Social marketing vs. behavioral economics

I see a great deal of overlap between social marketing and behavioral economics and some differences.
Both disciplines rely on making things simpler. As I use to say, if you want to make a behavior popular you need to make it screaminglyconspicuously simple and easy. This focus fits usual interventions inspired by both approaches.
Another similarity is applying the same mindset notwithstanding differences in the tool name. In most cases I cannot see how choice/social architecture differs in nature from deploying some of the social marketing techniques (removing barriers, place strategies) to facilitate the performance of the target behavior. For instance, a program like Save More Tomorrow could be conceived under either conceptual umbrella.
In “The Political Brain”, Drew Westen stresses the role of associations and narratives (woven through emotional processes) in deciding the fate of political candidates. Of course marketers easily see the importance of associations and narratives for any brands or attitudinal objects. The way I see it, behavioral economics has achieved prominence mostly propelled by a strong narrative (and related metaphor): the David that overcame the Goliath (traditional economics – or better – rational homo economicus) destroying in the process one more facet of the idealistic vision of human beings (a trend centuries old). This narrative was strengthened by the Nobel Prize won by Daniel Kahneman in 2002 and the initial contempt (still existent) the discipline faced in traditional academics departments. Richard Thaler’s work with UK government and the building of a practical framework (Test, Learn, Adapt is their motto) to extend scientific method and mindset to pressing public issues has added to their growing popularity. The more common intuition is contradicted by the results of their experiments the more behavioral economics demonstrates the advantage of the scientific method (and increases its fame).
Behavioral ecomomics has discovered some fundamental truths about human decision making and behavior (beginning with Kahneman and Tversky’s Prospect Theory and its offsprings: framming effects, loss aversion, mental accounting, hyperbolic discounting and so on). In turn, the body of knowledge and the prestige the discipline gathered over time gave birth to specific ideas to tackle important public issues and well-succeeded interventions. But behavioral economists have been drawing heavily on other streams of research on human behavior, like (broadly speaking) social psychology. They seem to be successful in integrating theories and findings in areas like emotions, mapping, dual-systems, social norms, choice overload, implementation intentions, fairness, construal and the identifiable victim effect. I think a great deal of their deserved reputation comes from this integration. We are all aware of Cialdini’s (and related researchers) work on social norms. Dual-systems approach (System 1/System 2) has been researched by scholars under the psychology/philosophy of mind tradition, like Keith Stanovich (University of Toronto) and colleagues. And so on. But few practical approaches have been developed besides behavioral economics and social marketing.
I see social marketing as the most powerful social technology to address the social problems faced by our societies. A bit unlike behavioral economics, it has a parsimonious and flexible toolbox that can easily accommodate and integrate the different theoretical avenues that offer insights on human behavior. Jeff French’s paper has important points. Overall, social marketing is a more encompassing approach. From my humble point of view, however, I feel we need a more compelling narrative. Last month I read a recent book on tax-related behavior. It had several mentions to behavioral economics. It did mention segmenting taxpayers (something developed countries have been doing for more than a decade) – but there was no mention to marketing as inspiring that approach. I feel we need a better positioning.
The challenge is enormous and daunting, but I see it as feasible as the discipline matures.
There are important streams of research calling for some kind of integration – even if imperfect. I cite Self-Determination Theory (and one recent practical offspring: gamification), research on Self-Regulation and self-control (with promising understanding of behavior evolution and maintenance – a great advance over transtheoretical model – I mentioned it briefly in my recent paper in JSM), positive psychology, applied neurology… the list of course is not comprehensive.
I see the challenge as threefold: develop a compelling narrative, integrate findings from promising streams of research and dialogue with behavioral economists – given their prominence and given what seems to be lack of knowledge about social marketing. This open dialogue and the trans-disciplinary approach can enrich our discipline, in my opinion.

Economia comportamental e gestão

http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6

Essa é uma lista de 58 vieses que nos acometem nas pequenas e grandes decisões que tomamos, na forma como funcionamos no cotidiano. A lista nem está completa, faltam alguns vieses importantes. O mais impressionante disso tudo é que nós não percebemos que somos sujeitos a ele (o que, por si só é um viés, o bias blind spot).

Vieses cognitivos são o ganha-pão da economia comportamental, ramo do conhecimento que nasceu da psicologia e que gerou um prêmio Nobel (de economia) a seus fundadores.

Vieses cognitivos afligem a gestão das organizações de forma poderosa e imperceptível. As consequências costumam ser sérias. Apenas recentemente a Administração passou a prestar atenção nisso. Porém, ainda contam-se nos dedos as soluções gerencias (“reparos cognitivos”) para lidar com eles.

Não se espantem se perceberem que os erros se repetem na gestão das organizações que nos afetam. Não apenas se repetem, como se repetem da mesma maneira, isto é, são sistemáticos. É importante prestarmos atenção a influências sistêmicas e situacionais. O problema raramente são as pessoas.

A lovely initiative to decrease speed

This was an idea adopted – as far as I know as an experiment – by the Swedish government together with Volkswagen. It is a social intervention that activates a deep need all human beings have: the drive for justice, or what is known theoretically as distributive justice. In simple words, it is the balance between efforts and rewards. What if instead of relying on fines to control the behavior of drivers, governments instead employed a lottery system, using the revenues from fines applied to non-compliant drivers to reward good behavior? This initiative created a lottery that enrolled automatically all the good (compliant) drivers. It made a clever use of fun in a gamification-like approach. The experiment produced significant results. It is a lesson to social marketers and governments. You can learn more on the website created by Volkswagen to host similar initiatives: http://www.thefuntheory.com/speed-camera-lottery-0

Doação de medula óssea no Brasil

Esse é um assunto que me sensibiliza, porque sou colaborador (doador) do GRAAC e porque vejo um espaço do tamanho de um Maracanã para melhorias (mas não consigo ser ouvido pela associação que cuida de doação de medula). Se o Brasil tivesse o mesmo percentual de doadores dos EUA (lembrando que os dados relativos ao número de doadores americanos no site do INCA estão defasados), haveria aproximadamente mais 1,7 milhão de doadores no mundo, quase 9% a mais de doadores em todo o planeta. Como aumentar o número de doadores no Brasil? Não adianta apenas “conscientizar” as pessoas e achar que o que falta é informação para as pessoas executarem um comportamento benéfico para a sociedade. A evidência científica é muito clara sobre a limitação da informação para alterar comportamentos. A lição da economia comportamental e do marketing social, por outro lado, é cristalina: se você quer incentivar um comportamento, você precisa torná-lo absurdamente simples.

Motivação intrínseca e capital altruístico

O pequeno artigo indicado ao final do post, que saiu recentemente no boletim de Harvard (Harvard Working Knowledge), resume alguns pontos importantíssimos para a gestão pública ou para iniciativas que visem alterar o comportamento humano:

1 – Necessidade de experimentação para saber o que realmente funciona – e que geralmente contraria algumas crenças que temos (algo que o governo britânico institucionalizou por meio do Behavioral Insights Team. Para quem quiser saber mais: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/behavioural-insights-team)

2 – A diferença de desempenho de dois tipos de motivadores distintos: o social e o monetário. Vejam por si sós os resultados da pesquisa da autora, que são corroborados por toneladas de evidência em outras linhas de pesquisa.

3 – A importância do propósito no trabalho/na atividade desempenhada. Os seres humanos têm fome de significado e propósito em suas vidas e, quando isso é corretamente ativado, os resultados costumam ser muito bons.

Vale a pena ler:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7160.html?wknews=01232013