Telling people not to do something because everyone is doing it tends to backfire.
Release Date – 12:50 AM, Fri – 12 December 9 22
By Nic Cheeseman, Caryn Peiffer
Hyderabad: Every day we are bombarded with information trying to convince us to change our behavior for our own good and that of society. drink less! Eat less! Wear a mask! vaccination!
Millions of dollars are spent each year on advocacy campaigns aimed at promoting a more cohesive and inclusive society. In developing economies, this includes efforts to foster democratic attitudes and more effective political institutions. Say no to gender-based violence! Say no to corruption! DO NOT SELL YOUR VOTE!
Human Behavior
Given how ubiquitous they are, the most surprising thing about these campaigns is that many of them simply don’t work. Some even make it worse. Why is important because it tells us why it is so difficult to change human behavior.
Take the anti-corruption campaign, for example. Almost all programs aimed at reducing graft and corruption in highly corrupt countries include an “awareness raising” component. The idea is that by raising awareness of an issue, citizens will be more willing to reject bribe requests and take action against corruption. Hopefully they will report or vote against corrupt politicians.
But until the last five years, no one had systematically tested whether this information was valid. When the researchers started looking at this question, they got a nasty surprise: In most cases, anticorruption messages did not make citizens more likely to reject or condemn graft.
opposite effect
A test in Lagos, Nigeria, which has a history of high-level corruption, yielded some startling results. From 1,200 randomly selected participants, it found that people were actually more likely to pay bribes. These 1,200 people participated in a bribery game. They were told that paying the bribe meant the other participant would lose money — just like in the real world. Some participants received anticorruption messages, others did not. Those who received anticorruption information were, on average, more likely to pay bribes. In other words, messaging had the opposite effect than expected.
This means that in a country like Nigeria, millions of dollars spent on anti-corruption information may not only be wasted – it may actually make things worse.
Blame humanity. Recent research in political and social psychology has found that when we hear about pervasive topics, we tend to become cynical and focus on how big the problem is.
The way we behave depends more on what we believe our peers are already doing than what we are told to do. So if we think all of our friends have done so, we’re more likely to get vaccinated and follow social distancing protocols than the government tells us to. The implications for how governments need to communicate are profound.
If a campaign is focused on how corrupt the police are, or how many people are recycled, we point out how big the problem is, risking undermining people’s faith in a better future while implying that “bad” behavior is socially acceptable .
double whammy
The impact of this double whammy is perfectly illustrated in the anticorruption message, which confirms people’s most cynical inner beliefs – that the system cannot be fixed and the only way to do it is to participate in corruption through bribery. Individuals who were already particularly pessimistic about the prevalence of corruption were more likely to be negatively influenced by reading anticorruption messages.
The biggest concern is that this logic doesn’t just apply to corruption.
A study tested information aimed at preventing theft of timber in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. Signs describing problems caused by other people’s actions (stealing wood) were “most likely to increase theft,” the study found. A recent paper on how to encourage people to follow social distancing protocols during a pandemic in Australia concluded that telling citizens that others don’t follow the rules is dangerous because “people match their behavior to perceived social norms”. The Campaign to Stop Gender-Based Violence and Vote Buying came to similar conclusions.
It’s important, then, to realize that raising awareness might actually make the problem worse. Before embarking on an awareness campaign, policymakers can try to design messages that are less problematic. One way to do this might be to focus on those who behaved “well” and people’s negative feelings toward those who behaved inappropriately, rather than emphasizing the magnitude of the problem. Emphasizing the felt power in society and the number of people who want to see change can inspire and motivate rather than depress and discourage.
But even then, there is still a risk that the message could backfire — so nothing should be communicated to the public until it has been systematically tested. Only then can we ensure that when we strive to do good, we do no harm.
(Nic Cheeseman is Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham. Caryn Peiffer is Lecturer in International Public Policy and Governance, School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol. 360info)
