's not as really as simple as just saying well, let's just take behavioural science and that's the main discipline that's going to help us achieve the goals. It's one of many, but, yes, behaviour change can certainly help in some senses. It's probably worth noting that we have a MOOC, a massive open online course that's free to anyone. That's available through the Sustainable Development Academy, where we do sort of talk a little bit about how behavioural science and application can help achieve the goals, and in it we really articulate some of the basic premises of a methodology which we use as a research unit to try and understand problems and then design interventions for change. 

Senthil

03:11

How important is an incentive or benefits for humans to change behaviours, or do people also often act out of altruism? 

Liam

03:19

So, this is a really interesting question. 

03:22

I think it's important to start by saying that incentives can work to change behaviour. We see, broadly speaking, things like if fuel prices go up, we tend to see reductions in fuel consumption, and so there are these sort of very broad level patterns that you can see that show that incentives, or indeed, in this case, a disincentive, can be effective at changing behaviour. So, I think that's the starting premise. I think sometimes we rely too much on incentives and indeed they can backfire, and there's some examples, such as a project we worked on that was trying to incentivise some low-income households to upgrade their hot water systems, and we really found that they weren't very effective at all. I think that particular cohort weren't keen on taking on any additional debt. If the incentive had covered the whole cost, then maybe but that particular scheme it required the household to also take on a no-income or nil interest loan, and even though it was no interest, they still were very nervous about accepting a debt, and so I think incentives are a bit of a mixed bag. So that's, I guess, the first point Doing things altruistically. I think that's probably a fairly broad catch-all term that talks about doing things because you think they're the right thing to do. I think there are, and that can be right for yourself, but also right for others, or right because of the lines of your values, and that's more what we would call an intrinsic motivation. 

04:53

And so, we do sometimes see these arguments, particularly in the behavioural economics space, about the value or the pros and cons of motivating behaviour extrinsically through incentives or disincentives or intrinsically by, you know, saying this is the right thing to do, you ought to do it. And the term that you're probably familiar with and some of your listeners might be familiar with, is crowding out, where sometimes we might have good reasons to do things and we want to do them for the right reasons, because it aligns with our values or we want to help someone, but because they're extrinsically motivated, it sort of crowds out our intrinsic motivation. And probably one of the best examples I can think of this is putting solar panels on roofs, which is obviously a very big trend at the moment. A lot of households are doing it and a lot of the arguments being put forward for why you should put solar panels on your roof because it will save you money. 

05:47

Now, that's fine, but that's a very, I guess, extrinsic motivation, it's cost savings, and I think one of the concerns that psychology has with those sorts of motivations is that they can then lead to other behaviours that also work on the premise of saving you money. And I'm sure people will find themselves in a later situation or a future scenario where something that's greener or better for the environment is more expensive. And then those trade-offs because you flex that muscle around saving money and economising, we might find that people are more likely to take the option of the less environmentally sustainable product for one that's cheaper. So, I think there's some pros and cons with these things. They both work and we've seen them work often. But there are some cautions, particularly around the use of extrinsic motivations, both because they don't always work but also because they might lead you down a path of doing other behaviours that then come at cost of, you know, pro-social, pro-environmental behaviours. 

Senthil

06:52

Can you explain the importance of a tangible or visible feedback loop in changing behaviours? For example, when I was reading your biodiversity concerns report, 75% of the people are extremely concerned about waste pollution. Fairly so, because you can see waste, you know if it mounts on your neighbourhood…pollution… it's largely visible, you feel it, but say people often don't talk about soil microbiomes, which are equally important, but that's not visible to your eyes. 

Liam

07:24

Yeah, look, I mean there's a very large body of work around audit and feedback and we know that, broadly speaking, the principle of playing back how someone performed or someone's behaviour to themselves is quite an effective tool, a changing behaviour across a raft of different circumstances. To just give you a couple, you know, if I know, that number of councils here in Australia use bin audit stickers for your recycling bin that you put outside your house, and if you get a sticker that's sort of red and says you know you haven't sorted your waste very well, then people tend to respond very well to that kind of feedback. I don't think they particularly like getting a red sticker or a sad face, as some use on their bin, and so it is very effective. And of course, the other one that's probably very well known to listeners is energy feedback. So, reporting on how much energy you're using, particularly when you compare yourself to other neighbours or peers, is a very effective form of feedback. At its essence, humans really do like cause and effect. 

