Behaviour Change

PROPAGANDA FOR CHANGE is a project created by the students of Behaviour Change (ps359) and Professor Thomas Hills @thomhills at the Psychology Department of the University of Warwick. This work was supported by funding from Warwick's Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Swipe twice

Warwick Sport: Water Consumption


The Problem

The motion sensor taps in the University of Warwick Sport and Wellness Hub changing rooms run for 
a length of 30 seconds, which ultimately results in wasted water when people leave the taps running 
unattended. Our pre-intervention observations revealed that 90% of people left the water flowing after 
they have finished using the taps. We believe that this wastage is unnecessary and could easily be 
reduced by informing people about the possibility to turn the taps off. 

Why the problem is important

The environmental cost of water wastage

We may not think it but water is a finite resource. Despite the vast seas and oceans, less than 1% of 
that water is fresh and usable for us humans ("Groundwater | Information on Earth's water", 2020). 

The effects of climate change are that more and more ground/surface water is evaporated in the 
atmosphere so less is available for use. Therefore, water scarcity is becoming more and more of an 
important issue as climate change worsens. According to Schewe et al., (2014) Water scarcity 
seriously impacts food and economic security. 

Furthermore, the true scarcity of water is often unknown since global hydrological models often have 
large uncertainties that make prediction highly unreliable (Schewe et al., 2014). Therefore, adopting 
the ‘precautionary principle’ of sustainable development is likely the best course of action 
(Sunstein, 2003). 

We may not think that water is a scarce resource in the UK, but actually, the UK receives less rainfall 
than most assume.  

SES water suggests that “London receives less rainfall than cities such as Rome, Miami, Sydney and 
Barcelona.  If you divide the rainfall per person, we have less than Morocco and Turkey. 
South-east England receives 50% less rainfall than the rest of the UK” 
("Saving water | SES Water", 2020)


Public Health

National Health Service (2019) recommends that people wash their hands for 20 seconds. This length 
of time is relatively consistent with the length of time of water flow from the taps in the changing rooms.
However, people do not necessarily wash their hands for this long and may have alternative uses for 
the water from the taps. Recently, information about coronavirus was installed closeby to the taps. 
Therefore, this was an optimum time to implement our behaviour change project because of the 
heightened attention to hand-washing.





The Target Audience
We chose to target Warwick Sports members, as this population shares gym equipment and are in 
close proximity to others whilst exercising. In particular, we chose the changing rooms on the top floor 
to implement our intervention because the people who use these changing rooms were likely to return 
multiple times.


 

To analyse our target audience’s current (mis)behaviour we decided to use Susan Mitchie’s COM-B 
model of behavioural analysis.  

C- Capability: This is broken down primarily into physical and psychological. Physically, the act of 
swiping the sensor again is possible for most people. Even those with partial disabilities would likely 
be able to swipe the sensor again using some part of their body. 

However, psychologically there is a deficit in knowledge about how the taps work. This issue arises 
due to what cognitive scientist Don Norman calls a lack of ‘consistency’ in the design of the taps.
Automatic taps have become commonplace for us in modern society and we have an expectation 
about how they work. Typically a tap runs for only a few seconds (8 in the automatic taps in the library).
The typical experience of shorter tap running times is not consistent with the longer running time at 
Warwick Sport. Further inconsistency occurs because the Warwick sport automatic taps have a 
switch-off function that most automatic taps do not. This disparity in expectation of usage vs reality 
violates one of Don Norman's 6 design principles so leads to misguided behaviour (Norman, 2013). 

O-Opportunity: This is broken down into social and physical opportunity. Again physically there 
should be no barriers to performing this simple behaviour. 

Furthermore, socially there is no cultural non-acceptance of those who switch off taps to save water.

