The Small BIG: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence (4 page)

B
ack in the 1990s, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and other government officials around the United States embraced an idea that was proposed by social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling known as the “broken windows theory.” This theory suggested that even small signs of disorder—such as a single broken window in a housing project or a storefront that goes unfixed—could encourage more widespread negative behavior because of the social norms that it communicates.

Giuliani, his police chief, and other government officials who subscribed to this theory focused their attention on combating small but powerful signs of disorder and petty crime. Their efforts included removing graffiti, sweeping streets, and enacting a zero-tolerance policy for seemingly minor violations like subway fare evasion. These efforts have been linked by politicians to the reduction in other more serious crimes and violations, although the scientific evidence on this point has remained inconclusive. However, research by behavioral scientists Kees Keizer, Siegwart Lindenberg, and Linda Steg seems to provide solid evidence regarding the influence of such seemingly small norm violations on other behaviors in the environment. Even more importantly, their research points to small changes that can lead to big improvements for policy makers and  businesses alike.

In their field experiments Keizer and his colleagues tested to what extent various subtle signs of disorder in an environment could influence the proliferation of other undesirable behaviors. In one study the researchers found the perfect setting for their test: an alleyway near a Dutch shopping mall where shoppers typically parked their bikes. While the shoppers were at the mall, the researchers affixed one of the store’s advertisements on the handlebar of each bicycle with an elastic band. In one condition, the researchers left the alleyway just as they found it; in a second condition, they added graffiti to the alleyway. Because there were no garbage bins in the area, shoppers returning from the mall to find a printed advertisement attached to the handlebars of their bicycle had a simple choice. Do they remove the advertisement and take it home with them—or do they instead drop it on the ground?

The results revealed that 33 percent of the bicycle owners littered the paper when there was no graffiti to be seen in the alleyway. However, 69 percent did so when graffiti was present.

In another of their fascinating field experiments, Keizer and his colleagues went to a parking lot that had multiple pedestrian entrances and blocked off one of those entrances with a series of temporary fences. Signage on the fencing indicated that people returning to their cars should not use that entrance but instead should enter the lot through the other entrance, located approximately 200 yards away. However, the researchers left just enough of a gap in the fencing that a person could pass through if he or she really wanted. They also placed a sign on the fencing that told people that locking their bicycles to the fencing was prohibited. The only aspect of the study that Keizer and his colleagues varied was whether four bicycles were simply parked next to the fencing or were instead all locked to it.

The outcome? When the bicycles were simply positioned next to the fence, 27 percent of the pedestrians stepped through the gap in the fence in direct violation of the signage. However, when the four bikes were locked to the fence in violation of the other signage, a whopping 82 percent of the pedestrians stepped through the gap.

The research we’re describing to this point demonstrates that when people observe that their peers have violated one social norm, not only are they potentially more likely to violate that same norm themselves—but they are also more likely to violate a related but different social norm. For example, a dog walker might allow his dog to foul a park not because he observes another dog owner allowing her dog to do so, but because he sees other signs of social disorder in the park, such as litter or people dropping cigarette butts. Workers in an office, walking past the photocopier and paper shredder area and noticing that it is untidy and strewn with scrap paper, might subsequently be more likely to contravene other office norms by leaving their dirty coffee cups on the counter or failing to wipe up spillages in the kitchen area.

But could observing a seemingly small violation in an environment actually cause people to steal when they otherwise wouldn’t have? To address this question, the researchers placed a stamped and addressed envelope clearly containing some money halfway in a mailbox so that it was visible and accessible to passersby. The only aspect of the study that Keizer altered was whether there was litter on the ground surrounding the mailbox. When there was no litter in sight, only 13 percent of passersby stole the envelope and the money inside it. However, when the environment was littered, the theft rate nearly doubled—approximately 25 percent stole the envelope!

These findings show just how powerful subtle cues in a surrounding environment can be in terms of influencing people’s behavior. As a result, anyone who has a responsibility or interest in encouraging pro-social and desirable behaviors should consider not just the small changes that can be made to their message, but also the small changes that can be made to the environment, recognizing that frequently it is both easier and more efficient to change people’s environments than their minds.

