Table 2 The ‘MINDSPACE’ framework and application for phone-based reminder messages
Principles | Application |
|---|---|
Messenger | People are heavily influenced by the authority and credibility of the person sending the message, so the reminder messages should be signed-off by a trusted official/professional. |
Incentives | People are more sensitive to losses than gains, so the reminders should frame non-attendance as a loss. |
Norms | People want to fit in and are strongly influenced by the actions of others, so the reminders should signal that attendance is the norm. |
Defaults | People tend to ‘go with the flow’ and use pre-set options, so attendance should be the default option in the reminders. |
Salience | People are drawn to things that are novel and appear relevant to them, so the reminders should be personalised and stress the novelty of the opportunity. |
Priming | Peoples’ decisions are commonly influenced by subconscious cues in their environment. We cannot influence this via phone-message. |
Affect | Peoples’ decisions are often based on emotional associations rather than facts, so the reminders should seek to make emotive arguments for attendance. |
Commitments | People seek to be consistent with public promises and reciprocate acts, so the reminders should aim to elicit a commitment to attend and stress the social expectation of attendance. |
Ego | People act in ways that support the impression of a positive self-image, so the reminders should reinforce the message that attendance is consistent with recipients’ positive self-perceptions. |