SL Physical Environment (Facilitate) Flashcards
What is a Physical environment?
The physical environment refers to the external, tangible surroundings in which individuals live, work or interact.
This includes buildings, rooms, furniture, signage, lighting, and any other physical features that shape the setting.
In the context of a physical environment nudge, it means modifying these elements to encourage specific behaviors.
For instance, changing how items are displayed in a store or adjusting the layout of a public space are ways to use the physical environment to influence decisions and actions.
What bias heuristic does it address/make use of to change behavior, here think the refine matrix?
We are under facilitate, which is most likely to be affected by.
- Limited Attention:
Physical environment nudges often address limited attention by making the desired behavior more noticeable or accessible. By capturing attention, the environment guides people to make better choices without requiring active decision-making. - Bounded Self-Control:
Physical environment nudges also target bounded self-control by reducing the temptation to make poor choices or making desirable choices easier.
For instance, placing recycling bins in highly visible and convenient locations encourages people to dispose of waste properly.
What are the fundamental mechanisms of physical environment nudges?
- Visibility: Making certain options more visible in an environment encourages people to notice and choose them.
- Ease and Convenience (or “Friction Reduction”): Simplifying the path to a desired action by reducing the “effort” or barriers involved encourages people to choose it. This principle leverages our tendency to prefer the path of least resistance.
- Defaults and Pathways: Designing spaces with default routes or configurations encourages people to follow them naturally. This principle uses people’s inclination to go with the flow or accept the path laid out in front of them, shaping behavior without limiting choices.
A building layout might make staircases more accessible and elevators slightly less so, promoting physical activity.
Physical Environment Learnings from Kallbekken and Sælen (2013)
a) Outline the research question and the design of the paper.
b) Describe the results
Question a)
Examine how nudges in the physical environment can reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions in the context of hotel buffets.
Design:
Intervention 1: Reducing plate size from 24 cm to 21 cm.
Intervention 2: Social cues through display of signs.
○ Intention: To make it socially acceptable to visit the buffet many times.
○ Therefore, encouraging guest to take less food at a time.
Question b)
Intervention 1:
○ Results: Reducing plate size reduces food waste by 19,5 percent.
○ Find that 1 cm reduction in plate size equals a 2,5 kg food waste reduction.
Intervention 2:
○ Results: Social cues reduce waste by 20,5 percent.
● Key takeaways:
○ Food waste can be reduced by reducing food intake, this contributes to less emissions.
○ Profitable for businesses as well through reduction of food expenditure.
○ No change in customer satisfaction making it likely that the profit will increase.
Example of Physical Environment Learnings from The Most Creative Nudges
a) Outline the four different examples, how they use nudges and what the results are?
Question a)
Example 1: Turning benches 90 degrees around in train stations in West Japan
- Problem: 221 incidents of drunk people falling onto train tracks and getting hit by trains.
- Analyzed security footage before making conclusions.
- 90 percent showed that people were ‘sleepwalking’.
- Solution: Turning the benches to 90 degrees.
Example 2: Creating an illusion of faster speed
Problem: People driving to fast in Chicago.
- Fines and speed limits didn’t work and are not enough to prevent accidents.
- Rationality is bounded, in other words, we are not as rational as we would like to think.
Solution: Painting a series of white lines that gradually edged closer and closer together - giving an illusion of speeding up.
- Result: 36 percent decrease in crashes in the six months after the lines were painted, compared to the same 6-month period the year before. What about the long term effects, would people just notice this and then start to drive faster again? The example does not look into that.
Example 3: Evolutionary instincts and emotions to reduce street violence.
Problem: The riots in 2011 in the streets of Greenwich, London, were damaging their own community. Destroying shops, burning down pubs, and making the streets a mess.
Potential solution: Police officers on the streets, however, are very costly.
Solution: Painting shop front shutters with baby faces which plays on human instincts and emotions.
- Result: 20 percent reduction in crime. Controlled for other things????
Example 4: Moving arrival gates further away from passengers location.
Problem: Passengers complained about long wait times at baggage claim.
Potential solution: Increasing the number of baggage handlers didn’t change the complaints.
- The waiting time was decreased by 8 minutes.
- Analysis showed that the passengers took about a minute to get from their gates to baggage claim,
however, they found themselves waiting for seven more minutes.
- The duration of time greatly depends on mental activity which points out to the fact that whenever
occupied, time seems to run faster.
Solution: Moving the arrival gates further from the main terminal and sent bags to the farthest carousel, making the passengers walk for six-times longer, but wait much less time.
- Results: Complaints fell to almost zero.
