How to Change Behavior

Abstract

I have been doing experiments in social psychology for about 30 years—basic research, mostly in the laboratory, trying to figure out how to influence people, what motivates people to change under controlled laboratory conditions. My early experience convinced me that, in doing laboratory experiments, the most important difference between a successful experiment and an unsuccessful experiment is the attention to detail. The details of the experiment are extremely important. The way one creates an independent variable, the way one measures the dependent variable, the construction of a sensible scenario that engages the subject—the details are extraordinarily important.