The Behavioral State Model (Part 1)

Over the years, I’ve developed my own model of behavior. My goal has been to create a comprehensive framework for effective behavior change work. One of the main issues I’ve encountered with existing behavior change models is that they leave out some of the most significant drivers of behavior.

For example, while models like COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behavior), EAST, and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) focus on important components of behavior change, they do not explicitly include factors like personality. Personality is one of the most significant drivers of behavior across all domains.

Additionally, it's important to separate beliefs from abilities, and motivations from emotions. Someone who is unwilling to engage in an activity may be doing so because they cannot or because they think they cannot. Determining which is true is crucial for effective intervention. However, this distinction between actual inability and perceived inability often gets blurred in existing models.

Also, emotions are often lumped into "motivation" in various models. However, emotions are not simply a motivational component; they evolved to solve specific problems and must be addressed distinctly in any comprehensive behavior change model.

If we want to change behavior effectively, we need to consider all the variables involved, not just the most apparent ones. Excluding factors like personality and the nuanced differences between belief and ability (and motivation and emotion) results in an incomplete understanding of what drives behavior. This significantly reduces the effectiveness of behavior change strategies derived from these models.

The following is the first piece I’ve written on the Behavioral State Model, which seeks to address these gaps. I’ll send out the next lessons in this series in the coming weeks.

What causes behavior? What determines whether someone decides to go running, buy a new pair of sneakers, or download an app?

What causes someone to register to vote, get a vaccine, or build a rock-solid meditation habit?

These are difficult questions asked by marketers, public health officials, personal trainers, CEOs, prime ministers, and product managers each day.

Each of these different people probably has their own internal model of human behavior and psychology. For example, the personal trainer might believe that behavior is driven by motivation, and that they just need to amp up their client in order to get them to follow through. The public health official may believe that information is the cure, and that if they just get credible, unbiased information to their audience, they’ll be able to get them to act differently. The marketer may think that behavior change is all about emotion, and that in order to get people to buy things you have to ignite their desire and get them in a “hot state”.

All these people are correct, but each sees only part of the picture. And, for this reason, they’re going to be effective only a small fraction of the time.

This is because we now know that behavior is determined by 8 fundamental components:

1. Abilities

2. Motivations

3. Social status / Social situation

4. Emotions

5. Perception

6. Personality

7. Physical Environment

8. Social Environment

The personal trainer’s approach is all built around one single component: motivation.

The same thing is true of the public health official, who is focused on perception, and the marketer, who is focused on emotion.

The fact of the matter is that all 8 components need to align in order for a given behavior to occur. Merely focusing on one or two (or three) components is a path to failure and frustration.

In this lesson, we’re going to give you a high level overview of each of the above components. In future lessons we’ll dig into each of them in-depth, and provide you with plenty of examples for how you can modify them in order to achieve your behavior change goals.

Component 1: Abilities

Each of us has different capabilities. These capabilities depend on a variety of different things, such as:

• our physical characteristics (height, strength, etc.)

• our mental characteristics (memory, creativity, etc.)

• our monetary situation

• our education and training

Abilities are the inherent or learned skills and capacities that enable an individual to perform specific tasks. These are concrete and measurable aspects of what a person can physically and mentally do. They are not about how someone interprets or understands the world (Component 5: Perception) but about their ability to act within it. Based on these factors, we’re able to perform certain behaviors and unable to perform others. For example, a 7-foot NBA player can easily dunk a basketball. A 4’8” person generally cannot.

Someone with a degree in mathematics can easily solve calculus problems, while someone with a high-school diploma may find it challenging to do so.

Each person has a unique set of capabilities and limitations, and their behavioral repertoire is a reflection of this. In order to understand someone’s pre-existing behavior, and change their future behavior, it is absolutely critical to have an in-depth understanding of their capabilities.

Component 2: Motivations

Each of us is motivated by different things. Sure, some motivations are fairly universal, but their specific manifestations differ on a person-by-person basis.

For example, almost everyone is motivated by money. In almost every country in the world, wealth seems to be a near obsession. This makes sense. After all, wealth brings with it comfort and security. However, we all know someone who couldn’t care less about monetary rewards, and is driven by meaning and passion. As long as they are able to pay for rent and food, they’re happy. So, while monetary motives are common, they don’t manifest to the same degree (or in the same way) in everyone.

