The Power of Channelling Installations to Change Behaviour

The same types of devices that enforce "proper" behaviour can shape desired behaviour.

Reviewed by Margaret Foley

Key points

• Societies have set up powerful channelling devices to foster and control behaviour: "installations."
• Good installations combine 3 types of components: material affordances, social regulation, embodied skills.
• To be efficient, interventions must target the point of action with installations.

This post is the second in a series.

In a previous post, I explained how, over centuries of trial and error, societies have built behavioural channelling to ensure that people behave as they should. This channelling enables the cooperation that goes with the division of labour to work smoothly and makes things happen as expected: It's "the way we do things around here." That is why, when you are driving on the road, no one is coming from the opposite direction. Why, when you push the button for the elevator, the elevator actually does what you expect it to do. Because these channelling systems not only affect people, they also shape the behaviour of objects.

The channelling devices, the "installations," are a combination of three types of determinants that come together at the point of action. Both aspects are important: the point of action and the combination. Let us begin with the first.

To be efficient, interventions must target the point of action.

The point of action ("where and when you act") is where behaviour is ultimately determined and fine-tuned. In a shop, for example, what you actually find on the shelves determines what you buy, regardless of your initial intention when you entered the shop. If the brand you want is not "here and now" and you need the product, you will choose from what is available. The human nervous system is designed to produce behaviour that is relevant here and now. Shaping the situation as it appears here and now, at the point of action, will orient behaviour. Persuasion (e.g., a media campaign) that delivers information away from the point of action will be less effective than local instructions when and where you act. This is why some nudges work well, such as the "please be sustainable" poster in the hotel bathroom asking you to reuse your towel, which you read as you step out of the shower—towel in hand. Unfortunately, most nudges are delivered away from the point of action for the convenience of the intervention (Yamin et al., 2019); hence their limited impact.

Resilient installations combine three types of components.

In social channelling devices (“installations”), there is always a combination of three types of components, each of which simultaneously scaffolds the expected behaviour and constrains the possibility of performing different behaviours, in the same way that the floor and walls of a corridor both support and constrain your path to guide it. For example, when you go through security at an airport, there are the trays, the conveyor belt, the queue, the security staff, and your knowledge of how to proceed.

The first set of components of an installation, its material base layer, are the physical affordances of the situation: what you can do physically (Greeno, 1994): where you can sit on the train, where you can click on the website, the tray where you put your things. This is a first set of potentials and constraints, established through material design, our built environment.

The second set of components is the person's capabilities, their embodied competencies: what you know how to do. Literacy enables you to read your seat number, you "know" which side of the road to drive on. These components, which you carry with you, are embodied through education, imitation, and experience. These capabilities are used to interpret the affordances of the situation in a cognitive and motor sense—just as a musician has learned to "interpret" a score.

Finally, there is social regulation: what you are expected to do. If you do not behave as prescribed, you will soon be put back on track by other participants or even by dedicated control forces (police, staff, other users, and so on). There are many ways in which social regulation works. In my book, I describe a dozen that can be used, from gentle social pressure to hard law. Regulation is something the nudge approach is uncomfortable with, but in real life it is used massively by society, and for a good reason: it works. It works!

Resilience comes with redundancy of components.

Installations are resilient because their combination of components is redundant. Even if one layer fails, the others take over. This is what allows installations to function as training facilities for novices: They don't have the know-how yet, but in their first attempt, affordances and social regulation (e.g., instruction) allow them to perform on the spot; from then on they will have embodied the skills. These skills in turn enable novices to become experienced vigilantes, controlling and guiding their fellow users. This resilient combination of components is the open secret of social institutions. Just look around and you will see.

Good installations are designed so that, at each step of the behavioural trajectory, the person is guided in the right direction by the three layers at the point of action.

We can all become changemakers.

Changing behaviour is basically analysing the current installation and redesigning it by intervening on the components that are determinant at the pain points or necessary bifurcations. This can be done for individual behaviour. For example, if you avoid creating situations where you are in the presence of snacks at home, you will definitely reduce your snacking. This also works on a larger scale in organisations.

My book Why People Do What They Do and How to Get Them to Change (Lahlou, 2024) systematically addresses this technique. We can all be changemakers. Now you know the principles of the method.