08:29

I think even a two-year-old likes to see if they hit something with a toy that causes some kind of effect, and that's true, I guess, in all walks of life. And so, you know the fact that we get feedback on what we do and we can change it and see change again and get further feedback. That's innate in most humans. So that, I guess, is the principle for why audit and feedback work so well. 

Senthil

08:53

What are one or two key ethical issues that sustainability leaders should keep in mind when they use behavioural approaches in their sustainability programs? I ask because businesses like social media companies have been widely criticized for using insights from behavioural science. Such practices are seen by many as unethical. Are there major ethical concerns for sustainability programs too, I wonder. 

Liam

09:20

I think yes, in some senses it depends on how Machiavellian you want to be, and it's probably worth starting by pointing out that all the research we do is governed by an ethics board. Everything we do requires ethics permission. But you're right in that there are key questions that we should ask about the application of behavioural science, because if you get given some tools that really enable you to change the behaviour of others, you know, I think there are a couple of key questions that we should ask ourselves, and the first is what rights do I have to change someone else's behaviour? Is there a fundamental right that I have as either as an individual or a business or an entity, to use this tool to change someone else's behaviour? And I think the answer to that question is probably very long and we could have a whole podcast just on that. But I think if it's in line with the sustainable development goals or the law or norms of the day or expectations of the day, and particularly the first two, which is kind of a globally particularly SDGs, which are a globally agreed agenda for what's right and what we ought to do, then I think we have a bit more license. With that first question of do I have the right to change behaviour. It's kind of, I think, answered by the fact that there are agreements, whether they be laws or policies or international agreements such as the SDGs, then I think we do have the right to change others' behaviour and of course, that's what government and other entities do all the time anyway. 

10:44

The second, I think, really key ethical question, which, where it probably gets a bit greyer, is do I have the right to use any tool to do it and any intervention type or tool? And I think that's where you know we can land ourselves in some hot water. You know, an example we're using some of the training we do is a situation where you know we were working down at Port Campbell National Park, which is where the Twelve Apostles are, on the southern coast of Victoria. That issue there was that people were wandering off the track and it was quite dangerous. It was damaging vegetation, but also it was quite dangerous because people have fallen and it's very steep and indeed been killed by doing so, and there were signs up saying you know it's dangerous and watch out for vegetation. It wasn't very effective. We did some research and found that we decided to put up a sign, which proved quite effective. That said it was from a photographer and it said please stay on the track, that's where the best photos are. It said thank you to Parks Victoria for putting the track where it is. I've got the best photos, and I can use them. 

11:43

The point really here is that the photographer was fictitious they didn't exist, and so the question is do we have the right to lie in order to get a potentially very important outcome? And having run many workshops on this topic, I think we find that the audiences are often very much split down the middle, and so I don't think there is a very clear right or wrong in terms of whether you can or can't. Some people say it's a white lie it saves lives, great. Others say, no, it's a slippery slope if you lie. But that's just one example. I think there are other examples that we've seen in the media and in advertising in particular, that have sort of pushed agendas with subliminal messaging and the like that have been sort of accepted as not what's been deemed to be not okay. I think it's probably a bit of a case-by-case basis and one that we kind of probably have to debate a lot more. 

Senthil

12:33

You have conducted research also on behaviour change communication. How can sustainability leaders in the business sector use communication strategies to promote positive behaviour among their business or stakeholders? 

Liam

12:46

I think one of the really common ones we see right across all sectors is the use of negative descriptive norms, which is essentially get up and show how big a problem is so to get up and say 80% of our employees aren't doing X which we want you to do, not filling out a compliance form, or not submitting their credit card expenses or whatever it is. I think we see a lot of people getting up and saying this is a real problem and 80% or 90% or whatever it is, aren't doing the right thing. That we know is a communication error, because what that does is it normalizes the negative. It says that most people aren't doing it, and we know that that's a problem because it typically leads to more people doing it or at least puts pressure. It gives people, I guess, a reason, conscious or unconscious, to not do it because most people aren't. 