In order to understand why a person behaves the way they do, it is imperative to understand their motivations — what are they pursuing in life, and what are they trying to escape?

If a person is not motivated by the potential outcome of an action, it becomes exceedingly unlikely that they will choose to perform that action. This is why, to understand behavior, we must pay particularly close attention to motivation.

Component 3: Social Status / Social Situation

Nothing occurs in a social vacuum. We are social creatures, relying on others for our survival and the pursuit of our goals. Almost everything we do is done with others in mind, reflecting the complex web of relationships that define our lives. Guilt and shame, two of the most insidious emotions, are the evolutionary byproducts of our deeply social nature.

Social status is not just a broad or abstract concept. It’s intimate and immediate, playing out in the very specific social groups to which we belong—our friend circles, families, colleges, or workplaces. While it might extend to a national level, social status is predominantly about our standing within these smaller, more personal communities.

Many of our behaviors are driven by a desire to maintain or increase our social status within these groups. We strive to impress, to be seen as valuable, capable, and worthy of respect and admiration. Whether it’s excelling in a hobby, pursuing a particular career path, or even the way we engage in social media, the underlying motivation is often the enhancement of our status within our specific social sphere.

Other behaviors aim to prevent us from falling out of our group’s favor, thus losing their protection and support. This can lead to conformity, adherence to group norms, or even suppression of personal desires and opinions that might conflict with the group’s expectations.

Understanding social status goes beyond mere observation. It requires a deep examination of the motivations that compel us to make ourselves as impressive and high-status as possible in the eyes of our specific social group. The way we navigate our social world, the choices we make, and the paths we follow are profoundly influenced by this drive for social acceptance and esteem.

By recognizing the power and specificity of social status within our immediate social circles, we can better understand why people do what they do.

Component 4: Emotions

Emotions are evolution’s way of steering us in the right direction. They’re our internal GPS, pushing us towards certain outcomes and away from others. For example, we get angry to scare off dangerous people, and we get lustful to fulfill our evolutionary imperative to reproduce.

While many people conflate emotions and motivation, the two are separate determinants of behavior. Emotions will often push us towards subconscious goals, while motivations are generally more conscious and deliberate, often linked to specific rewards or outcomes. Emotions can arise spontaneously, without our control, while motivations are generally cultivated and directed towards achieving certain objectives.

Emotions serve as immediate responses to stimuli, creating a reaction that is often intuitive and visceral. They can play a vital role in decision-making processes, acting as signals that highlight potential risks or opportunities. For example, fear might keep us from taking unnecessary risks, while joy can lead us to pursue activities that resonate with our core values and desires.

However, emotions are not always straightforward guides. They can sometimes mislead us or create conflicts with our logical reasoning. Understanding and managing emotions can be a complex task, especially when they contradict our conscious goals or societal expectations. Recognizing the intricate interplay between emotions, motivations, and other components of behavior can be key to designing interventions or strategies that effectively influence and guide behavior.

In summary: while emotions and motivations both influence behavior, they do so in different ways. Emotions act as instinctive drivers, shaping our immediate responses, while motivations are more calculated and can be aligned with long-term goals and values. Understanding both these aspects is crucial if we want to understand and influence human behavior.

Component 5: Perception

Perception, unlike abilities (Component 1), refers to how an individual interprets and understands the world around them. It’s about the way our biology and beliefs shape what we pay attention to and how we process information, rather than what we are physically or mentally capable of doing. For example, if we believe that it’s impossible to lift 300 pounds, even though we have the physical ability to do so, we won’t even try. Our perception of our capabilities, not our actual ability, limits our action. Our perceptions are determined by two components:

Biology: Our biological constraints determine what we’re able to perceive. For example, the lens in our eyes filters out UV wavelength light. Fish, however, can see well into the UV part of the spectrum. They’re able to perceive an entire portion of the sensory world that we’re just blind to. The same thing is true of dogs and smell. Dogs have such sensitive noses that they can tell who’s been at a tree in the past few days, while we walk by obliviously.