Furthermore, this work suggests that allowing visible signs of norm violations that seem relatively unimportant might elicit norm violations in much more important areas. For example, retail outlets might think that occasional litter in the dressing rooms or bathrooms is not worth worrying about; however, this persuasive research suggests that litter might actually increase theft from the store. At work, allowing certain aspects of the office to remain disorderly or in disrepair could trickle down to subtly influence the workforce to slack off or, even worse, engage in some sort of workplace malfeasance.

So what
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BIGs could managers, city council members, or even policy makers undertake that could lead to big differences in encouraging and maintaining desirable behaviors in their communities and public places?

One potential small change comes from a relatively new insight gleaned from recent social psychological research conducted by the researchers of the studies we described above. Contrary to common belief, arranging for people to inhabit an ordered environment (no dirty cups in the staff kitchen, a litter-free park, gleaming sidewalks) does not create the strongest context for encouraging desirable behaviors. Instead the strongest context for encouraging desirable behaviors comes from evidence that clearly conveys other people’s respect for norms. Therefore the most effective
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BIG is not to arrange for people to inhabit an already ordered environment, but instead for people to inhabit an environment where they can witness order being restored. In other words, in an office environment, the best
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BIG action might be to change the times when kitchen and staff changing room areas are cleaned. Rather than have cleaners at the ready after everyone has left for the day, it might be better to arrange some overlap so that staffs can see the restoration of their environment.

A related
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BIG that government officials could undertake would be to develop programs that encourage citizens not simply to refrain from undesirable actions, but to undo the undesirable actions of others in a public way. Municipalities could allocate resources for the formation and/or support of citizens groups who want to demonstrate their disapproval of disordered environments by cleaning debris from lakes and beaches, graffiti from buildings, and litter from streets. A study by one of us, with Raymond Reno and Carl Kallgren, suggests that the overall effect could be dramatic. It showed that, under normal circumstances, passersby given handbills littered 38 percent of the time. But passersby who first saw a man
pick up
someone else’s litter from the environment littered the handbill only 4 percent of the time.

It would be a stretch, of course, to claim that a failure to police a person’s habit of leaving decaying fish tacos or four-week-old milk in the company fridge will lead to your company becoming the next Enron. But we will claim that because contexts can shape behavior as much as any amount of informational content, even seemingly small changes to an environment can make a big difference.

I
n late October 2012 Hurricane Sandy bulldozed its way through the Caribbean and across the mid-Atlantic before hitting land again in the northeastern United States and leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in its wake. Violent gusts nearing 100 mph accompanied by lashing rain left widespread damage estimated at over $75 billion. In the aftermath, many thousands of individuals as well as organizations such as the American Red Cross and the United Nations marshaled and directed resources toward cleanup and relief operations. Corporations and businesses helped, too, as did a number of network news channels that held telethons and made appeals that generated millions of dollars in donations.

The role played by the news networks wasn’t just limited to encouraging contributions that supported relief efforts. They were also responsible for generating a series of unofficial names for the hurricane—from provocative to downright fear-inducing. “Snowicane” was one such example presumably designed to highlight the avalanche proportions of projected snowfall that would accompany Sandy. “Frankenstorm” was another—a reference to the storm’s close proximity to Halloween.

While we are not aware of evidence that suggests assigning a hurricane an unofficial fear-inducing name leads to an increase in donations after the event, there is evidence that the
official
name given to a hurricane can have a surprising influence on whether certain individuals will donate. Not only is this evidence surprising, it can also offer some important insight into how a small change you can make to your messages can make a big difference when it comes to persuading others.

Psychology professor Jesse Chandler highlighted an intriguing finding from an analysis of donations made in response to fundraising appeals after devastating hurricanes. Curiously, people were more likely to donate if the initial of their first name matched the name given to the hurricane. Chandler found, for example, that people whose names began with the letter R, such as Robert or Rosemary, were 260 percent more likely to donate to the Hurricane Rita relief appeal than people whose names didn’t begin with the letter R. He found a similar effect after Hurricane Katrina, with folks whose names started with a K significantly more motivated to donate funds to help relieve the devastation and displacement caused. In every case going back many years, a similar pattern emerged, with disproportionate numbers of donations coming from those with the same initial as the hurricane.

