Motivation – Center for Advanced Hindsight

Make plans, not resolutions

admin — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 15:53:27 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Pattern Health blog.

By Aline Holzwarth

Your new year’s resolution is very likely to fail. Most do. Resolutions are just not built to succeed. They rely on willpower, hoping and wishing (which last about a week, a month if you’re lucky). New year’s resolutions are like that promise to that friend that you will meet up, grab coffee, but neither of you actually makes the first move and neither of you really minds. They are that nonfiction book on your bookshelf, or documentary in your Netflix queue, that you definitely want to read/watch and completely plan on getting to, just not this time.

And that’s fine. If you’re not serious about getting more sleep or saving more money or spending more time with your family, that’s your prerogative. But for those of us who do actually want to carry out our self-bettering wishes this year, there’s a better way. We don’t have to settle with declaring our grandiose aspirations over a toast to a room of acquaintances, then forgetting about them as soon as the champagne hangover subsides.

Instead of making a resolution this January 1st, make a behavioral science fueled plan.

It’s so easy that I did it myself and am here to share it with you. (You are welcome to copy it, I would be honored!)

I built my New Year’s plan this year using the goal-setting worksheet created by Pattern Health and the Center for Advanced Hindsight (which we also wrote about a few months ago in our how -to guide for setting better goals). Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Choose your big goal

I’ve put on a few too many pounds over the past couple years and I’m ready to say goodbye to them. (Just a hunch, I am probably not the only one hoping to shed pounds this year.) Therefore..

My big goal is to lose some weight so that my clothes fit me well again.

This is a fine start, but before we move on to Step 2, let’s first make it a SMART goal.

Specific: More specifically, I want to be in “healthy BMI range” which means I need to lose about 20 lbs. I’m not going to fixate on this number, and I’m just going to take it one week at a time because smaller goals that add up to larger goals are more likely to be met.
Measurable: I’ll know when I reach my goal because I will step on the scale each morning (at the same time, wearing the same-ish thing) to record my weight.
Achievable: Definitely achievable. I’ve succeeded at losing weight in the past and I know what it will take to reach my goal. It’s just a matter of making the plan and sticking to it.
Relevant: If I lose 20 lbs, I will have more energy, happiness and will not have to buy new clothes because my old clothes will fit again.
Time-bound: At a weight loss rate of 1-2 lbs a week (and being conservative with 1 lb/week), I hope to lose 20 lbs by the 20th week of the year which is about May 19th.

Step 2: List your goal steps

To lose weight, the two most important components will naturally be around my diet and exercise.

Diet Goal Steps

I’ve decided to try a low carb diet. I’m starting with 25 grams of carbs a day, and will gradually increase the amount as I lose weight by “climbing the carb ladder” (I’ll spare you the details). In addition, I’m restricting my caloric intake to 1,200 calories a day (which I know I can do, as I’ve done it for the past month). These are my diet-related goal steps.

Establish basic diet principles (or “cheat sheet”) for meals and snacks
Plan meals for the week every Saturday at 9am
Go shopping every Saturday at 10am
Prepare food on weekends (for Sat-Tues) and Wednesdays (for Wed-Fri)
Record meals via photo tracking and share with interested parties

Exercise Goal Steps

I want to meet the level of exercise recommended in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ just-released Physical Activity Guidelines (spoiler: for adults like me, get in 150 minutes a week of aerobic exercise and strength training on 2+ days/week). These are my exercise-related goal steps.

Find activities to satisfy the aerobic and strength requirements
Schedule these as recurring events on my calendar
Set out my workout clothes and shoes the evening before

Step 3: Identify your obstacles

Diet Obstacles

Go out to eat
Fail to plan ahead

Exercise Obstacles

Don’t feel like exercising
Too hot or cold to exercise outside

Step 4: Make an if-then plan

Diet Solutions

If I go out to eat, then I will stick to a set of rules to help me make better meal choices
1. Pick either appetizer or alcohol, not both
2. Share an entree with someone or take the other half to go
3. Order a 2:1 ratio of vegetable to protein
4. I may have one and only one small bite of a shared dessert
If I fail to plan ahead, then I will have a default meal option that I must make (so I can’t fall back on unhealthy alternatives)

Exercise Solutions

If I don’t feel like exercising, then I will do it anyway but take it easy
If it’s too hot or cold outside to run, then I will instead do an alternative predetermined indoor exercise

Supercharge your commitment with behavioral science tools

Planning is going to make a big difference on its own (compared to empty resolutions), but if you want to take the extra step, there is more you can do to ensure your success. Behavioral science has a range of tools to help with this, and at Pattern Health we’ve already shared our work using two important types: commitment tools and social tools. In the spirit of winding down 2018 and getting on to 2019, let’s recap.

