Prof.Dr.

Aung Tun Thet

5/15/2020
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

• Tasked with changing behaviour:

• Practice social distancing
• Staying at home
• Working from home (WFH)
• Wearing masks
• Washing hands
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GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

• Relying on standard approach to drive change

• Tell people what to do
• “Don’t go out”
• “Stay six feet apart”
• “Wash your hands”
• “Wear face masks”
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GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

• Many follow recommendations

• Making sure everyone sticks with them for long not
easy

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GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

• Still congregating in groups

• Flouting stay-at-home orders
• Protesters demand businesses reopen

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DIRECTIVES

• Not effective in driving sustained behaviour change

• We all like to feel we are in control of choices
• Why did I buy that product, use that service, or take
that action?
• Because I want to

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DIRECTIVES

• When others try to influence our decisions

• We push back
• Don’t want to feel someone controlling us

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INNATE ANTI-PERSUASION RADAR

• Raise defenses
• Avoid or ignore message
• Counter-argue
• Raise objections until persuasive power of message
crumbles
• Telling people what to do doesn’t work
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NOT TRYING TO PERSUADE THEM

• Getting them to persuade themselves

• More effective
• Three ways

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1. HIGHLIGHT A GAP

• Increase people’s sense of freedom and control by

pointing out disconnect between:
• Thoughts and actions
• What they recommend for others versus do themselves

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1. HIGHLIGHT A GAP

• Staying at home
• For young people who resist
• Ask what they would suggest elderly grandparent or
a younger brother or sister do
• Would they want interacting with infected people?
• If not, why do they think it’s safe for them to do so?
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1. HIGHLIGHT A GAP

• People strive for internal consistency

• Want attitudes and actions to line up
• Highlighting misalignment encourages them to resolve
disconnect

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1. HIGHLIGHT A GAP

• Health officials in Thailand used this approach in anti-

smoking campaign
• Not telling smokers habit was bad
• Had kids come up to smokers on the street and ask
them for a light
• Smokers told the kids no
• Even lectured about dangers of smoking
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1. HIGHLIGHT A GAP

• Before walking away

• Kids handed smokers a note:
• “You worry about me … But why not about yourself?”
• Toll-free number smokers could call to get help
• Calls jumped more than 60%

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2. POSE QUESTIONS

• Ask questions rather than make statements

• Public health messaging direct:
• “Junk food makes you fat.”
• “Drunk driving is murder.”
• Make people feel threatened

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2. POSE QUESTIONS

• Same content phrased in terms of question:

• “Do you think junk food is good for you?”
• If someone’s answer no
• In tough spot
• Encouraging them to articulate opinion
• Harder to keep justify bad behaviours
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2. POSE QUESTIONS

• Questions shift listener’s role

• Rather than counter-arguing or thinking about all the
reasons they disagree
• Sorting through their answer to your query and their
feelings or opinions on the matter

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2. POSE QUESTIONS

• Encourage people to commit to conclusion

• More than happy to follow their own
• Answer to question is their answer
• Reflecting own personal thoughts, beliefs, and
preferences
• Drive action
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2. POSE QUESTIONS

• In case of COVID 19
• “How bad would it be if your loved ones got sick?”
• More effective than directives in social distancing
and vigilant hygiene practices

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3. ASK FOR LESS

• Reduce size of ‘the ask’

• Health organizations want big change right away
• Stay at home for two more months
• Asks this big get rejected
• Different from what people doing currently
• Fall into “the region of rejection” and get ignored
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3. ASK FOR LESS

• Dial down initial request

• Ask for less initially
• Then ask for more
• Take a big ask and break it down into smaller, more
manageable chunks

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CHANGING BEHAVIOURS

• Encouraging people to socially distance

• Shop only once a week
• Thoroughly wash hands
• Wear face masks
• Change behaviour
• Default to Pushing
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CHANGING BEHAVIOURS

• Assume if we remind people again and again

• Give them more facts, figures, or reasons
• They’ll come around
• Doesn’t work over long term

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CHANGING BEHAVIOURS

• Understand key barriers preventing change

• ‘Reactance’
• Employ tactics to overcome them
• We can change anything!

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