Hi. You might have noticed that I have half a beard. It's not because I lost a bet. Many years ago, I was badly burned. Most of my body is covered with scars, including the right side of my face. I just don't have hair. That's just how it happened. It looks symmetrical, but almost.
嗨。 你們可能已經注意到 我的鬍子只有一半。 不是因為我打賭輸了。 很多年前,我遭受嚴重的燒燙傷。 我的身體上佈滿了傷疤, 包括我的右臉頰。 我長不出毛髮。就是這麼回事。 它看起來是對稱的,接近對稱。
Anyway, now that we discussed facial hair, let's move to social science. And in particular, I want us to think about where is the potential for humanity and where we are now. And if you think about it, there's a big gap between where we think we could be and where we are, and it's in all kinds of areas.
總之,我們已經談了臉上的毛髮, 現在就接著談社會科學吧。 我特別希望大家能夠想想 人類的潛能及我們目前發揮到哪裡。 仔細想想,會發現 我們認為能夠發揮與實際發揮的潛能 兩者間有很大的落差, 且在各領域皆是如此。
So let me ask you: How many of you in the last month have eaten more than you think you should? Just kind of general. OK. How many of you in the last month have exercised less than you think you should? OK, and for how many of you has raising your hands twice been the most exercise you got today?
讓我問大家一個問題: 過去一個月中, 在座的各位有誰飲食過量? 幾乎都有。好。 過去一個月中 誰覺得自己的運動量不足? 好,有誰舉這兩次手 就是今天最大的運動量了?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
How many of you have ever texted while driving? OK, we're getting honest. Let's test your honesty. How many people here in the last month have not always washed your hands when you left the bathroom?
有誰在開車時發過訊息? 好,大家越來越誠實了。 來測試大家的誠實度。 有誰在上個月 上完廁所之後不見得每次都會洗手?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)沒那麼誠實了。
A little less honest. By the way, it's interesting how we're willing to admit texting and driving but not washing our hands, that's difficult.
順道一提,有趣的是, 我們都願意承認邊開車邊發訊息, 至於洗手,就很難承認。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
We can go on and on. The problem, the topic is that there's lots of things when we know what we could do -- we could be very, very different, but we're acting in a very different way. And when we think how do we bridge that gap, the usual answer is, "Just tell people." For example, just tell people that texting and driving is dangerous. Did you know it's dangerous? You should stop doing it. You tell people something is dangerous, and they will stop.
我們可以一直問下去。 問題是,有很多事情 當我們知道自己要怎麼做—— 我們就能有很大的改變, 但我們卻選擇了不同的做法。 想想看要如何消除這個落差, 一般人的答案通常是「告訴別人」。 比如,告訴別人, 邊開車邊發訊息很危險。 你們知道很危險嗎?別這麼做了。 你告訴別人某件事很危險, 他們就不會再去做。
Texting and driving is one example. Another very sad example is that in the US, we spend between seven and eight hundred million dollars a year on what's called "financial literacy." And what do we get as a consequence of that? There was recently a study that looked at all the research ever to be conducted on financial literacy -- what's called a meta-analysis. And what they found is that when you tell people, you teach them financial literacy, they learn and they remember. But do people execute? Not so much. The improvement is about three or four percent immediately after the course, and then it goes down. And at the end of the day, the improvement is about 0.1 percent -- not zero, but as humanly close to zero as possible.
邊開車邊發訊息是一例。 另一個可悲的例子是, 在美國,每年我們要花七到八億美金 在所謂的「財務素養」上。 我們有得到什麼成果嗎? 最近有一篇研究,探討了過去所有 曾經進行過的財務素養 相關研究——這叫做整合分析。 他們發現當你告訴別人, 當你教導別人財務素養, 他們會學習並記下來。 但他們會執行嗎?不常。 在課程剛結束後, 還有 3~4% 的人會做改進, 之後就越來越少。 到頭來, 只有約 0.1% 的人會做改進, 不是 0,但從人類的角度 來說是非常接近 0 了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So that's the sad news. The sad news is, giving information to people is just not a good recipe to change behavior. What is?
