Environment and Behavior

One of the things I remember from the university where I studied is that the bathrooms were always pristine. To keep them so, they were cleaned more than once a day. The classrooms were also always clean. There was no littering around the campus. Once I watched how our faculty’s dean spotted some piece of paper on the floor and picked it up to drop it in the nearest garbage bin.

Because bathrooms were clean, students kept them clean when they used them. Because classrooms looked neatly arranged when students used them, the classrooms were still in good condition when they left. Because there was no littering, people didn’t drop garbage on the floor but in the garbage bin.

The contrast with the rest of the city was stark.

The environment has a huge impact on our behavior. We can design the environment we need to achieve great results, both for us and for others. Sometimes we think we need more willpower when what we need is a better-designed environment.