Several months ago I read a great article by Aline Holzwarth from the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, in which she discusses 3 laws of human behaviour that parallel Newton’s 3 laws of motion. Given the theme of this blog, I thought it would be an excellent opener to ‘butcher’ some of her ideas here.
Let’s start with a brief reminder of Newtonian physics – Newton’s first law states that a body will remain at rest (or in motion) until it is acted upon by an external force. The second law provides a means of calculating the force – it is a function of the mass of the body and its acceleration or more simply : Force = Mass x Acceleration (or f=ma). Newton’s third law tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (or as I explained to my kids while we were gently chugging up the log flume at the amusement park (pre-Covid…) , “what goes up, must come down!“)
In her article Ms Holzwarth proposed the ‘equivalent’ laws of Human Behaviour.
Law 1: We humans are a) creatures of habit and b) lazy. So in essence, we will remain at rest or in motion unless acted on by an external force. In human behaviour, that force is either friction or fuel.
Friction is something that makes it harder for us to do something. On the flip side of this, removing friction makes a particular behaviour easier. Netflix is a brilliant example of eliminating friction. In order for us to watch the next episode of a series, we need to do … nothing! It plays automatically. We don’t need to stop the current episode, find the next episode, press play, etc – all friction is removed.
Fuel is something that makes a particular behaviour more appealing.
The Vitality Health medical aid scheme is an excellent example of using fuel to encourage healthier behaviour. Their reward system not only makes it cheaper and easier to eat well and live an active lifestyle, but also rewards members for doing so. On the Apple iWatch plan, the member gets a free iWatch with zero monthly costs as long as the member earns a minimum number of reward points in the month. If the user doesn’t meet the minimum points requirement, a monthly financial cost for the watch kicks in. Stay active and the watch costs you nothing, get lazy and you start paying.
Law 2 is somewhat different, whereas Newton’s laws give us a means of measuring the magnitude of the force, the equation in our human behaviour example isn’t quantifiable. It is still useful though.
In 1936, a psychologist named Kurt Lewin proposed the following : B= f(P, E). In Lewin’s view, behaviour is a function of the Person in the Environment. This is a very powerful concept, and something that has proven to have a huge impact on many of the choices we make daily. How often have you bought a magazine, chocolate bar or some gum while waiting in a checkout queue is as a result of choice architectures created by clever retailers manipulating your environment?
Law 3: Newton, in his wisdom, realised that actions have equal and opposite reactions. To paraphrase this in our context, actions have consequences. Sometimes the consequences are the intended behavioural outcome but it is important to bear in mind that sometimes there consequences may be unintended. Often policy decisions taken with the best intentions can yield unintended and counter-intuitive consequences. For example, there is evidence to suggest that plastic bag ban has actually been bad for the environment?
There are some ‘nice’ parallels between Newtons 3 laws and the 3 laws of behaviour as laid out by Aline Holzwarth. Laws in a scientific context are useful for giving us a framework and helping us understand things within that context. But there are also some differences between the two 3-law frameworks. Perhaps laws are more rigorous in fields like physics than psychology but they are still useful and provide a good launchpad for ideas and discussion.
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