所以遺憾的消息是, 把資訊給別人並不是 改變行為的好方法。 好方法是什麼?嗯,
Well, social science has made lots of strides, and the basic insight is that if we want to change behavior, we have to change the environment. The right way is not to change people, it's to change the environment. And I want to present a very simpleminded model of how to think about it: it's to think about behavioral change in the same way that we think about sending a rocket to space. When we think about sending a rocket to space, we want to do two main things. The first one is to reduce friction. We want to take the rocket and have as little friction as possible so it's the most aerodynamic possible. And the second thing is we want to load as much fuel as possible, to give it the most amount of motivation, energy to do its task. And behavior change is the same thing.
社會科學有很大的進步, 基本的見解是, 如果我們想要改變行為, 我們就得改變環境。 正確的方式不是去改變人, 而是去改變環境。 我想給各位看一個很簡單的 模型,說明我們是怎麼想的: 就是將火箭送入太空的思考方式 運用在行為改變的思考模式上。 當我們思考將火箭送入太空時, 需做兩件重要的事情。 第一,減少摩擦力。 我們要讓火箭的摩擦力越小越好, 越符合空氣動力學越好。 第二,我們會想裝載的燃料越多越好, 讓火箭能有最大的 推動力和能源去完成任務。 行為改變也是一樣的道理。
So let's first talk about friction. In this particular case study I'll tell you about, there's a pharmacy, an online pharmacy. Imagine you go to your doctor. You have a long-term illness, your doctor prescribes to you a medication, you sign up for this online pharmacy and you get your medication in the mail every 90 days. Every 90 days, medication, medication, medication. And this online pharmacy wants to switch people from branded medication to generic medication. So they send people letters, and they say, "Please, please, please, switch to generics. You will save money, we will save money, your employer will save money." And what do people do? Nothing.
我們先來談談摩擦力。 讓我跟各位談一項個案研究, 有一家藥局,線上藥局。 想像你去看醫生。 你得了慢性病, 醫生幫你開了處方用藥, 你在這間線上藥局註冊, 每九十天就會寄送藥品給你。 每九十天,藥物、藥物、藥物。 這間線上藥局想要讓客人 將藥品從原廠藥改為學名藥。 所以,他們寄信給客戶說: 「拜託,拜託,拜託,改買學名藥。 你能省錢,我們能省錢, 你的僱主也能省錢。」 大家會做什麼?什麼都不做。
So they try all kinds of things and nothing happens. So for one year, they give people an amazing offer. They send people a letter, and they say, "If you switch to generics now, it will be free for a whole year." Free for a whole year. Amazing! What percentage of people do you think switched? Less than 10 percent. At this point, they show up to my office. And they come to complain. Why did they pick me? I wrote a couple of papers on the "allure of free." In those papers, we showed that if you reduce the price of something for, let's say, 10 cents to one cent, nothing much happens. You reduce it from one cent to zero, now people get excited.
他們試過各種方法,都沒有用。 有一年,他們祭出一項大利多。 他們發信給客戶: 「如果現在換成學名藥, 一整年都免費。」 一整年免費!太棒了! 各位認為有百分之幾的人換藥了? 不到 10 %。 這時,他們來到我的辦公室。 他們來抱怨。 他們為何挑上我?我寫了 幾篇「免費的誘惑」的論文。 在那些論文中,我們說明 如果調降某樣東西的價格, 比如,從十分錢減到一分錢, 人們不太會有什麼反應。 但若從一分錢變成免費, 大家就會興奮起來。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And they said, "Look, we read these papers on 'free,' we gave 'free.' Not working as we expected. What's going on?" I said, "You know, maybe it's a question of friction." They said, "What do you mean?" I said, "People are starting with branded. They can do nothing and end with branded. To move to generic, they have to choose generic over branded, but they also have to do something. They have to return the letter." So this is what we call a "confounded design." Two things are happening at the same time. It's branded versus generic, but it's doing nothing versus doing something. So I said, "Why don't we switch it? Why don't we send people a letter and say, 'We're switching you to generics. You don't need to do anything. If you want to stay with branded, please return the letter.'"
