If you want to encourage a behaviour, make it Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely (EAST). These four simple principles for applying behavioural insights are based on the Behavioural Insights Team’s own work and the wider academic literature.

There is a large body of evidence on what influences behaviour, and the BIT has found that policymakers and practitioners find it useful to have a simple, memorable framework to think about effective behavioural approaches.

With this in mind, the principles from EAST are:

1.     Make it Easy

• Harness the power of defaults. We have a strong tendency to go with the default or pre-set option, since it is easy to do so. Making an option the default makes it more likely to be adopted.
• Reduce the ‘hassle factor’ of taking up a service. The effort required to perform an action often puts people off. Reducing the effort required can increase uptake or response rates.
• Simplify messages. Making the message clear often results in a significant increase in response rates to communications. In particular, it’s useful to identify how a complex goal can be broken down into simpler, easier actions.

2.     Make it Attractive

• Attract attention. We are more likely to do something that our attention is drawn towards. Ways of doing this include the use of images, colour, or personalisation.
• Design rewards and sanctions for maximum effect. Financial incentives are often highly effective, but alternative incentive designs – such as lotteries – also work well and often cost less.

3.      Make it Social

• Show that most people perform the desired behaviour. Describing what most people do in a particular situation encourages others to do the same. Similarly, policymakers should be wary of inadvertently reinforcing a problematic behaviour by emphasising its high prevalence.
• Use the power of networks. We are embedded in a network of social relationships, and those we come into contact with shape our actions. Governments can foster networks to enable collective action, provide mutual support, and encourage behaviours to spread peer to peer.
• Encourage people to make a commitment to others. We often use commitment devices to voluntarily ‘lock ourselves’ into doing something in advance. The social nature of these commitments is often crucial.