M- Motivation: This is broken down into reflective (conscious) and automatic (innate drivers). 
Reflectively, there is a very little emotional barrier to turning off a tap. However, stress may play a 
possible role. For some, the locker rooms can be a stressful place due to social pressure. Additionally, 
people are often keen to get into the gym to workout and therefore rush out of the changing room in 
order to do so. Therefore, these factors may be in slight conflict with taking the extra bit of mental and
physical effort to swipe the sensor again. 

Conversely, people are primed due to the coronavirus to pay more attention to hand washing, therefore 
they could be more likely to be engaging their system 2 thinking during the time they are washing their 
hands. Hopefully, as a result, people were taking more time at the sinks and are therefore more
susceptible to a prompt-based intervention to change their established behaviour.

The automatic driver in conflict is, of course, the learned behaviour from before. As mentioned in 
Capability, the way you expect these taps to work is not actually how they work. Therefore, peoples 
established habit patterns now have to be effortfully overridden. 

Our intervention was designed to work with this analysis of the target audience.

The Intervention

Observations
Prior to watching other gym members turn off the motion sensor taps in the Warwick Sport changing 
rooms, we were unaware that this was possible and did not execute this behaviour ourselves. We 
have since adapted our own behaviour and turned the taps off, in particular after washing our faces 
after a workout which does not require much water. Generally, most taps around the 
University of Warwick campus operate by dispensing a fixed quantity of water as opposed to the 
individual being able to control the quantity dispensed. However, we noticed that in Warwick Sport 
changing rooms, the taps seemed to run for particularly longer than most other taps on campus. 
We used a stopwatch to measure the length of time the taps dispense water for, which returned a 
result of 30 seconds. In contrast, the taps on the ground floor of the library run for 8 seconds. 

To determine whether it was worthwhile to try to change this particular behaviour, we asked 16 people 
whether they were aware of swiping their hand across the motion sensor to turn the taps off. 
13 people said they did not know this was possible. The 3 people who were aware of this revealed 
that they had watched other people execute this behaviour and adapted their own behaviour 
accordingly. As a result, we thought that undertaking this particular behaviour was essential to 
increase awareness of the desired behaviour and reduce water wastage.

On the 12th of February 2020, at 5:30 pm we conducted observations of people using the sinks in the 
male and female changing rooms on the top floor of Warwick Sport as we identified this location as 
important to target as it had a large footfall because these changing rooms are adjacent to the gym
and studios. Our initial observation lasted 20 minutes. A total of 36 out of 40 people left the taps 
running after they had finished using them. The remaining 4 people either used the taps for the full 30 
seconds or turned them off. The initial observation was problematic because this suggested that 
people were either not washing their hands for a sufficient length of time, or did not care about wasting 
water. Our observation was consistent with people’s lack of knowledge of the particular behaviour. 



Email
Poster Image preview
We made a poster and placed 4 in male changing rooms and 4 in the female changing rooms next to 
the sinks upstairs. We did this in order to attract the attention of Warwick Sport gym users and inform 
them that the motion sensor taps can be turned off when they are no longer in use, using the same 
method as turning them on. 






Second Observations
After installing the posters, we returned one week later and conducted the second observation at the 
same time as previously. We saw people swipe their hands over the motion sensor to turn the taps 
off after using them. During the 20 minutes, we observed 17 out of 23 people exhibit the desired 
behaviour. Afterwards, we stood outside the changing rooms and approached people and asked them 
whether they had seen our posters and for their feedback. One woman said that she thought it was a 
great idea and since she saw our posters she had been implementing the desired behaviour 
whenever she used the taps.

The Pledge
We informed people about our project and asked people whether they would be interested in signing 
the pledge to turn the taps off when they have finished using them during their future visits to 
Warwick Sport. In total 25 people signed the pledge. It was also very interesting to hear about people’s 
feedback.


Psychological and Persuasion Techniques


Our intervention was designed using the EAST framework of behaviour change as created by 
David Halpern and the Behavioural Insights Team (The Behavioural Insights Team, 2015). 