他們說:「我們讀了 這些『免費』的論文, 我們也做到『免費』, 結果卻不如預期。 怎麼搞的? 我說:「也許問題在於摩擦力。」 他們說:「意思是?」 我說:「客戶本來就用原廠藥。 他們什麼事都不用做, 頂多就是照用原廠藥。 要換成學名藥, 他們還得要選學名藥的品牌, 但他們還得做另一件事。 他們得要回信。」 這是我們所謂的「混雜設計」。 兩件事同時發生。 原廠藥與學名藥, 對應著什麼都不做與做點什麼。 所以,我說:「不如互換一下吧? 為什麼不寄信給客戶說: 『我們要把你的藥換成學名藥。 你什麼都不用做。 如果你想要繼續用原廠藥,請回信。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Right? What do you think happened? Lawyers, lawyers happened.
是吧? 你們認為結果如何? 律師,律師會找上門。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
It turns out, this is illegal.
後來發現,這樣做不合法。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
By the way, for brainstorming and creativity, doing things that are illegal and immoral, it's fine, as long as it's just in the brainstorming phase.
順道一提,如果是 為了腦力激盪和創意, 做不合法、不道德的事沒關係, 只要還停留在腦力激盪階段就沒問題。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But this was the purity of the idea, because the initial design was the branded had the no-action benefit. In my illegal, immoral design, generic had the no-action benefit. But they agreed to give people a T-intersection: send people a letter and say, "If you don't return this letter, we will be forced to stop your medications. But when you return the letter, you could choose branded at this price, generic at this price." Now people had to take an action. They were on even footing. Right? It wasn't that one had the no-action benefit. What percentage do you think switched? The vast majority switched. So what does it tell us? Do people like generics, or do we like branded? We hate returning letters.
但這個想法太簡單, 因為在最初用的設計上, 原廠藥具有「不行動」的優勢。 在我那不合法、不道德的設計中, 學名藥具有「不行動」的優勢。 但他們同意要提供 客戶一個 T 叉路: 發信給客戶說: 「如果你不回覆這封信, 我們會被迫停止寄藥給你。 但當你回信時,你能選擇 這個價格的原廠藥, 或這個價格的學名藥。」 現在客戶得採取行動了。 現在兩個選項的立足點平等吧? 沒有任何一種藥具有「不行動」優勢。 各位認為有多少比例的人換藥? 絕大多數換了。 這告訴我們什麼? 大家喜歡學名藥或原廠藥? 我們討厭回信。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
This is the story of friction: small things really matter. And friction is about taking the desired behavior and saying: Where do we have too much friction so it's slowing people down from acting on it? And every time you see that the desired behavior and the easy behavior are not aligned, it means we want to try and realign them.
這就是摩擦力的故事: 小地方很重要。 摩擦力的重點在於採取所欲之行為, 說:哪個地方的摩擦力太大, 讓大家拖拖拉拉地去做這件事? 每當你發現預期的行為 和簡而易行的行為並不一致時, 表示需試著讓它們調整到一致。
That's the first part. We talked about friction. Now let's talk about motivation. In this particular study, we were trying to get very poor people in a slum called Kibera in Kenya to save a little bit of money for a rainy day. You know, if you're very, very poor, you have no extra money, you live hand to mouth, and from time to time, bad things happen. And when something bad happens, you have nothing to draw on, you borrow. The Kibera people can borrow at sometimes up to 10 percent interest a week. And then, of course, it's really hard to get out of it. You live hand to mouth, something bad happens, you borrow, things get worse and worse and worse. So we wanted people to keep a little bit of money for a rainy day. And we thought about what is the motivation, what is the fuel that we need to add? And we tried all kinds of things. Some people, we texted them once a week and said, "Please try to save 100 shillings" -- about a dollar -- "this week." Some people, we sent a text message as if it came from their kids. So it said, "Hi Mom, hi Dad, this is little Joey" -- whatever the name of the kid was -- "Try and save 100 shillings this week for the future of our family." Right? I'm Jewish, a little bit of guilt always works.
