Behavioural science is the study of behaviour and decision making. It’s great at getting under the hood of specific behaviours and developing targeted interventions. But it’s been criticised for not exploring behaviour in a wider context, not being able to scale or create bigger impact and systems change.  

Cultural analysis and interpretation of cultural patterns that provide us with insights into current and future societal shifts. It’s great at helping brands and organisations ensure they are keeping up to date with where their category is at and forecasting what’s on the horizon to stay ahead of the curve. But it can seem intangible and difficult to action the findings without assurance.  

These two fields can benefit from cross pollination. At TRA, we utilise both culture and behavioural science as key disciplines to uncover insights, not in separate silos but in harmony together. This is a core part of our art and science of knowing people – we always view behaviour in the cultural context, and we always consider how cultural trends factor in human behaviour. Here’s how we do it.  

How to incorporate cultural trend research into behavioural science    

1. Using Cultural Landscape to understand the context and backdrop of behaviour

Analysing our Cultural Framework allows us to take a big step back and assess the ‘landscape’.  

What is happening in culture that could be impacting key behaviours and the categories they operate within? What are the micro- and macro currents (fast and slow shifts in culture) that are shaping individuals, communities and the nation?

This helps us understand the context and category norms in which behaviour change needs to occur in.  

One example of assessing the cultural landscape is through TRA’s work with climate change behaviour change campaigns, TRA completed a cultural audit that found that the majority of climate change imagery in the media was long-distance shots of weather events. These images were dark, stormy, without much colour and rarely included people. The images ultimately presented very tenuous connections between extreme weather events, climate change discourse and the key behaviours people could take to reduce their emissions. The work we did on this project helped us understand how people were perceiving climate change messages and the category norms that our behaviour change messaging would have to stand out from.  

2. Use cultural research to inform the framing of key behavioural messages  

Cultural analysis methods include discourse analysis: understanding the language and key terms that are used to describe a category or shift; and semiotics: understanding the visual images and symbols of a category or cultural shift.  

These methods can be used to help develop the framing of key behavioural messages as well as developing key imagery to prime people for action. Depending on the behaviour change challenge, organisations can either stick with the current visual and language trends or try to buck the trend to stand out.  

For example, when understanding how to develop behavioural messages and interventions for cybersecurity action, we undertook discourse analysis and semiotic research of the cybersecurity category and quickly discovered the imagery was dominated by hooded hackers, circuit boards and tech imagery, and the language was very military based - think “attacks” and “defence”. We worked with CERT NZ to buck this trend and developed behavioural messages that were much more human and relevant to everyday people. Read more about this here in our article in the 2023 Behavioural Economics Guide.  

3. Use future forecasting tools to zoom out to bigger picture behaviour change.  

Many behaviour change interventions focus on adjusting the status quo system – tweaking service design and adjusting behavioural messages. There can be a real need to zoom out to larger-scale behaviour change initiatives that inspire systems-level change. Cultural analysis has the tools we need to help us explore future possibilities.  

Speculative design and tools such as the futures cone can help us zoom out and look at behaviour change from a systems level and consider broader and more impactful behaviour change opportunities.  They can also help us to forecast what future behaviour change trends that could be on the horizon, exploring possible futures and bringing them to life. This helps behaviour change practitioners show what is possible and encourage initiatives which may be difficult to fathom in the current context, or bogged down by present day barriers.

For example, we have observed the idea of ‘ownership’ becoming less of an aspiration in some categories. How might this impact a home improvement brand? We would first assess the macro currents we use to track cultural shifts. After identifying forces like the sharing economy, housing unaffordability, delaying of life milestones like starting a family, we can play out scenarios – assessing what might create friction or encouraging the need for home improvement in the future. This could take the form of a simple short story, a film, an image board, role playing, etc. Essentially, anything that prompts you to envision a different future and adjust your decision-making. This isn’t about predicting the future, but preparing for it. CEO of the Future Today Institute, Amy Webb, puts it perfectly. “Scenarios help inform strategy. They fill in the necessary details in order to tell a complete story. But scenarios are the end. They are the beginning”.

How to incorporate behavioural science into cultural analysis  

1. Overcome biases that make people adverse to the future and change  

Cultural foresight is all about exploring what’s around the corner. Unfortunately, we humans have a number of biases that make it challenging to accurately think about the future.  

For instance, present bias and future discounting mean we tend to live more in the present and are more likely to disregard the future.    

Optimism bias means that we are more hopeful about what the future may bring for us and we’re less likely to plan for unfavourable outcomes.  

Recency effect means that we’re more likely to remember what’s recently happened to us or what’s in the media and over-compensate for that and think it will happen again in the future.  

If we know about these biases, we can counteract them in our cultural methodologies. For instance, we can explore not only positive, hopeful possible futures, but also explore negative futures that are still possible and likely.   ‍

2. Use behavioural data to explore cultural trends  

Cultural foresight is developed through analysing a range of different sources and collecting signals. This can be through looking at themes explored in sci-fi, trending hashtags on social media or exploring outliers and mavericks on the fringe of society.    

A key component in behavioural science is analysing behavioural data, particularly if we’re measuring a change in behaviour. Cultural research can also include behavioural data trends as one of its key components.  

For instance, transport behavioural data sets have signified the growth in micro-mobility and the flow-on effects this has for the future of transport and urban planning. Housing consents data can show the growth in smaller, more compact living, which can help anticipate types of purchases that go along with smaller spaces.  

3. Understand the psychology and behaviours associated with the cultural trend and its category  

There can be behaviours and associated psychology linked to cultural trends and particular categories – all of which can be important to factor in when exploring the future of these trends and categories. For instance, the category of wellness and medicine has quite distinct behavioural patterns associated with it. Typically, wellness products like vitamins, supplements and medicines are often taken in a set routine and in a habitual manner, such as taking vitamins after breakfast and before bed. There are also particular mental modes associated with the medical field and the wellness field, such as cues of authority (think authoritative medical figures in white coats with clipboards), and cues of medicinal strength i.e. active ingredient’.

Factoring in the different behavioural patterns and mental modes will help cultural analysis in understanding what behaviours and mental modes that are currently ingrained and that will need to be overcome if the category is to change.  

Ultimately, the intersection and overlap of behaviour change and cultural analysis provides a huge opportunity for brands and organisations to prompt effective behaviour change, forecast future trends in their category, and uncover an understanding of their audience deeper than ever before.