Commitment tools

Precommitment — “When we sign our names we are also reminding ourselves to follow through on those promises. The signature is hard evidence of the seriousness of our commitment, and it stays in our mind as a symbol representing that dedication”One form of precommiting to my New Year’s plan is by writing this very article. Go figure.
Implementation intentions — “These kinds of if-then plans are remarkably effective at translating vague desires into concrete action plans that might actually come to fruition”
Commitment devices — “Commitment devices can help all us stick to our goals by setting up and enforcing if-then plans. (So, for example, you might decide that if you fail to go to the gym tomorrow morning, then you will not be allowed to hang out with your friends on the weekend.)”As any good behavioral scientist would do, I’ve set up commitment devices to prevent me from failing: “If I go a week without exercise, then I will sign up (and prepay) for a recurring fitness class. And if I go a day without eating low carb, then I will start from the top of the carb ladder (essentially starting from scratch).

Social tools

Social norms — “Other people are one of the strongest influences over your behavior. But how do they influence you? Two ways, basically: What they do, and what they approve of.”In case you didn’t already know, exercising and eating well is loads of fun. Everyone you admire is doing it, and they love doing it.
Social media — “As humans, we are inherently social animals. We care what others think about us, and want to make sure our networks think of us positively. This social incentive can get us to behave in all sorts of ways, and social networks can serve as a vehicle to transmit this information.”

Check out this very tweet about this very article:

By publicly declaring my intention to stick to this plan, I’ve raised the stakes because I know you will hold me accountable.

Social support — “Social support works by moving us to act in ways that we believe are popular or socially desirable, and we are motivated by words of encouragement — not only when we receive encouraging words, but also (actually, even more so) when we help others.”This is the most important one of all, so as a smart behavioral scientist I’ve invested the most in my social support network. Here are some things I’ve done to make sure that my friends and family help me succeed:
- told my friends about what I’m doing and offered to bring diet-appropriate meals to gatherings
- enlisted my husband to join me in the additional exercise (including a lunchtime yoga class)
- invited my mom and sister to do this along with me, and we are sharing meal plans and exercise plans (and success stories) as we go

And with that, I’d like to call it a year. Happy planning, and merry new year to you. Looking forward to sharing more on how behavioral science fuels Pattern in 2019!

P.S. We are very much interested in how you are using behavioral science for your health. If you’ve made your own behavioral-science-fueled plans, send us a tweet @ptrnhealth to let us know what it is.

P.P.S. If you’d like to see my more detailed New Year’s Diet and Fitness Plan, I’m happy to share it. Just shoot me an email at aholzwarth@pattern.health or tweet at me @alineholzwarth.

The post Make plans, not resolutions appeared first on Center for Advanced Hindsight.

Best-Laid Plans of Potential Donors: Bridging the Intention-Behavior Gap

admin — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 16:31:42 +0000

If we were to reflect on how much we donated in the past, some of us would admit that we could have given more. At the same time, we might claim that we intended to give more, but just hadn’t come around to finding the right charities or the time to act on it. The question is, if we were to reflect on others’ giving less than they could have, would we also assume that they had intended to give more, but just hadn’t gotten around to acting on it due to external factors?

This question is important for those promoting giving in part because of a human bias – the fundamental attribution error (i.e., over-attributing intentions to others’ behavior; assuming that people actively chose not to give rather than assuming that they intended to, but never got around to it). This human bias might lead us to focus too much on increasing the intention to give without paying sufficient attention to the intention-behavior gap in giving. As a result, we could end up effectively wasting the intention to give, and ignoring the importance of helping people actually implement the act of giving. The good news is, especially for those dedicated to promoting doing good, the pitfall of under-estimating individuals’ willingness to give and over-estimating the success of their acting on their good intentions, lends itself to some great opportunities to promote giving.

When we examine our own giving behavior, we may soon discover that we are more generous in our intention to give than in our actual giving behavior. In other words, like many of our intentions, such as attempting to exercise more or eat less, we often don’t do it as much as we say we’d like to, even in the domain of charitable giving – while Americans give 3% of their income on average, they believe that one should give 6%. In addition, research conducted by CAH’s own Ari Kagan and Nick Fitz found that 85% of people reported not giving as much as they would’ve liked. In fact, they wanted to give 2.5 times more, on average. Who would’ve thought?

Needless to say, it’s easier to recognize the intention-behavior gap in behaviors that benefit ourselves, like cutting down on late-night snacks, than behaviors that benefit others (at least for those economists who still deeply believe that humans are self-regarding by nature). And let’s admit it, the intention-behavior gap is probably smaller in giving than in living healthily. Nevertheless, the gap is there. Increasingly more research shows that giving has a positive impact on happiness, and that people generally report giving less than they intended to.