Bucher, T., Collins, C., Rollo, M., McCaffrey, T., De Vlieger, N., Van der Bend, D., . . . Perez-
Cueto, F. (2016). Nudging consumers towards healthier choices: A systematic review of
positional influences on food choice.
a) Outline the research question and the design of the paper.
b) Describe the results
c) What are the limitations?
Question a)
This study examined the effect of food positioning (order and distance) on consumer choice within microenvironments, focusing on how these interventions might help address obesogenic environments and improve dietary choices.
Definition of microenvironments: immediate surroundings of individuals such as within the home, cafeteria or workplace.
Definition of obesogenic environments: an environment that promotes weight gain and is not conducive to weight loss” within the home or workplace.
The study systematically reviews existing literature to understand whether strategic food placement (choice architecture or nudging techniques) can influence healthier eating behaviors without restricting consumer choice or altering economic incentives.
Design:
The study follows a systematic review methodology, analyzing empirical studies that examine the effects of food position (proximity or order) on consumer choices in various settings.
- Studies manipulating food order or distance in a real-world or experimental setting.
- Studies measuring actual selection, sales, or consumption.
- Studies using randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experiments, or observational methods.
Question b)
Out of 18 studies, 16 reported positive effects on food choices, with participants generally nudged toward healthier options.
Impact by positioning type
Distance based changes
● Increased effort to reach less healthy options often led to healthier choices.
○ Increasing the distance to access high-calorie snacks in a workplace cafeteria led to a 30% decrease in the selection of those snacks.
○ Children were less likely to select unhealthy snacks when placed farther away, displaying an increase of 20% on healthy choices.
○ 25% reduction in sugary drink purchases when the drinks were placed farther from the primary checkout area.
Order based changes
● Increased salience of healthy options led to greater selection due to enhanced visibility and accessibility.
○ Lower-calories dessert orders selection options increased by 25% compared to when they were positioned at the end of the line.
○ Healthier snacks placed at eye level were selected 20% more often than those positioned on lower shelves.
○ When fruits were placed prominently at the checkout area, fruit selection among students increased by 15% compared to when they were positioned farther from the register
Question c)
Limitations and Practical Considerations
● Limited evidence on long-term impacts and potential for compensatory behavior.
○ Cafeteria may see an initial increase in healthy snack choices when these are positioned prominently,
but it’s unclear if this trend continues over months or if people switch back to their regular habit.
● Unclear influence on different demographics (weight status and socioeconomic conditions).
○ Low-income individuals might prioritize cost over visibility, regardless of product placement.
● Stronger influence on routine, unconscious choices (impulsive system) rather than active, conscious decision-making.
○ Nudges are particularly effective for in-the-moment decisions (like snack choices) as opposed to planned meals.
● Positional nudges may be more effective than informational campaigns in shaping immediate behavior.
○ Nudges vs campaigns. Studies often show better immediate results from positional nudges due to
their non-cognitive nature.
Physical environment doesn’t work when?
Examples when it doesn’t work:
- Self-service cafeterias, Paper 2
- Supermarket setting (Manipulation of shelf and snacks positioning), Paper 2
Why doesn’t it work on those cases?
- In supermarket settings. This was attributed to consumers usual shopping patterns, food positioning did not alter that behavior.
- In cafeteria settings. Strong preferences and routine diners, not sufficient enough to exchange for healthier choices.
What effect sizes should we expect?
- The effect sizes can vary but they are usually small to moderate.
- In studies where the nudge did work, healthier choices increased by an average of 10-15%.
- In studies where the nudge did not work, the effect size was negligible.
Tips for implementation of physical environment
Main things to remember if you want to design a behavior change intervention using physical environment
1. Make desired options effortless
People are more likely to follow through on a behaviour if it requires minimal effort.
2. Leverage Salience and Visibility
Make desired options highly visible to increase likelihood of being chosen.
3. Consider Social and Situational Contexts
People often stick to shopping patterns and preferences, so retailers could offer customer loyalty cards to collect additional data in actual purchases.
4. Keep interventions consistent and simple
Consistently applied changes are easier to notice and follow such as placement of healthy foods in accessible spaces.
5. Minimize perceived restriction
People are more prompt to changes that feel like options rather than restrictions. Promoting the consumption of healthier food is easier than the opposite. ~ Bucher et al.’s review
How difficult is to implement this type of nudge compared to other nudges?
They require more effort to implement:
- Infrastructure Changes: Physical nudges often involve costly and time-intensive modifications, like rearranging spaces.
- Higher Initial Investment, costly. Also if it end up giving a backlash.
- Cultural Sensitivity: Physical nudges need to align with how people naturally use a space; for example, bike racks only work if cycling is accessible and accepted.
- Scalability and Maintenance: These nudges are harder to replicate across locations and require ongoing maintenance to remain effective.