Beliefs: Our beliefs act similarly — determining what we pay attention to and which behaviors we even attempt in the first place. For example, before we understood the science of hand washing, we had no reason to perform this behavior. It must have looked crazy to uninformed outsiders to see a random person frantically rubbing their hands against a bar of glycerin over a tub of water. Today, however, the practice is common and mundane. This is an example of the power of beliefs in driving behavior. Similarly, getting injected with a clear liquid by a long, sharp object might seem crazy and scary to an uninformed outsider. It’s no wonder that children, who do not have strong pre-existing beliefs about the benefits of vaccines, are so scared of these injections.

In understanding human behavior, recognizing the dual role of biology and beliefs in shaping our perception is essential, as these factors not only define what we are capable of sensing but also influence our choices and reactions to the world around us.

Component 6: Personality

Each of us is unique in our makeup. Some of this is surely due to the genetic roll of the dice. Some of this is surely due to early life influences and our experiences. Whatever the reason, we can’t deny that each person is a unique mixture of different preferences, interests, values, and predispositions.

Some people are anxious, others are fearless. Some people are drawn to art, others couldn’t care less. Some people are outgoing and enthusiastic, others are low energy and withdrawn.

These tendencies are one of the major determinants of our behaviors. What might be interesting to an introverted person might be boring to an extravert (and vice versa). It’s absolutely necessary that we take these differences into account when understanding behavior and behavior change.

Component 7: Physical Environment

If you’re in a room with 5 foot ceilings, you won’t be able to do jumping jacks.

If you’re in a crowded cafe, you might not be able to focus on the book you’re reading.

The physical environment we’re in makes certain behaviors possible and others impossible. Understanding the constraints present in any given physical environment is a critical part of understanding behavior in that environment.

Component 8: Social Environment

As people have noted for most of human history, crowds are a powerful force. Put a bunch of people together in a room (or in the street) and unexpected things can happen.

Peer pressure and social influence are strong behavioral influencers. To understand why people do what they do, it’s necessary for us to understand the specific social environment they’re in.

For example, a relatively introverted and serene person might be driven to dancing on a table if the social environment is stimulating enough. This person is acting in ways that seemingly violate their personality, largely because of an abrupt shift in the social context. This behavior might be in direct conflict with their social status goals and norms, but can occur because of the overpowering social influences present.

I’m often asked whether this component is necessary if we already have ‘social status / social situation’ (Component 3). While social status in Component 3 pertains specifically to an individual’s drive to maintain or increase their standing within the group they identify with, as well as to keep their favor, the social environment encompasses the immediate social setting in which the behavior we’re analyzing happens or develops. In addition, social environments can be distinct from our regular social groups or affiliations, pushing us to act in ways that may contradict our social status and the norms of our usual social circles.

In summary: Social environments can act as powerful catalysts for unexpected behavior, transcending individual personality traits and norms, and their influence remains an essential consideration if we’re trying to understand why people do what they do.

The Behavioral State

These 8 components are present at all times for each person and determine which behaviors will occur.

For any given behavior, we can calculate a Behavioral State Score. This score represents how likely it is that a specific person (or relatively like-minded/similar group) will do the behavior in the context we’re analyzing.

Let’s pretend we’re interested in people's running behavior. We are interested in getting more college students into the running habit.

As part of our analysis, we go to a dorm to see what’s going on.

We notice a few things:

Ability

The environment is incredibly loud, even at night. We talk to some students and learn how little sleep the average student gets. There’s a lot of coffee. Students are tired, and tired people are less likely to exercise.

State Score: 2/10

Motivation

Students are very interested in dating. In fact, a significant portion of the time in the dorm is spent flirting. Staying fit and looking good is obviously important. This is in our favor. Students seem to be interested in being lean and muscular — running can help with the former.

State Score: 6/10

Personality

Some students are type A and obviously care a lot about staying healthy and lean. Other students are scarfing down pizza and other junk food. There’s obviously a personality and values divide between different people in the college dorm population.

State Score: quite variable, but average of 5/10.

Social Status / Social Situation

It is high status to be attractive and fit in this environment. That should make people more likely to run. However, it’s also high status and socially acceptable to drink a lot of alcohol and stay up late socializing. These social pressures conflict.

State Score: 4/10

Emotion

Tired people have worse self control and are more likely to be overtaken by bad emotions. For emotional release and stress relief, they’re going to be more likely to indulge in tasty food and alcohol. Also, overly stimulated people will be more likely to engage in compulsive, short-term maximizing behaviors. College is a very emotional time and people are in hot states that work against their longer term goals.