我們剛談的摩擦力是第一部分。 現在來談談動機。 在這項研究中, 我們試圖要讓肯亞 基貝拉貧民窟的窮人, 存一點錢來未雨綢繆。 要知道,如果你非常窮, 你沒有額外的錢, 你過著勉強餬口的日子, 但天有不測風雲。 當壞事發生時,你手頭上 沒有錢,只好去借錢。 基貝拉貧民窟的人有時 借錢的週利率會高達 10%。 當然,接下來就很難脫身了。 你三餐無以為繼,當壞事發生時, 你得去借錢,然後每況愈下。 所以我們希望他們能 存一點錢來未雨綢繆。 我們想過動機是什麼, 我們需要添加什麼樣的燃料? 我們什麼都試過了。 我們會發訊息給某些人, 一週發一次說: 「這週請試著存一百先令」—— 大約是一美金。 我們也假扮某些人的孩子 來發訊息給他們。 訊息會說:「嗨,媽,嗨, 爸,我是小喬伊」—— 看那孩子叫什麼名字—— 「為了我們家庭的未來, 這週試著存一百先令。」 對吧?我是猶太人, 加點罪惡感通常會有用。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Some people got 10 percent. "Save up to a hundred shillings, we'll give you 10 percent." Some people got 20 percent. Some people got also 10 percent and 20 percent, but they got it with loss aversion. What is loss aversion? Loss aversion is the idea that we hate losing more than we enjoy gaining. Now, think about somebody who is in a 10-percent condition and they put 40 shillings in. They put 40 shillings, we give them four more, they say thank you very much. That person gave up six. They could have gotten six more if they gave a hundred, but they don't see it. So we created what we call pre-match. We put the 10 shillings in at the beginning of the week. We said, "It's waiting for you!" And then if somebody puts 40 in, we say, "Oh, you put 40 in, we're leaving four, and we're taking six back." So in both cases, pre-match or post-match, people get 10 percent. But in the pre-match, they see the money they did not match leaving their account. So we have text, text from kids, 10 percent, 20 percent, pre-match, post-match. And we had one more condition. It was a coin about this size, with 24 numbers written on it. And we asked them to put the coin somewhere in their hut, and every week, take a knife and scratch the number for that week -- week one, two, three, four -- scratch it like a minus if they didn't save and scratch it up and down if they saved.
我們給某些人 10% 的現金獎勵。 「存到一百先令,我們 就給你10% 的現金獎勵。」 給某些人 20% 的現金獎勵。 還有人得 10%、20% 的現金獎勵, 同時還搭配損失規避。 什麼是損失規避? 損失規避說的是 討厭損失多於享受獲得。 想想看,有個人 得到的是 10% 的條件, 他存入了四十先令。 他存入四十先令, 我們就會多給他四先令, 他會說非常謝謝。 那個人放棄了六先令。 如果他能存到一百先令, 他還能再得到六先令, 但他看不到。 所以我們創造了所謂的獎金預先撥付。 我們在一週開始時先存入十先令, 說「它在等著你!」 若有人存入四十先令, 我們說:「喔,你存了四十, 我們會留下四先令,收回六先令。」 在兩種情況中,現金獎勵的 預先撥付或事後撥付, 他們得到的都是 10%。 但用預先撥付時, 因為沒有達成目標,當事人會看到 帳戶中的錢被拿走。 所以我們的策略有發訊息、 孩子發訊息、10%、20%、 預先撥付、事後撥付。 我們還有一種做法。 是一個大約這麼大的硬幣。 上面有二十四個數字。 我們請他們把硬幣放在小屋中的某處, 每週,拿一把刀在 當週的數字上刻劃—— 第一週、第二、第三、第四—— 如果沒存到錢,就劃減號, 如果有存到,就劃垂直的一直線。
Now, think to yourself: Which one of those methods do you think worked the best? Text, text from the kids, 10 percent, 20 percent, beginning of the week, end of the week, and the coin? I'll tell you what the average people think. We've done these studies of prediction, both in the US and in Kenya. People think that 20 percent will get a lot of action, 10 percent less, the rest of it will do nothing -- kids, coin, doesn't matter. People think loss aversion will have a small effect.
