Section 3

Using behavioral science to strengthen testing

Identifying the goals of your campaign
Identify the audience(s) you need to engage in order for change to happen
Identify what the success outcomes of your campaign are (e.g., certain behavioral or perspective changes and actions in your audience)
Create some initial draft messages appropriate for your different audiences

Behavioral science framing can really help with that last step. Behavioral science studies how human beings make decisions and provides powerful insights that can improve how your audience responds to your messaging.

Here are some framings you could try when creating messaging:

Social Norms

As humans we tend to follow behaviors that are largely accepted or desirable in our society. The goal of using social norms framing is to show that a majority of people within a group are doing something. This makes the thing desirable to do as it is now “acceptable”

Social norms can backfire if it highlights the wrong behavior, so only use this when there is an overwhelming majority, e.g. 60% of women doing Action X (which suggests 40% don’t!). It is also useful to highlight personal stories and testimonials and bring them to life with color and photos.

Simplification

  • Remove jargon and reduce text;
  • Give very specific instructions, not requests e.g. 'Call 999' instead of 'Please Ring';
  • Break actions into steps using numbers, bullet points or checklists;
  • Use colours, images, bold or larger fonts to highlight key phrases.

Framing

There are two types of framing

  • Gain framing is where you emphasize what the recipient of the message could gain from taking the desired action. E.g If you report gender based violence today, you help by saving a life.
  • Loss framing is where you emphasize what the recipient of the message stands to lose by not taking action. E.g If you fail to report gender based violence today, you are responsible for the harm caused to the victim. It is important to test whether gain and loss framing to see which gives you better results.