Are there reasons to assume that the giving behavior is deterred by implementation barriers besides monetary constraints? Here are two examples of potential barriers:

Forgetfulness

Sometimes, we simply forget to donate. It’s hard for us to keep track of all the things we intend to do, and we end up focusing on urgent tasks, while postponing those that don’t have strict deadlines – charitable donation is no exception. Indirect evidence of this is that many people end up donating close to the end of the year for tax exemption reasons, but not before. We sometimes forget about our good intentions, and only remember them when we are prompted by the holidays and end-of-the-year tax exemption or fundraising campaigns. But with many other deadlines to meet at the end of the year, it’s easy for the deadline of giving to be moved to the bottom of the priority list, even though it may be on top of our mind, and we end up only partially meeting our donation goals.

Choice Overload

The tendency to experience “choice overload” is illustrated by a well-known study in behavioral economics conducted by Iyengar and Lepper. In this experiment, shoppers were either exposed to a display of 24 jams or a display of 8 jams. They were free to test and/or purchase as many as they liked. Although more people stopped to look at the 24-jam display, shoppers were one-tenth as likely to buy as people who saw the 8-jam display. Choice overload also affects the charitable giving industry. There are over 1 million registered charities in the U.S. alone, serving myriad causes. As illustrated in the jam study example, even though we often believe that more choice is better, this is not the case. In the presence of so many choices, we procrastinate, fearing that we won’t be making a good decision or pick the right charities.

Remedies to bridge the intention-behavior gap in giving

Fortunately, there are remedies to combat the behavioral barriers underlying the intention-behavior gap of charitable giving. For instance, to combat forgetfulness, it would be useful to introduce charitable appeals when donors are likely to have the time and energy to respond right away (think lunchtime, weekends, or after-work hours) so that they don’t forget later. In addition, when we get a chance to email potential donors, instead of appealing to their motive to give as usual, consider sending just a gentle reminder of their intent to give instead.

To combat choice overload and help prospective donors choose which charities to support, direct potential donors to sites like GiveWell, which keep a ranking of the most effective charities, and offer to allocate users’ donations to the most effective causes. Narrowing down donors’ choices makes giving relatively hassle-free and may galvanize more people to action.

Lastly, recognizing the intention-behavior gap in giving doesn’t mean that there is no room for increasing the intention to give – there are definitely barriers that affect donors’ intention to give. We will dive further into these in our next post.

Giving money to charity is one thing that most of us can probably agree is a good thing. But, like many of our intentions to be healthier and happier, we often don’t do it as much as we say we’d like to. Though Americans give more money to charitable causes than people in most other countries, we still give less, on average, than we think we should.

The key takeaway is that there are ample opportunities to promote giving through bridging potential donors’ intention-behavior gap. In doing so, we can avoid wasting the good intention inherent in humans, as well as the good intention many charitable organizations work hard to create.

References

Croson, R., Handy, F., & Shang, J. (2009). Keeping up with the Joneses: The relationship of perceived social norms, social information, and charitable giving. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 19(4). doi: 10.1002/nml.232

Davis, K., Kim, A., & Warren, A. (2016). Is there a $250 billion gap in charitable giving in the US? Retrieved from: http://www.ideas42.org/blog/250-billion-gap-charitable-giving-u-s/

Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319, 1687-1688.

Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995-1006.

doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.79.6.995

Philanthropy Roundtable. (n.d.). Statistics on US Generosity. Retrieved from: http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics/

Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. Advances in Experimental Psychology, 10, 173-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60357-3

Sheeran, P., & Webb, T. L. (2016). The intention-behavior gap. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(9), 503-518. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12265

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A New Year’s Resolution for You: Exercise for Pleasure and Enjoyment

admin — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 21:14:16 +0000

Many people try improving their health, wealth, and happiness around the New Year. Fewer than 10%, however, feel successful in achieving their resolutions. More than 25% of people do not maintain their resolutions for more than one week, according to the Statistic Brain. This post will help you avoid becoming such a statistic.

(Image Credit: Victor Freitas)

The benefits of regular exercise are well-established. People who exercise regularly are at less risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, osteoporosis, and many other diseases.

Research Overview

Despite widespread awareness of at least some of these benefits, about 50% of adults drop out of exercise programs after six months. In an article published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, researchers highlighted that 63% of new members of a fitness center in Brazil stopped attending within three months.

