I like to think that I didn’t choose to work in behavior design – behavior design chose me. And it all started when I showed up to a rural community in Panama as their Peace Corps Volunteer. I was trained to implement water/sanitation systems in communities that needed it the most.
Unfortunately, the community of Alto Playon had no running water, sanitation, or electricity when I arrived. It was a true challenge and a sad circumstance, but I was optimistic. From an engineering perspective, composting latrines are the appropriate solution for the community BUT the people were very skeptical of turning their poop into compost (who wouldn’t be?).
I had some limited interest from a few families to build composting latrines with me but I knew that for a large-scale change, it would take more. That’s when I realized that this is a social engineering problem and that I needed to find ways for folks to intrinsically take action.
These behavioral levers empowered me to design a sanitation project that has led to 65% of the community with access to a latrine:
- High Barrier to Entry
- Social Norming
- Gamification
High Barrier to Entry
This flies in the face of how behavior science is used in most technology apps, where you want to reduce barriers to sign up, engagement, purchasing, etc! Rather than making it really easy for families to have a latrine by gifting the families the materials or having it built for them, I required them to be invested.
This is a community on an indigenous reserve and people live far below Panama’s poverty line. So when they commit their money, time and effort towards something, they are going to be invested. My request was that each family would have to invest 15%-25% of the required funds and 100% of labor.
Since I had only a handful of families who were interested in building a latrine, I knew that I had to make those families successful in building and using the latrine; they had to become models for the rest of the community.
It absolutely worked. The High Investment had a great payoff – the families used and maintained their latrines very well. Instead of walking to the river or to the jungle to carry out their most basic needs, now they could go right next to their home.
And the best part…the rest of the community noticed the convenience and the status. Which leads me to my next point.
Social Norming
“Keeping up with the Jones” is a universal trait.
When you see your neighbor wake up every morning and use their toilets, instead of walking into the river or the jungle – that changes your behavior. You want the same for yourself and your family. Especially when your neighbor is telling you how much their latrine has benefitted their families.
Once you use a clean and private toilet, you don’t go back. Women and children are the primary beneficiaries and they no longer need to expend time and effort to meet the most basic human need.
All of a sudden – the project went from 5 to 35 families wanting latrines! The fairest way to decide who would get their latrine next, I decided to gamify the project.
Gamification
Gamification can go many ways in behavior design. In some cases gamification techniques – points, streaks, rewards, etc – are used to create a behavior that is not intrinsic to the person. In our case, however, gamification was used to amplify an intrinsic desire.
Now, I finally had a good problem. The demand for participating in the latrine project shot through the roof! To make it fair, I introduced a “points system”. Families who were on the list could help other families build their latrines, and for every hour of work, they earned a point. The more points you have, the higher you are in the list, and the sooner you get your latrine.
What was absolutely amazing is that the women in the community learned masonry to earn points. They saw how beneficial a latrine would be for their families and they were motivated to have their own.
The additional benefit is that the project now moves at a much faster pace, instead of 5 people building a latrine, we would have 10 or 11 people working at the same time.
Conclusion
These three behavioral levers allowed us to make a long term, sustainable impact in the community of Alto Playon and beyond. At times it felt really strange to me that I would have to convince people to build their own toilet – but I had to disrupt that stream of thoughts immediately. What seemed obvious and beneficial to ME wasn’t to people in the community. Using a few behavioral levers and building strong relationships is leading us towards 100% sanitation in the community.Even though my Peace Corps service is long over, I’m still working to make an impact there with Solea Water, a local non-profit. I’m raising $10,000 to have enough funds to get to 100% sanitation. If you’re interested in joining us in our journey I’d greatly appreciate a donation and/or sharing our campaign.