Episode 670: Your Environment Is Coaching You
In 2012, Google noticed its employees were eating too much candy.
Rather than lecturing them about nutrition or appealing to their willpower, a team of behavioral scientists did something much more interesting. They moved the M&Ms.
In this episode I use Google's Project M&M, in which simply placing candy in opaque containers led to 3.1 million fewer calories consumed in seven weeks with nothing forbidden, to make the case that behavior follows design rather than intention. Your environment is making certain behaviors easier and others harder before you make a single conscious decision. The…
The skinny
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