Behavioural Insights Projects
Discover projects applying behavioural science to policy from around the world. Add your own projects, whether completed or still ongoing, to contribute knowledge on BI applications across different countries, policy areas, and topics of interest.

Number of BI projects:
0
Legend: Projects status
- Pre-registered project
- Completed project
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Normative messages have been shown to increase intention to do physical activity. Positive normative message say that most people like you are physically active. Negative normative message say that most people like you are NOT physically active. The study traces how “positive” and “negative” normative messages influence physical activity intention.
Challenge
At West Kentucky Community & Technical College (WKCTC), many students were failing or withdrawing from courses, but few used the free tutoring services available on campus. Additionally, faculty had the potential to play a large role in helping facilitate student engagement in tutoring services through referrals, but they weren’t involved enough to have an impact.
Design
To better connect students to campus tutoring services, a series of nine behaviorally designed emails were sent to…
The Environment Act 1986 established the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), which is the primary adviser of the New Zealand Government on environmental matters. The purpose statement for the MfE is “A flourishing environment for every generation – He taiao tōnui mō ngā reanga katoa [te reo version, the indigenous language of the Māori people].
MfE is actively engaged in reducing waste across the country, as illustrated by the recent Aotearoa New Zealand Waste Strategy. To lead by…
BI Project
Nudging to reduce littering in waste disposal areas – A field experiment in Austria’s community…
Soiled waste disposal areas in municipal public housing buildings are not only a major nuisance for residents, but also cause high cleaning costs. The aim of the present study was to develop behavioral measures to promote cleanliness and to test them in a field experiment with about 400 waste disposal areas. The present paper compares two System-1 (large posters displaying watching eyes and a natural landscape) and two System-2 (financial information, information on normative behavior and…
BI Project
Comparing the impact of positive, negative, and graded sustainability labels on purchase decisions
An online experiment with EU consumers was run to assess the relative effectiveness of three sustainability labelling approaches: (1) positive labels - only identifying products with the best sustainability performance, (2) negative labels - only identifying products with the worst sustainability performance, and (3) graded labels - conveying the relative sustainability of all products. Results suggest that graded labels are the most effective to steer consumer toward more sustainable purchase…
Surveys give people an opportunity to be heard and provide government with vital information about the impact of its services. BETA partnered with Department of Social Services (DSS) to encourage more people to complete the Data Exchange survey.
Data Exchange is new report platform developed by DSS to enable the collection of meaningful data about service delivery outcomes from organisations receiving community grants. As part of this platform, a client survey enables clients to self-report on…
Avoiding electrical waste and promoting the manufacture of and demand for sustainable electrical products are key goals for the Federal Government. To this end, transparency for consumers is to be improved. Whether a lifespan label for electrical products can help achieve this aim was tested in an empirical study. The findings show that a lifespan label would lead to 3 out of 100 consumers opting for a more expensive product with a longer lifespan. When the lifespan was combined with information…
The Health Quality & Safety Commission (‘the
Commission’) uses data from the National Adult
Inpatient Experience Survey to understand patient
experience and evaluate quality of patient care in
hospitals. Two questions (See Appendix 1A) pertaining to
patients’ understanding of medication side-effects and
condition management have consistently received low
scores on the survey every quarter. Ogilvy conducted
Phase 1 of ‘Raising the Bar’ research for the Commission,
investigating these…
BI Project
Nudge vs Superbugs: a behavioural economics trial to reduce the overprescribing of antibiotics
BETA and the Department of Health ran a trial to test the impact of personalised letters from Australia's Chief Medical Officer to high-prescribing GPs prompting them to consider reducing antibiotic prescribing where appropriate and safe.
Online experiment tested two novel public health messages on social distancing.
•Messages focused on potential to infect vulnerable people or many people.
•Participants (N = 500) randomized to see control or (one of two) treatment posters.
•Behavioral intentions and acceptability judgements of behaviors measured later.
•Both posters increased caution with respect to social distancing.