The Fogg Behavior Model

In 2007, BJ Fogg, PhD,  a Behavior Scientist at Stanford University, solved an important puzzle about human behavior, and called it appropriately the “Fogg Behavior Model."  As Behavior Based Safety is such an often discussed and important topic in the safety industry, we thought looking at this model from that perspective might be interesting.

​Fogg’s expressed his model as: 

​B=MAP

The solution is deceptively simplifies and shows that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt. When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing. Fogg maintains that you can learn to think about behavior in this way in two minutes and that it applies to all types of behavior, in all cultures, for people at any age. It's universal. 

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The Fogg Behavior Model supposedly makes it easier to understand behavior in general. What was once a fuzzy mass of psychological theories now becomes organized and specific when viewed through the FBM. 

​The FBM highlights three principal elements, each of which has sub-components. Specifically, the FBM outlines Core Motivators (Motivation), Simplicity Factors (Ability), and the types of Prompts.

Motivation:  There are three Core Motivators: Sensation, Anticipation, and Belonging. Each of these has two sides: pleasure/pain, hope/fear, acceptance/rejection. 

Ability:  In order to perform a target behavior, a person must have the ability to do so.

Prompt: Tells people to “do it now”. Without a Prompt, the target behavior will not happen. Sometimes a Prompt can be external, like an alarm sounding. Other times, the Prompt can come from our daily routine: Walking through the kitchen may trigger us to open the fridge. 

From a safety perspective let’s assume that your various motivators are in place, and all the necessary training to ensure ability is ongoing. At that point the safe behavior will not happen unless you have some kind of prompt. To do so, you need to ask people to do simple things. Once achieved, the simple behavior then opens the door to harder behaviors.

This may be an oversimplification of FBM, but it seems that it can all start with simple communications, with prompts toward more and more safe behaviors using positive reinforcement at each step of the way. 

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