Designing an Environment Project

Project, Pages 6 (1310 words)

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The behavior that I would like to encourage is more awareness of, care about, decision to engage by taking action against human trafficking.

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Human trafficking is an issue that most are aware of, but it is easy to not pay attention to the issue, feel like it is a problem bigger than we can solve, or that “normal people” cannot really change. There needs to be a greater awareness of human trafficking, more care for those experiencing it, and we should work harder to understand the horrifying realities of this issue and engage in the fight against human trafficking. The three techniques that I would use in my three ways of designing an environment that nudges and encourages this behavior is with social norms and System 2, emotions, and contrasts along with framing and anchoring.

The first way that I would design an environment to encourage people to be aware of, care about, and to actively engage in the fight against human trafficking is by creating a place and platform for serious and thoughtful discussions about human trafficking and how to stop it.

This could be done by creating places and times designated for these discussions, or holding an extended conference where guest speakers can come and people can learn about and converse about these issues. This would help to raise awareness and create solutions. In social cognition, this is extremely effective because it utilizes the idea of social norms and purposeful System 2 thinking. It has almost become a social norm to be aware of but not truly think about human trafficking because it slides to a less important pressing of our mind due to being busy and seeing other things as more important.

We tend to use a quick System 1 response to human trafficking, and we think that we cannot change anything by ourselves. It doesn’t seem “real” sometimes because many times we have not seen it ourselves or know people in places where human trafficking is a very real and dominating part of society. The purpose of designing this environment is to change that social norm to one where everyone in the environment has a deep care for those being trafficked, and a calling to help them in any way they can. This changing of social norm would be done by intentionally making people use their System 2 to deeply think about human trafficking. The social norm of this environment would be one where people want to be more aware of and engaged in working against human trafficking, where people are purposely aware of the horrifying realities and passionate to take action. These places and platforms could also have guest speakers and organizations that could come and tell people all the ways that they can help and get active in organizations and NGOS. This environment would establish a new and better social norm and make people use their System 2 thinking. The reason that this is powerful is that social cognition show us that people strongly conform social norms, so this would create more positive care, engagement, and action.

Secondly, I would design an environment by conducting simulations for people to experience a glimpse of human trafficking, which would make an emotional response and nudge people to take action after realizing they should be more aware of and care more about human trafficking. The reason I think this is a good technique is that in my senior year, our class went to Crossroads Foundation in Hong Kong and did some simulations, including the “Refugee Run” simulation. This intense 45 minute simulation involved seeing what the life of a refugee was like from their displacement to their family being separated, reaching the refugee camp and having no control or power, abuse and trafficking, vulnerability and lack of basic resources. It involved things such as loud sounds of “bombs” and the smoke, many army officers (actually just workers for Crossroads Foundation) shouting loudly in your face and even pushing you as they would a refugee, pointing their fake guns at people, choosing some girls to go to another sectioned off area, experiencing having to “survive” in the refugee camp by trying to get resources, and as I went through even just 45 minutes of something that is not even a tiny fraction as terrifying and traumatizing as real refugees experience, it was impactful. One reason is that even though you know it is just a simulation and that you actually have nothing at all to fear, there is a lot of emotional responses and fear nonetheless. Simulations are a powerful way to use emotion to make people change their decisions and what they care deeply about. Conducting similar safe simulations that lets people see and have a greater understanding of the situations and feelings of people who are in human trafficking and would be an effective way to nudge them in certain directions. This is because we learned about how emotions have a huge impact upon our decision making, and that when we are under the influence of our emotions, our decisions will significantly change. Ariely even described it as if we have two different parts of us, one that has no emotional influence and the other that is a result of the emotional influence. We also learned how fear is an extremely persuasive emotion, and these simulations would let people experience some small fear, and after they are told that it is not even close to what people in real human trafficking experience, they would be inclined to take action against it. Additionally, even the emotion of guilt that might result because we were previously unaware of how serious the issue is, would be helpful because guilt is a prosocial emotion that causes people to be more willing to help. Additionally, we learned about the power of gratitude, which can also be used to inspire action. If after the simulations, you were reminded of how Christ died to give us life and to save us, you would be more inclined to act out of thankfulness and do things that would please him, which includes deeply caring about his people, specifically those in human trafficking.

Lastly, I would design an environment by using advertisements to raise awareness and ask for people to make donations and help in other ways by using framing, contrasts, and anchors. These advertisements would be placed in public places or asked directly to people to nudge them to aid against human trafficking. We learned that contrasts are powerful and change how we value things, and I would use the power of contrasts by placing advertisements in public areas of nice cities and places so that people see that there are people in the world who, in contrast to where the audience is then, are having basic human rights removed and being sold and exploited. This powerful contrast would make them see how different our life is and would nudge them to help. Framing could be used in a way that is similar to what we learned in class. For example, when asking people to help in a certain way or make a donation to an NGO or other organization, I would frame the question in a way that makes them more likely to choose to help or donate. For example, in class we learned that losses hurt us more than gains feel good; therefore, when asking them to donate I would frame the question to emphasize how we can work to help prevent losses of lives and hurting of people in human trafficking. The question could also be framed by first asking if they would do something that they would say no to because it is too much effort, and then by asking a more “reasonable” question of asking them to donate or take a smaller action. This would make them more likely to donate or do that smaller action.