The mnemonic stands for Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. The themes in EAST provided a useful 
framework for us to design our intervention around. We have broken down our list of psychological 
and persuasion techniques below according to which part of the EAST framework we were targeting. 

EAST

E-Easy

Defaults

The first and perhaps what could have been the most powerful of our interventions was an attempt to 
get WarwickSport to change the default run time on the taps. 

Default changes are one of the most powerful of all ‘Easy’ based interventions because they harness 
the power of ‘decision inertia.’ Decision inertia is when there is ultimately a nondecision by the 
individual. To explain simply, if the target does nothing, what is the outcome? 

This power of this effect was perhaps most famously brought to light in Johnson and Goldstein (2003) 
 in their paper on organ donation rates in different European countries. 
The ‘opt-in’ vs ‘opt-out’ checkbox on the organ donation form was shown to have differences in organ 
donation rates as high as 90+% of the population. 

In the case of water usage, the run time of the taps can also be thought of as a kind of default. 
Since the second swiping of the sensor requires an extra action, the effect of the target 
person ‘doing nothing’ is the water running for the full run time. 

Since our pre-intervention observations revealed that most people seemed to only use the taps for 
about 10 seconds (some less than 2 seconds!), we suggested a reduction in the run time from the 
extraordinarily long 30 seconds to 15. In theory, this would automatically dramatically reduce 
water wastage by a lot without having to induce any active behaviour change.



A-Attractive

Image previewSalience - poster

The concept of salience is somewhat poorly defined in the psychological literature but generally, it is 
accepted that salient information is that which is prominent, striking and novel (Senter et al., 2010). 

Designing for salience was at the core of our poster design. The bright yellow colour, bold text and 
simple gesture-based instructions all make for a clear and obvious message about how the taps 
work.

It should be noted that in the design process of the poster, the temptation to crowd the intervention 
with a whole myriad of psychological techniques arose. We considered including some kind of 
social-comparison based information, as well as providing some information about why water 
wastage is an important issue, all on the poster itself.  

However, since a non-salient message is highly unlikely to garner sufficient attention to actually 
elicit behaviour change, the decision to not include them was deliberate. Something as trivial as the 
decision to turn the already automatic tap off is by nature of low personal relevance. Therefore, we 
kept our message saliently simple and appealing to the peripheral (system 1)  methods of persuasion 
as is in line with the central vs peripheral model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 2012).


Salience - email
To make our proposal even more salient as an intervention, we attached a digitally created 
visualisation of what the final intervention would look like in the bathrooms in the email. We hoped 
this would subdue any apprehension over possible aesthetic problems.


S-Social 

The power of because

A Cialdini’s classic from Influence, but simply justifying an intention using the word because can elicit 
a ‘click, whirr’ automatic compliance response to the request (Cialdini citation). The idea stems from 
Langers classic Xerox study about making copies (Langer et al., 1978). 


Messenger effects

In our world of too many things trying to overwhelm us with information and not enough attention to 
go around to all of them, how do we decide what to pay our attention to?

One well-documented heuristic we have is that of messenger effects. Specifically, we tried to 
exploit one of Cialdini’s principles, that of authority. In Influence Cialdini writes, 
‘Titles are simultaneously the most difficult and the easiest symbols of authority to acquire’ 
(Cialdini, 1993, p222).

In our email, we tried to raise the authority of our proposal by pointing to Peter’s title within the 
Warwick Behavioural Insights team in order to try and trigger this heuristic compliance response. 

Commitment Contract

Another from Cialdini, Commitment and consistency. This method of behaviour change is 
manifested by manipulating someone’s self-image by asking them to commit to cause in a seemingly 
trivial way. However, this initial commitment manipulates their self-image to be in line with your cause. 
Therefore, future requests are far more likely to be complied with, even ones that require far more 
effort from the target (Cialdini, 1993).


In our attempt to save water in the sports and wellness hub, we wanted to harness this same 
effect through a simple pledge form. 

