Third week into the New Year, it maybe that some people are struggling to meet the resolutions they have made this year. The last time the Social Weather Station (SWS) reported on the fulfillment of resolutions was in 2019. About 10 percent of those who made resolutions were able to fulfill them. In the same report, 67 percent of those surveyed no longer made any resolutions, so, effectively, the 10 percent came from the 33 percent who made some kind of resolution. The 67 percent who did not make resolutions were higher than the 53 percent in 2017. The survey does not have details on what kind of resolutions Filipinos make. In other platforms, we find that the most common resolution that people make has to do with losing weight, exercising or eating healthy. In a 2015 article, US News reported that 80 percent of those who made resolutions in January have given up by the middle of February or just six weeks after. The percentage is large and can more or less approximate the reasons why an increasing number of Filipinos are making less resolutions. It looks like a universal challenge in our modern society. However, as we are still in the middle of a pandemic and with most people still spending more time at home, it is possible for those who made resolutions this year to pull through a higher percentage.
According to the same US News article, the reason for giving up on resolutions has to do with the failure to see the objective in the mind. In short, it is not played well, not planned well and therefore not executed well. Resolutions involved change of behavior, activities and actions and therefore will face some kind of “emotional friction” as we are to give up habits in order to change. Forbes magazine in an article on January 12 also added into this discussion and suggested that since change is complicated, we must think of realistic goals, start small, develop habits and track them. Researchers from Stockholm University also studied 1,066 people and found that those who framed their resolutions positively, e.g., I will wake up early (approach goal) vs I will avoid sleeping late (avoid goal), are 59 percent more successful in meeting them. These are good advise and give people a lot of handle to think about. However, we still need to operationalize them and make them workable in our context, especially with the pandemic. I believe many of the resolutions made this year still have to do with personal growth, financial and family goals.
Making resolutions is mainly in the realm of psychology. However, Economics can help “nudge” them into fulfillment using the most basic Economic principle called incentive. A branch of Economics that has been gaining attention recently, called Behavioral Economics, has been studying how people respond and react to the environment where choices are being given. Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics in the last decade are Behavioral Economists—Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, Robert Schiller, among others. Their work has helped design policies and institutions in order to lead to behavioral change.
CNN recently reported on the research of Erika Kirgios of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School on successful behavior change. Her research focused on the idea of temptation bundling, which is basically creating parallel incentives to nudge people to do something. She surveyed 6,000 members of a fitness club, 1/3 of whom were given audio book and were advised to use it during exercise, another 1/3 were just given the audio book and the other 1/3 were not given. The result was that those in the first group were 10 percent to 14 percent successful in meeting their weekly exercise goals. Her study points to the power of clear incentives in behavior change.
There can be a lot of variations to make this work. I have come across a social experiment in a documentary show some years back where people eating in a restaurant are to put their phones in an elevated box of the dining table in front of their seat. Those who eat without tinkering with their phones will eat for free and those who respond to their phone’s call and text messages will have to pay double their bill. The experiment showed that majority held off the temptation, only two people did not. The company of people experiencing the same incentive also helped the others hold off the temptation to get their phones.
This simple example shows that for those trying to lose weight this year as a resolution, it will be good to plan it well like this. Set a realistic weight loss of 2 pounds a month and get a partner who has the same objective. Set a regular time for exercise and identify foods you will eat more. Each time that you fail to meet your schedule or ate the wrong food, you are to donate a fixed amount to something you do not like. This simple incentive mechanism, if properly executed, can help behavior change. If it can be done individually, we should consider the power of doing this for a vast number of our national behavior that requires change, like crossing the street.