State Score: 3/10

Perception

Students seem to feel stressed and time crunched. Because of this, there’s a general belief that they don’t have enough time to get everything they need done. Even though students seem to have plenty of free time and are doing a lot of socializing, the general perception seems to be that they’re busy and don’t have enough time to do all the things they want to do.

State Score: 4/10

Physical Environment

There is no gym equipment (like a treadmill) in the dorm, and so students either need to go to the gym or run outside. Traveling to the gym is a 25 minute walk (or 10 minute bike) ride. Running outside is nice during the fall and spring, but it gets too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Therefore, in order to make running a year round behavior, it either needs to all be done at the gym or needs to be done in the gym for half the year and outside for half the year. Running outside is much more convenient, since each student merely needs to put on some shoes and go. No travel time. However, the dorms are not in a scenic location, and therefore the outdoor running paths are not particularly enjoyable.

State Score: 5/10

Social Environment

The social environment in the dorm is overpowering. You do not generally see many other people running. There are not large social norms for running. There are some groups that go to the gym together, but they tend to go in order to either play basketball or for weight lifting. There is not a running gym contingent that we were able to notice.

State Score: 2/10

Behavioral State Score

Behavioral State Score: 31/80

As you may be able to tell, the baseline probability that a student in this dorm will go running is quite low. The Behavioral State Score for this behavior is low.

The biggest issues are:

Ability

The ability of the college students to engage in running is markedly limited by their environment and lifestyle. Dorm life tends to be chaotic and loud, often disrupting sleep patterns and leading to an over-reliance on coffee. As we learned through interviews, the average student is sleep-deprived, resulting in general fatigue. This lethargy makes it difficult for them to find the energy for exercise, particularly a demanding activity like running.

Social Status

Many of the high status / social norm behaviors in this environment work against their ability to stay in a physical condition that encourages running (alcohol, partying, junk food)

Emotions

Students are prone to feeling bad because of a lack of sleep and heavy alcohol usage. They are generally not in a great, energetic and peppy mood during the day. Their emotional state is not conducive to exercise/energy intensive behavior.

Perception

There is a general, inaccurate, perception that they are strapped for time and overwhelmed with homework, classes, and other responsibilities — when they, in fact, have a lot of free time.

Social Environment

The social environment presents plenty of pressures for partying, drinking, and other behaviors, but there are no obvious social cliques that are encouraging running and cardiovascular fitness. In other words: there is no social norm for this behavior, but there are strong social norms for counterproductive behaviors.

Influencing the components

To get these students to run more often, we need to fix as many of these things as possible. The more we fix, the higher the probability the students in the dorm will go running.

Based on this analysis, I don’t believe it’s likely we’ll be able to move the needle all that much. After all, the motivations and priorities of the students are not well aligned with this behavior, and the social pressures present in this environment make running-inhibiting behaviors quite common (alcohol, staying up late, etc.).

To effectively cause this group to go running consistently, we would need to change the social norms in this group and get them to change their eating, sleeping, and social habits. Oh, and we’d also need them to change their perception of how much free time they have available.

Changing one of these things may be possible, but changing them all? Nearly impossible.

Whenever we do a Behavioral State analysis for a given behavior and get results like this, it’s obvious that the chosen behavior is wrong for the group in question. In these situations, the next step is to go through the Behavioral Strategy process to choose the right behavior for the group. If our overarching goal is to increase the health of these college students, we don’t need to be hung up on running. There are dozens of ways these college students can improve their health. They can:

• Play tennis

• Play basketball

• Ride a bike

• Go swimming

• Get 10,000 steps

• Eat more vegetables

• Drink less alcohol

• Eat fewer sweets and desserts

• Drink less soda

• Get more sleep

• Drink more water

I think you get the idea. It’s quite likely that one of these behaviors would be a much better fit for this group. If we choose the right behavior, we’ll get compliance and will achieve our goal of making this target group healthier.

This lesson is not about Behavioral Strategy. That’s a topic you can learn about here. However, I do think it’s important for you to realize that not all behavior change goals are attainable, and it’s often necessary to come up with a new strategy when a Behavioral State analysis for a given behavior leaves much to be desired.

End of Lesson 1

-Jason

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