In his book
Drunk Tank Pink
, marketing professor Adam Alter makes a noteworthy point. If people
are
more likely to donate to hurricane relief programs that share their initials, then the entity responsible for assigning hurricane names, the World Meteorological Organization, has the power to increase charitable giving simply by giving hurricanes more commonly occurring names. Given the advances in meteorological forecasting in recent years, it should be possible to identify the areas where storms will hit, take a look at the voting register for those areas, and then choose a name for the hurricane that closely matches frequently occurring names in that area.

At first glance, insights such as these seem like idle curiosities researched by wacky scientists in an attempt to provide an eyebrow-raising headline or an inane topic of conversation for next weekend’s dinner party. But to dismiss these findings as inconsequential would dismiss a fundamental and powerful feature of human psychology. The truth is, our names matter to us.

You can probably recall a time when you have found yourself deep in conversation with a colleague or a friend, perhaps at a conference, in a business meeting, or at a party. The kind of conversation that captured your complete attention. In fact you were so focused on what was being said that you were oblivious to all the other activities and conversations going on around you. But then you heard your name mentioned from another part of the room and instantly your attention was diverted. It’s almost as if you possessed an invisible antenna that was constantly scanning the environment, ready and waiting to tune in to any mention of your name. Such is the prevalence of this phenomenon that psychologists even have a name for it: “The Cocktail Party Phenomenon.”

Should you need further convincing of how important people’s names are to them, then you might like to try this little experiment next time you’re in a meeting or with a group of friends. Hand out a blank piece of paper to everyone in the room and simply ask them to write down their five favorite letters of the alphabet. If they are anything like the subjects in the studies where this has been done, when you review their choices you will likely notice an uncanny similarity between the letters they have chosen and their own names, especially their initials.

So how can insights such as these help you to successfully influence others?

Given that a necessary part of any persuasion strategy is to get someone’s attention, it seems logical to explicitly use someone’s name more often when seeking to influence them or, at the very least, signal that your request or message has some connection to their name. For example, an experiment we conducted in partnership with a team of British physicians found that simply including a patient’s first name in an SMS (short message service) text reminding them to attend a health appointment led to a 57 percent reduction in no-shows compared to reminders that didn’t include their first name. Interestingly, including a patient’s full name (e.g., John Smith) or a more formal salutation (e.g., Mr. Smith) made no difference at all.
It was only when a patient’s first name was used that it had an effect.

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BIGs like these aren’t just being deployed in an effort to reduce inefficiencies such as those produced by people failing to show up to their doctor’s appointments. They are also being used to persuade people to pay fines that they owe. One study conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team, a crack squad of behavioral scientists, originally working at the heart of the British government but now a commerical body, found that sending a text message requesting payment of a fine that included an offender’s first name along with the amount owed increased response rates by almost half—from 23 percent to 33 percent—compared to the same message that didn’t include the offender’s name.

The attention-grabbing nature of a name could also prove fruitful for those charged with generating support for new business initiatives and work programs. When it comes to naming that new project, you may be tempted to consider an ambiguous, mysterious-sounding name in the hope that it will spark interest, get people’s attention, and mobilize them behind your efforts. The hurricane studies, however, suggest an alternative approach. Rather than attempting to evoke the passions and emotions of your employees by likening your initiative to some kind of mythological bird that is reborn from its own ashes, you might receive more support if you simply look down the list of people who work in the departments responsible for implementing your project and choose a commonly occurring name from those groups. Or at the very least tally up the most commonly occurring initial amongst the group and use that as a basis for your project name. Pharmaceutical sales executives might review the names of heavy prescribers and note that, when the time comes to release their next blockbuster drug, visiting Dr. Painton early on in the launch of Painaway could prove to be a shrewd move.

Such moves could be the
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BIGs that make your
name-changing
activities
game-changing
ones, too.