13:37

A much better way of framing that might be, say, in an organization of 1,000 people you know hundreds of people and that might be 200, but still hundreds are doing the right thing and emphasize that side of the positive rather than necessarily the negative. So that not making mistakes, I think applies to business leaders' communication as much as it does to how you might use it to get sustainability outcomes in other spaces, and so I guess that that kind of narrative then flows through in terms of what's the next step. Well, the next step would be to apply some basic tools, as I've talked about, with descriptive norms or audit and feedback, which we've talked about before any of those other frameworks I spoke about earlier to take those and use those in your comms and make sure that you're communicating a message in a way that essentially doesn't do harm but in fact increases the likelihood of uptake or behaviour change. 

Senthil

14:29

That's revealing, Liam. Many of the narrative we hear today is mostly negative, isn't it? Climate change is going to cause X number of people to lose their livelihoods, et cetera. So, what you just said is a big pivot to the way the entire world thinks about changing society's thinking. 

Liam

14:47

It's actually an interesting one, Senthil, because I get a lot of feedback from organizations I talk to, or particularly lobby groups that I talk to, because they really focus on emphasising the negative. 

14:59

So, if you imagine you're a campaigner around domestic violence, you know one of the very common narratives is that you know one woman per week dies at the hands of a former or current partner, and that sort of essentially is a very powerful narrative and really does get attention and leads to policy change. Essentially, it's a key driver for policy change, which is a great outcome. The behavioural science and this is not to discredit that kind of line of thinking would say we also should probably counter that with an argument around some of the good things that people are doing Like most men or not. Counter probably also include messaging that says most men are doing the right thing and most men don't do this, and most partners do treat their partners respectfully. And so, I think you know there's often this bit of debate and tension. We see it in the environment space all the time. You know we've lost so many forests, and we've lost so many species. I get the powerfulness of that message, but in some ways, it can lead to momentum, which can be a problem. 

Senthil

16:01

The world seems fragmented by the proliferation of social media and ideological polarisation. Do you think it is still possible to mobilise communities towards a common challenge against humanity like climate change? 

Liam

16:16

Well, yes, I would hope so. You know, social media and fragmentation is a double-edged sword, right? So, we've seen it. Or social media let's just talk about that we've seen it do horrible things, of course, and you know, promote conspiracy theories and even quite negative behaviours that that we would not like to see, and create niche groups that allow that and indeed perhaps even foster things like riots you know London riots and the like. You know social media can fuel those things. But we've also seen it do pretty awesome things too, like you know Me Too and Black Lives Matter, and you know so I do think it can be used for a common good as well. So, I think it certainly made it more easy to go both ways, and so my hope and my optimistic self says yes, we can use it for good, and it can be used for good and to ideally spark social movement. 

17:09

I think on climate change, we've actually done that. There are still groups that are not pro-climate, that are climate deniers, but we do know that the vast majority of people do certainly accept climate change. We might disagree on how to deal with it, but certainly we're not where we were 10 and 15, 20 years ago. I think we have been able to get consensus around it and there is an appetite for action and certainly when we talked in the previous text, we were talking about how behaviour change and structures and law and policy and the like can come together. I think we've seen that. You know, we've seen all the ticks in a transition being ticked in climate and you know my belief is that we'll look back. I mean, my hope really is that we'll look back on climate in, you know, 50 or 100 years’ time and say, actually that was a case where know science led? It led to a movement or several movements, it led to institutional structures and organizations and policy and incentives and disincentives and all those things that come together to tackle a global, common issue. 

Senthil

18:12

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the natural experiments for behavioural researchers. Could you describe one or two behavioural shifts you see in societies in the post-COVID world? 

Liam

18:25

Yeah, I think so. Covid and I think we wrote this in our book at the start was really, I think, the biggest behavioural change humanity's ever seen and that sounds like a big call, but when you think about how many people in how many countries change their behaviour in a relatively shorter space of time whether that be wearing masks or social distancing or working from home or whatever how many people changed over such a short period of time is just remarkable. It was a disruption like we never have seen before. I think behaviour change scientists typically talk about our work being a small change in a large audience or a large change in a small audience. It's very rare you get a large change in a large audience, but COVID saw that. We saw billions of people doing things differently within a space of a few months. So, what's the legacy? I think that's a really interesting debate discussion from a behaviour perspective. 

19:23

I think we've certainly seen some changes in Australia in terms of you know work patterns for those that can, and it's probably noting that you know crises invariably favour the already privileged, and so white-collar workers have probably benefited more from COVID. And certainly, you know we see that probably now is that you know a lot of people who worked in offices are continuing to and you know they moved, working from home or hybrid work, and now we see a lot of hybrid working. I think that advantages them. It certainly has good consequences in terms of, you know, enabling greater participation in the workforce and the like, and I think that will stay. So, I think we've locked in some good outcomes. 