各位想想: 你們認為上述的哪個方法最有效? 發訊息、孩子發訊息、10%、 20%、一週的開始或結束、硬幣? 讓我告訴各位一般人是怎麼想的。 我們在美國及肯亞 都做了這種預測研究。 大家認為 20% 最能激勵窮人存錢。 10% 效果差一點, 其他的都沒有用—— 孩子、硬幣都沒用。 大家認為損失規避的效應很小。
What actually happened? Sending a text reminder once a week helps a lot. Good news! This program lasted six months. People forget. Reminding people is great. Ten percent at the end of the week helped some more. Financial incentives work. Twenty percent at the end of the week -- just like 10 percent, no difference. Ten percent in the beginning of the week helps some more. Loss aversion works. Twenty percent in the beginning of the week, just like 10 percent in the beginning of the week, no difference. And the text message from the kids was just as effective as 20 percent plus loss aversion -- which is amazing, right? It's amazing how motivating messages from kids were. And one conclusion is we don't use kids enough.
那麼實際的情況如何? 每週發提醒訊息一次 有很大的幫助。 好消息! 這個計畫長達六個月。 人會健忘,有提醒是很好的。 週末提供 10% 有較多的助益。 金錢的獎勵有用。 週末提供 20% —— 跟 10% 一樣,沒差。 一週開始時提供 10% 比較有助益。 損失規避有用。 一週開始時提供 20% 和一週開始時 提供 10% 一樣,沒差。 孩子發的訊息效果等同 20% 搭配損失規避—— 很驚人,是吧? 孩子發送訊息帶來的動力讓人吃驚。 其中一個結論是, 我們應該更善加利用孩子。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And, of course, I don't mean in a child labor sense. But if you think about parents and their kids, we are the best that we can for our kids, and we think about the future, and I think we should think about how to use that amazing source of motivation to get parents to behave in a better way.
當然,我不是指童工的那種利用。 但,如果想想父母和他們的孩子, 我們會為孩子盡力做到最好, 我們會去想未來, 我認為我們應該想想 如何利用這麼棒的動機來源, 來讓父母做出更好的行為。
But the big surprise of this study was the coin. The coin basically doubled savings compared to everything else. And now the question is: Why? What was it about the coin? So I'll tell you how I started thinking about the coin, and then we'll come back to it.
但這項研究中最大的驚喜是硬幣。 和所有其他策略比,硬幣 造成的存款幾乎都有兩倍。 問題是:為什麼? 硬幣有什麼特別的? 我先告訴大家,我如何 開始發想這個硬幣策略, 接著再回來談。
So you know, when I do research on, let's say, buying coffee, I don't need to go anywhere. I can sit in my office. I've bought enough coffee. I know how it works. The details, I'm familiar with. When you do research in some of the poorest places in the world, you have to go and visit and see what's going on and get some insight about how the system works. And on that particular day, I'm in a place called Soweto in South Africa, and I'm sitting in a place that sells funeral insurance. You know, in the US people spend crazy amounts of money on weddings? In South Africa, it's funerals. People spend up to a year or two years of income on funerals. And I sit in this place -- by the way, before you judge the South Africans as being irrational with this, I just want to remind you that spending a lot of money on funerals compared to weddings, at least you know for sure you only have one.
