The social influences and networks around us often have profound influences on our behaviour. One reason why there is so much interest in community champions and peer mentors as a way of delivering public services is on the basis that we’ll pay more attention to information if it comes from someone within our network.
Some of the things you can do to make it social are:
- Emphasise that most people do the desired behaviour. Messaging that emphasises the ubiquity of a behaviour is widely used in advertising ("Join the millions already using our product"), and it can be effective in government communications too.
- Invite people to make a commitment. Commitments can lock us into a desired goal, as we have a strong impulse for consistency between what we’ve said we’ll do and what we actually do.
Make it Social: Case study on increasing tax repayments using social norms messaging
The Behavioural Insights Team worked with HMRC to test different letters encouraging taxpayers who file using self-assessment to pay their outstanding tax debts.
Just adding one sentence to the letters, informing recipients that 9 out of 10 people pay their tax on time, significantly increased the proportion of people paying off their debt.
