FIGURE 8: Here is a representation of what the cafeteria looked like before the environment design changes were made (left) and after (right). The shaded boxes indicate
areas where bottled water was available in each instance. Because the amount of water in the environment was increased, behavior shifted naturally and without additional
motivation.
People often choose products not because of
what they are, but because
of
where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on
the counter, I’ll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn’t been
thinking about them beforehand and didn’t necessarily feel hungry. If the
communal table at the office is always filled with doughnuts and bagels, it’s
going to be hard not to grab one every now and then. Your habits change
depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you.
Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Despite
our
unique personalities, certain behaviors tend to arise again and again
under certain environmental conditions. In church,
people tend to talk in
whispers. On a dark street, people act wary and guarded. In this way, the
most common form of change is not internal, but external: we are changed
by the world around us. Every habit is context dependent.
In 1936, psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that makes a
powerful statement: Behavior is a function of the Person in their
Environment, or B =
f (P,E).
It didn’t take long for Lewin’s Equation to be tested in business. In 1952,
the economist Hawkins Stern described a phenomenon he called
Suggestion
Impulse Buying, which “is triggered when a shopper sees a product for the
first time and visualizes a need for it.” In other words,
customers will
occasionally buy products not because they
want them but because of how
they are
presented to them.
For example, items at eye level tend to be purchased more than those
down near the floor.
For this reason, you’ll
find expensive brand names
featured in easy-to-reach locations on store shelves because they drive the
most profit, while cheaper alternatives are tucked away in harder-to-reach
spots. The same goes for end caps, which are the units at the end of aisles.
End caps are moneymaking machines for retailers because they are obvious
locations that encounter a lot of foot traffic. For example, 45 percent of
Coca-Cola sales come specifically from end-of-the-aisle racks.
The more obviously available a product or service is, the more likely you
are to try it. People drink Bud Light because
it is in every bar and visit
Starbucks because it is on every corner. We like to think that we are in
control. If we choose water over soda, we assume it is because we wanted
to do so. The truth, however, is that many of the actions we take each day
are shaped not by purposeful drive and choice but by the most obvious
option.
Every living being has its own methods for
sensing and understanding
the world. Eagles have remarkable long-distance vision. Snakes can smell
by “tasting the air” with their highly sensitive tongues. Sharks can detect
small amounts of electricity and vibrations in the water caused by nearby
fish. Even bacteria have chemoreceptors—tiny sensory cells that allow
them to detect toxic chemicals in their environment.
In humans, perception is directed by the sensory nervous system. We
perceive the world through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. But we also
have other ways of sensing stimuli. Some are conscious, but many are
nonconscious. For instance, you can “notice” when the temperature drops
before a storm, or when the pain in your gut rises during a stomachache, or
when you fall off balance while walking on rocky ground. Receptors in
your body pick up on a wide range of internal stimuli, such as the amount
of salt in your blood or the need to drink when thirsty.
The most powerful of all human sensory abilities, however, is vision. The
human body has about eleven million sensory receptors. Approximately ten
million of those are dedicated to sight. Some experts estimate that half of
the brain’s resources are used on vision. Given that we are more dependent
on vision than on any other sense, it should come as no surprise that visual
cues are the greatest catalyst of our behavior. For this reason, a small
change in what you
see can lead to a big shift in what you
do. As a result,
you can imagine how important it is to live and work in environments that
are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones.
Thankfully, there is good news in this respect. You don’t have to be the
victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.