In a 2015 review of 24 studies, Ryan E. Rhodes and Andrew Kates found that the pleasure we feel during exercise is related to exercise behavior. Interestingly, the pleasure that we feel after exercising does not seem to be related to exercise behavior. A comprehensive review in 2011 led by Panteleimon Ekkekakis of Iowa State University concluded that the pleasure experienced during exercise is reduced at higher intensities, while most people experience pleasure at lower intensities. Michelle L. Segar and Caroline R. Richardson suggest the pleasure experienced during activity should be emphasized. This means focusing on immediate rewards (like experiencing pleasure) rather than long-term rewards (like increased health and reduced risk of disease).

Advice

The above research demonstrates why we need to rethink our approach to exercise.

When you exercise, prioritize pleasure and enjoyment. Whether you’re running, swimming, cycling, lifting weights, or participating in group-exercise classes, try to ensure that it makes you feel good during exercise. You will be more likely to continue.
Although there are some exceptions, we can expect most people to feel pleasant at lower intensities. These lower intensities may be less effective than higher intensities, but the best exercise is the exercise you do regularly. If lowering the intensity makes you feel better, it may help you maintain your active lifestyle.
Rather than exercising for better overall health or for weight loss, try to exercise for something that is more immediately rewarding for you. Think about exercise as an opportunity to take a break from your obligations, to indulge in audio content that you are excited to hear (such as a podcast or an audiobook), to meet with an exercise buddy, or to feel more pleasure and energy.

Beginning a new exercise program and incorporating physical activity into your everyday lifestyle can seem daunting. People typically avoid unpleasant and unrewarding activities during leisure times and pursue pleasant and rewarding activities. Physical activity and exercise should not be thought of as punishment. If you exercise for pleasure and enjoyment, the evidence suggests that you’ll be more likely to continue.

I sincerely hope that the advice in this post helps you become a happier and healthier. Happy New Year!

Zachary Zenko is a postdoctoral associate at The Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, an applied behavioral science research lab that helps people be happier, healthier, and wealthier. Zack’s research focuses on promoting physical activity and exercise behavior. You can follow him on Twitter @zackzenko or you can e-mail him at zachary.zenko@duke.edu.

References

Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60, 2563-2582.

Ekkekakis, P., Parfitt, G., & Petruzzello, S. J. (2011). The pleasure and displeasure people feel when they exercise at different intensities: Decennial update and progress towards a tripartite rationale for exercise intensity prescription. Sports Medicine, 41, 641-671.

Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. M. (2014). Holding The Hunger Games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management Science, 60, 283-299.

Rhodes, R. E., & Kates, A. (2015). Can the affective response to exercise predict future motives and physical activity behavior? A systematic review of published evidence. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 49, 715-731.

Robison, J. I., & Rogers. M. A. (1994). Adherence to exercise programmes. Recommendations. Sports Medicine, 17, 39-52.

Segar, M. L., & Richardson, C. R. (2014). Prescribing pleasure and meaning: Cultivating walking motivation and maintenance. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 47, 838-841.

Sperandei, S., Vieira, M. C., & Reis, A. C. (2016). Adherence to physical activity in an unsupervised setting: Explanatory variables for high attrition rates among fitness center members. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 19, 916-920.

Statistic Brain. (2017). New Years Resolution Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

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"Stick to It! – Can rituals help you exercise more?"

admin — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:31:00 +0000

So what did we find?

Takeaway 1: Rituals help you exercise more, but they don’t necessarily help you enjoy it more.

Takeaway 2: Rituals had stronger effects on the Fabulous App than on the SSM App.

Dan, “SSM was really designed for surveys, and I suspect that the platform was not ideal for testing our rituals (it was not designed for it). People had to keep more of the ritual in their minds before and after exercising instead of getting a timely push notification, and because of this, this app was less effective. Another difference is that SSM was designed to send people reminders, and indeed everyone using this app had daily reminders for evening checkins. These reminders might have created a ritual for the control condition (and thus helping the control group exercise more) and there might have been a bit too much reminders for the ritual conditions. As one participant stated, ‘Checking in on the app (daily) felt more like the ritual than the water drinking.'”

Takeaway 3: There was no consistent evidence that one ritual worked better than another. That said, we know the two less elaborate rituals were less effective.

Takeaway 4: Rituals work better for some depending on religiosity and personality.
Rituals work better for those who are non-religious (e.g., on FAB, non-religious participants on average exercise 0.43 times more per week in ritual groups compared to those in control group, whereas religious participants on average exercise 0.1 times more per week in ritual groups compared to those in control group. Rituals also work better for those who are less disciplined, or less active before joining the study (old exercise frequency <2 times/week); and it works less well for those who have no aspiration to improve (targeted frequency <= old frequency).

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