Intro by Dan ArielyThis is a featured page

Mechanisms for Change
So what do we do? Reward substitution. Sometimes the immediate task will seem tedious and we lack motivation for doing it knowing that the long term effect will be beneficial. So how do we motivate ourselves?
  • Ego utility
    • "People who drive a Prius smile more while they drive." Driving a Prius makes people feel good about themselves and draw positive attention to themselves for caring about the environment. That motivates them!
    • Role of emotion vs. intellect
    • Changing behavior
  • Power of Competition
    • Power of competition harnessed for something else. Finding other things that people care inherently about and connecting them to what they should care about.
    • EX: getting rival schools to be competitive about their energy efficiency goals
    • Who saved more water today? I WIN!
  • Make it Automatic
    • If you pay as you go, you feel the pain of paying. Credit cards make you forget the pain of consumption. How do you get people to realize that it’s more painful to spend money? Pay as you go for the environment!
  • Simplicity and Ease
    • The role of information isn’t enough. What do we do to alter behavior?
    • Adding a smiley face or frowny face makes a huge difference.
      • You want to make things as automatic as possible - equivalent of automatically deducting money from your checking account into a savings account
      • demand very low attention
The reason to care about the environment is not just because it’s good for business, but because it is important to care about the environment. Period. Even when it isn’t economically efficient.


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