THE BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS GUIDE 2016

of these cups vary between vendor (Soman, 2015). We are influenced by extremes and tend to
compromise with the middle option.
The benefits of first understanding context
Interventions which research and recognise the surrounding context are likely to deliver more
effective behavioural change. A Poverty Action Lab project to improve water sanitation in Kenya
recognised that people’s daily routines involved trips to the water pump to collect water. So they
placed simple chlorine dispensers at the pumps which piggybacked to existing habits and routines,
leveraged social pressure from peers at the pump and made it easy for households to add
chlorine to their water. Dispenser use increased from 2% to 61% of households. (Kremer et al.,
2011).
Project ACE, an initiative based in Bristol, UK, with the goal of increasing physical activity among
older people, identified first that one of the main barriers preventing the old from exercising was
their lack of confidence and ability to ‘get out and about’. So they designed an initial intervention to
break down this barrier by pairing participants with local volunteers to help them get out and be
more involved in their community so that participants might then be more capable and confident
about doing more exercise (Stathi, 2014).
Two social benefit projects that we initiated also illustrate the value of taking time to understand
context. Developing an intervention to improve medication adherence among non-adherent
diabetes patients, we took into account the everyday context and surrounding physical and social
environment of patients by incorporating insights, observations and behavioural understanding
not only from patients, but also from diabetes nurses and GPs. We were then able to design a
successful trial which went on to increase adherence in 7 out of 10 patients with a corresponding
shift in healthier lifestyles of over 50%.
Similarly, in a 2015 initiative designed to promote greater harmony between London cyclists
and motorists and reduce numbers of cyclists jumping red lights, we observed cyclist behaviour
at different types of junctions and interviewed cyclists and taxi drivers before designing our
intervention.
What can happen when we fail to fully understand context
Interventions can run into numerous problems without this initial understanding of the context.
For example, the World Bank identified a behavioural challenge to improve parenting practices
and so ensure better child development in Nicaragua. Yet, their chosen intervention – providing
parents with mobile phones through which the Bank could communicate parenting advice – ran
into immediate problems.
Only a quarter of people in Nicaragua owned mobiles so the Bank had to provide many parents
with mobiles. It transpired provision was difficult – phones had to be delivered with armed guards
to prevent theft. Mobile reception was poor in remoter areas, sporadic electricity supply made it
difficult to charge phones, many parents could not afford to top up their credit and phones often
developed faults when tucked into sweaty shirts and dresses in the hot weather. Ethnographic
Behavioral Economics Guide 2016 32