Forces of (Human) Nature: INERTIA.
The Forces of (Human) Nature.
This blog series explores the Force Field Analysis tool (see below) to identify the forces that drive and block sustainable behaviors. In the first post, we discussed external deterrents, otherwise known as barriers. Today, we’ll take a peek inside the minds of our audience to explore the internal deterrents that prevent action.
*This is a simplified version of the Force Field Analysis. The complete version includes specific deterrents and motivators tailored for conservation and sustainability programs. Join the course this October to receive the full diagram and learn all 22 forces.
Internal deterrents = inertia instigators.
Internal deterrents capture the personal, psychological, and emotional factors preventing audiences from taking action or adopting a behavior.
These internal factors are likely to exist even if no external deterrents are “in the way.”
Let me say that again.
Even after you have successfully removed, lowered, and overcome the barriers we discussed in the previous post, internal deterrent forces will still be there.
Even if no obvious external forces are working against your audience and the path to action is SMOOTH SAILING, internal deterrent forces will still be there.
Annoying, I know.
The harsh reality about our work is that we are always asking people to do something new or different from what they are doing right now.
That alone instigates inertia.
Investigating inertia.
The internal deterrents for your program will vary quite a bit depending on who you’re trying to engage and what you’re asking them to do.
Conducting qualitative research (interviews, focus groups, etc.) can be helpful to gather insights about your audience’s doubts, concerns, hesitations, questions, ambivalences, fears, trade-offs, and more.
In addition to asking our audience directly, we can also examine which psychological biases may be present for our audience or could be triggered. Qualitative research can be used to validate whether those biases exist for your audience and how strong an internal force they represent.
What we’re searching for is any reason why our behavior change ask might prompt the audience to say:
Nah, I’ll pass.
No thanks.
That’s not for me.
I’ll think about it.
Meh.
I don’t have time for all that.
Why would I do that?!?!
I can’t do that.
Are you serious right now?!?!?
Or worse, as in the case with the reactance effect.
You can start with these four biases I’ve written about in the On The Bias series.
Bringing the resistance to resistance.
We must assume that a certain degree of internal deterrents is present within our audience, which highlights the need for compelling motivators to spark change and overcome inertia.
To complicate matters, our audience will likely experience a combination of internal deterrents at any given step in the journey, and the lines between where one deterrent ends and the others begin may be fuzzy.
Therefore, solutions to internal deterrents do not operate on a one-to-one basis, as they do for barriers. While barriers can be dealbreakers for our projects, they also feel more obvious and straightforward to solve, especially compared to helping audiences overcome their psychological and emotional blocks.
While we may not be able to remove or avoid internal deterrents, we can:
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Reduce fears and concerns about doing something new.
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Increase the audience’s confidence to adopt a new skill or habit.
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Prevent uncertainty about what is expected of them and what they will experience.
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Help the audience feel less alone in making a change.
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Build up motivation, determination, and empowerment that overcomes inertia.
These strategies are a combination of lowering deterrents and increasing motivators (external and internal), which helps audiences resist their resistance to change.
Spoiler alert: More inertia-busting combos will emerge as we explore the other side of the force field analysis.
Bringing it back to the Behavior Change Trio.
Some internal deterrents can cut across more than one behavior type.
Uncertainty can impact audiences when they consider taking an action or adopting a new routine.
Feeling overwhelmed or exhausted by the need to repeat behaviors consistently is present for routines and habits.
However, some internal deterrents can be very specific to the step you’re asking them to take and whether it is an action, routine, or behavior.
For example, the daunting feelings of fear and doubt about learning a new skill for a routine won’t surface when asking the audience to take a one-time action like signing a petition. Those feelings will also have dissipated by the time the routine evolves into a habit.
Therefore, it’s an internal deterrent that is pretty unique to new routines in the behavior journey.
Creating a draft journey with the audience’s behavior change steps can help you write research questions to uncover internal deterrents that occur throughout the journey and those that may surface at key moments. Such insights help us develop strategies to prevent or reduce the deterrents and support the audience in overcoming them.
We have officially covered the deterrent side of the force field. Next, we’ll shift our attention to sparking action and driving change.
→ Coming up next is external motivators, a.k.a. sparks.
P.S. To explore more cognitive biases, check out the Decision Lab’s page here.
Do you want to create behavior journeys and identify motivators and deterrents for your audience? Then join the Making Moves course! We get into all the details during the 8-week course, so you walk away with a clear, structured plan for motivating audiences to protect the planet.