We obtained 25 signatures from individuals leaving the locker rooms in the sports hub asking 
them to pledge to turn the taps off in the sports hub next time they come. 

We hope the act of signing the pledge will promote water-saving behaviour in the future. 


T-Timely

Prompt

Finally, we recognised that in order to successfully induce behaviour change, an intervention should 
be timely. ‘Awareness’ campaigns which rely on priming to cause behaviour change often only have 
weak effects on actual real-life behaviour (Rogers et al., 2015). 

Therefore, since our intervention is a prompt that the target individual sees right as they use the taps, 
this is a well-timed intervention. Timing an intervention right as the behaviour is being performed 
should have led to greater behaviour change than a poster placed elsewhere on campus.




The future of the project 

The ultimate goal would be to establish a social norm, with close to 100% of Warwick Sport users
 carrying out the desired behaviour. If possible, we would like to see the unnecessary water wastage 
decrease in the future. Primarily this could be achieved by endeavouring to get Warwick Sport to
 change the default water flow time from 30 seconds to 20 seconds as this is the recommended 
length of time to wash your hands for. If Warwick Sport agrees to this, then obtaining a signature 
would be beneficial to ensure that they are committed to carrying it out. Alternatively, we would like to 
monitor the water consumption before and after the intervention over a longer timescale, such as after
 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year. To ensure Warwick Sport users do not become habituated 
to the poster, we could adapt the posters after a certain length of time and implement data from the 
pilot study to improve behaviour compliance. For example, the poster could use a provincial norm 
such as that used by Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius (2008) and could read, 
The majority of people who use this bathroom swipe again to turn the taps off when they have 
finished using them”. Alternatively, the poster could use statistics on the percentage of people that 
turn the motion sensor taps off and provide regular weekly feedback using traffic lights colours. 

Overall, we enjoyed completing this project and speaking to people about reducing water usage. 
We think that it was a success because of the positive feedback and observing people change 
their behaviour first hand. We hope that it has the ability to reach lots more people in the future and 
we would endeavour to implement the posters in all of the changing rooms that have motion sensor 
taps in the Sport and Wellness Hub.


References

Cialdini, R. B., & Cialdini, R. B. (1993). Influence: The psychology of persuasion.

Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). 
A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. 
 Journal of Consumer Research, 35,(1), 4-23. 

Groundwater | Information on Earth's water. (2020). Retrieved 12 March 2020, 
from https://www.ngwa.org/what-is-groundwater/About-groundwater/information-on-earths-water

Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives?.

Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: 
The role of" placebic" information in interpersonal interaction.  
Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(6), 635.

Michie, S., Van Stralen, M. M., & West, R. (2011). 
The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour 
change interventions. Implementation science, 6(1), 42.

National Health Service. (2019). Healthy Body: How to wash your hands. 
Retrieved from https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/best-way-to-wash-your-hands/

Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: Revised and expanded edition. Basic books.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2012). Communication and persuasion: 
Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. Springer Science & Business Media.

Rogers, T., Milkman, K. L., John, L. K., & Norton, M. I. (2015). Beyond good intentions: 
Prompting people to make plans improves follow-through on important tasks.  
Behavioral Science & Policy, 1(2), 33-41.

Saving water | SES Water. (2020). Retrieved 12 March 2020, 
from https://seswater.co.uk/your-water/saving-water

Schewe, J., Heinke, J., Gerten, D., Haddeland, I., Arnell, N. W., Clark, D. B., ... & Gosling, S. N. (2014).
Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(9), 3245-3250.

Senter, S., Weatherman, D., Krapohl, D., & Horvath, F. (2010). Psychological set or differential 
salience: A proposal for reconciling theory and terminology in polygraph testing. Polygraph, 39(2), 
109-117.

Sunstein, C. R. (2003). Beyond the precautionary principle. University of Pennsylvania Law Review,  
151(3), 1003-1058.

The Behavioural Insights Team. (2015). Four Simple Ways to apply Behavioural Insights
London: Behavioural Insights Ltd.


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