Changing Behaviour for Good
WHILE WE SELDOM THINK ABOUT IT, our life outcomes are powerfully determined by seemingly trivial, repeated acts. Our health, for example, depends on thousands of daily choices — to eat well and exercise regularly, to avoid smoking, and to take medications as prescribed. And yet, 40 per cent of premature deaths each year result from suboptimal behaviour in this domain: Tobacco is responsible for 435,000 of those deaths, while poor diet and physical inactivity account for 400,000. Cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of mortality — is largely treatable with anti-hypertensive medicines; but just one year after receiving a prescription, only about half of patients are still taking their medication as directed.
Our bad habits run the gamit from health to personal finances. One in three American families has no savings at all, and 52 per cent are under-saving, even though most would need to save just 15 per cent of their earnings to prepare for the future. Academic success requires an array of good habits at any age: attending classes, studying and engaging with challenge on countless occasions. Yet tellingly, 23 per cent of high schoolers and 49 per cent of college students drop out before earning diplomas. Sadly, all of these challenges to life outcomes disproportionately harm disadvantaged members of society.
In recent years, behavioural scientists have learned a great deal about the underlying situational and psychological factors that determine our daily decisions, leading to many successful and scalable interventions to change short-term behaviour. The problem is this: behaviour change rarely endures. In this article, we will review a small but growing body of