比如,當我做買咖啡的研究時, 我不需要去任何地方。 我可以坐在我的辦公室。 我買過太多咖啡。 我很了解、熟悉所有細節。 當你在世界上最貧窮的地方做研究時, 你得要親自造訪看看那裡的狀況, 深入瞭解它的體制是如何運作。 某一天, 我在南非一個叫做索韋托的地方, 我坐在一個販售葬禮保險的地方。 你們知道在美國大家 會花大把鈔票在婚禮上? 在南非,是花在葬禮上。 那裡的人會花一、 兩年的收入在葬禮上。 我坐在這個地方—— 順道一提,在各位評斷南非人 在這件事上很不理智之前, 我想要提醒各位, 比起婚禮,在葬禮花上大把的鈔票, 至少你能確定一生就只會辦這一次。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
OK, so I sit in this place that sells funeral insurance. And this guy comes in with his son -- his son is about 12 -- and he buys funeral insurance for a week. It will cover 90 percent of his funeral expense only if he dies in the next seven days. Right? These are very poor people, they buy small amounts of insurance and small amount of soap and such. And he gets that certificate, and in a very ceremonious way, he gives it to his son. And as he gives it to his son, I think to myself, why the ceremony? What is this father doing? Now, think about the breadwinner that decides on that particular day to direct some money into insurance or savings. What is the family going to see tonight? They're going to see less. Right? At that level of poverty, there'll be less food, less kerosene, less water -- something less tonight. And what his father was doing and what our coin was trying to do is to say, yes, there's less food on the table, but there's another activity. You see, what happened is, there are many good, important economic activities, like savings and insurance, that are invisible. And now the question is: How do we make them visible?
好,我坐在這個銷售 葬禮保險的地方, 有個人帶著大約 十二歲的兒子進來, 他購買了一週的葬禮保險。 那大約能給付他 90% 的葬禮開銷, 前提是他要在接下來的七天內死亡。 這些人非常貧窮, 他們買非常小額的保險 , 非常小量的肥皂等等。 他拿到那張證明, 用非常儀式化的方式交給他的兒子。 他交給他的兒子時, 我心想,為什麼要這儀式? 這位爸爸在做什麼? 想想看這位賺錢養家的人, 在特定的一天決定要把一些錢 拿來買保險或存起來。 這家人今天晚上會看到什麼? 他們會看到「變少」了。 是吧?窮到這種程度, 表示食物、煤油、水都會變少—— 今晚會有東西變少。 這位父親在做的事,也是 我們的硬幣策略在做的事, 是在說:沒錯,桌上的食物變少了, 但還有另一個活動在進行著。 這個狀況是:有很多很好、 很重要的經濟活動, 比如存錢和買保險,都是隱形的。 問題是:我們如何讓它們被看見。
So let's go back to our rocket model. We have to, first of all, look at the system and see where there's little things we can fix, with friction, where is there that we can remove friction? And then the next thing we want to do is to think broadly about the system, and say: What other motivations can we bring in? And that's a much more difficult exercise, and we don't always know what would work best. Is it going to be money? Is it going to be loss aversion? Is it going to be something that is visible? We don't know, and we have to try different things. We also have to realize that our intuition sometimes misleads us. We don't always necessarily know what would work the best.
我們再回到火箭模型。 首先,我們得要去看體制, 和摩擦力有關的阻礙, 有哪些小地方是我們能修補的? 哪些摩擦力是可以除去的? 接著,我們需要從 更廣的角度來思考體制, 問:我們還能帶入什麼動機? 這部分困難許多, 我們不會都知道什麼方法最有用。 會是錢嗎?會是損失規避嗎? 會是看得見的東西嗎? 我們不知道,我們得要做不同的嘗試。 我們也得知道,我們的直覺 有時會誤導我們。 我們不見得知道什麼是最有效的。
So if we think about this gap between where we could be and where we are, it's a really sad thing to see this gap and to think about it. But the good news is, there's lots we can do. Some of the changes are easy, some of the changes are more complex. But if we'll attack each problem directly, not by just providing more information to people but trying to change the friction, add motivation, I think we can ... Can we close the gap? No. But can we get much better? Absolutely, yes.
所以,若去想想我們能做到 和已做到這兩者間的差距, 看著並思考著這個差距 會讓人非常感嘆。 但好息是,我們能做的很多。 有些改變很容易,有些則比較複雜。 但如果我們能直接攻破每個問題點, 不僅只是提供大家更多資訊, 而是試著改變摩擦力,加強動力, 我認為我們能…… 我們能消除差距嗎?不能。 但我們能變得更好嗎?絕對能。
Thank you very much.
非常謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)