20:02

I mean the fact you know I'm talking to you on a podcast, online instead of in person, which it probably would have been in 2019 or 2018, is kind of evidence to that. And so, you know we have seen these changes that I think will largely lock in and benefit. You know there's still a lot of debate and argument around the negatives. You know a lot of kids were out of, you know, missed out on adolescence, were taken out. A lot of people didn't participate in community sport and activities and social activities, which we know are so fundamental to the fabric of local communities and resilience. So, there's some costs there that are really you know we haven't really captured the tangibility and how much they've affected us, but certainly in terms of behaviourally, there's been some benefits, mostly to the already privileged, but they've, you know they have enabled some good outcomes as well. 

Senthil

20:49

Liam, let's move to the last segment, called how I did it, where we ask all our guests three personal questions to draw lessons from their life and career. How do you handle conflicting views or setbacks? 

Liam

21:03

it's an interesting question because we get these quite regularly if I'm honest. As an academic, you know one of the things we like to do and you know my, my research. It really does focus on applied behaviour change. So, we take behavioural principles, we apply them, or we take them to behavioural science methods, and we use them to try and help solve real world problems. And there are two things that we that, where we get septics[unclear], sometimes they don't work, of course, and that's despite the best use of behavioural science. 

21:32

And then the other sort of setback we regularly see is through the peer review process. So, we publish papers that we think are really based on good science and then we get independent and anonymous reviewers to tell us that our work wasn't as good as it ought to be. Hopefully it doesn't happen too often, but I mean that's very common feedback, I guess in our own behaviour. In terms of how I personally deal with it, I think I've experienced enough of it over the years to be fairly resilient. I'm fairly pragmatic about moving forward. I think it's important, particularly when an experiment fails to try and understand why, to sort of lean in and say well, what else did we measure? What did we not measure what? Why is it that we didn't work and really trying to I guess you know interrogate it and work out what we might do differently next time and indeed how we might talk to the partner we've worked with about you know why it hasn't worked. 

Senthil

Can you recommend a book or two to our listeners? 

22:29

Liam

22:30

It's interesting. When I saw this question, I thought pretty hard, long about it. You know, one of the books that I've read and I'm going to cheat by offering two because I expect you to get you would want me to recommend a behavioural science book, and so perhaps I'll do that first, which is, you know, Robert Cialdini's book Influence. It had a profound influence on me. It came out in the 1990s the first edition and Robert Cialdini is one of these researchers who I admire greatly because he learned his principles, his six principles of persuasion, or now seven, by going into the field and learning. So that's a great entry point, I think, for anyone interested in behavioural science. 

23:08

But the book that's probably jumped out of my mind most was probably Rosie Batty's first book, A Mother's Story, I think it's called, and I found that really interesting because I hadn't really learned a lot about domestic and family violence before, and reading her story really opened my eyes to the experience of a woman in an essentially abusive relationship and how things are rationalized and make perfect sense to people in those situations. I've always liked biographies and autobiographies because I think they really give you an insight to particular people, but this one was particularly so because it was a topic I didn't know a lot about. I learned a lot about by reading her book and it really has stuck with me some of the lessons from that. 

Senthil

23:51

Interesting. Finally, in your experience, what are one or two essential skills required for leaders to use behaviour change for sustainability or sustainable development? 

Liam

24:03

Look, I think probably first and foremost is reflectivity. So be able to reflect on your own performance, to accept feedback on your own performance. You know much as we talked about audit and feedback as being a powerful tool. I think it is for leaders as much as anything. So, you know, I would say that trait in particular to be able to, you know, to be brave and to try things that's what leaders are supposed to do, and they do do. But to be able to reflect deeply on that performance and learn from it and have measures and ways of knowing about how you performed that are not sycophantic, I would argue, is probably the most important trait that leads to behaviour change in leaders, because then, if you accept that feedback and you can learn from it, then next time you do things differently. Certainly, that's something I've tried to embrace over my career, and I think I've seen really good leaders do that as well. 

Senthil

24:58

Great. Thanks so much, Liam, for joining me and sharing your valuable perspective. It was wonderful talking to you today. 

Liam

Thanks, Senthil, it's been great being with you. 

Senthil

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