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my research looks at how people can
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overcome Temptation and how they can
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achieve their goals particularly in the
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domain of health so how can people do
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things like exercise more eat healthier
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food and make and keep the medical
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appointments that they know are in their
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long-term best interest so let me give
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you a little bit um more specific
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information about what I study uh first
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study I wanted to mention to you is a
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study I did to look at um the power of
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planning prompts or prompting people to
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form a plan about exactly when they'll
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follow through on and engage in a good
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behavior like getting a flu shot or a
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colonoscopy and we found that when
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people are prompted to just write down
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the date and time when they'll get a flu
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shot we see dramatically higher rates of
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follow-through this also works with
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colonoscopies so one of my studies shows
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the power of planning prompts I have
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another study that I really like that
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looks at the power of Fresh Starts what
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do I mean by a fresh start well there
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are moments in our lives that feel like
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the start of a new era the start of a
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new cycle like the beginning of a new
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week the beginning of a new month the
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beginning of a new year following a
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holiday or following a birthday and
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following those kinds of Fresh Start
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moments people actually are more
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motivated to follow through on their
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goals so we see that people search more
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for the term diet on Google we see that
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people go to the gym more frequently
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following those Fresh Start moments and
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we also see that they create more goals
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both health and health irrelevant goals
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on a goal setting website and then a
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third study that I think is sort of
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Representative of of this line of work
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looks at an idea I call Temptation
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bundling the idea is simple um imagine
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that you really struggle to go to the
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gym you don't have the willpower at the
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end of a long day and imagine you also
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have a thing for a trashy TV show let's
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say Breaking Bad um well you feel a
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little guilty watching Breaking Bad when
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you should be doing other things so how
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do you solve these two problems well
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what if you only let yourself watch
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Breaking Bad while you were exercising
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at the gym you'd stop wasting time at
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home watching this TV show that you feel
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guilty about and you'd start craving
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trips to the gym at the end of a long
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day to see what happens in the next
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episode not only that you'll enjoy your
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workout and You're Breaking Bad episode
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more combined because you won't feel
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guilty watching that episode and time
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will fly while you're exercising at the
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gym so those are three representative
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examples of my work on how we can get
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people to achieve their goals and
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overcome
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Temptations the key takeaways are sort
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of a number of tools that you can use to
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try to help yourself or help others
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follow through on their goals so one key
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takeaway is that whenever you want to
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help somebody follow through on a goal
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um one thing you should do is actually
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prompt them to think about exactly when
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and where and how they'll accomplish
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that goal by prompting them to think
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through those things even if they do it
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privately and don't ever tell you their
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plans you can help them reduce the
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likelihood they'll actually forget to
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follow through because now there's this
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cue embedded in their memory that's
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going to trigger the recollection oh
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this is when I'm supposed to this is the
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moment I said I do it this is when I'm
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supposed to go to the gym and also makes
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it harder for them to procrastinate
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because now they're putting off
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something they explicitly said they do
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rather than kind of a vague intention so
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planning prompts are one way um people
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can really help one another uh increase
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goal follow through another practical
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implication of my work is it suggests
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that you may want to encourage people to
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follow through on their goals at Fresh
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startart moments if you're thinking
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about when should I remind my employe
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about this objective that she wanted to
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meet for instance or he wanted to meet
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um the best time may be after after a
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fresh start so at the beginning of a new
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week month year following a birthday a
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work anniversary or even at a moment you
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could frame to them as a fresh start for
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some reason it's the start of a new
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project for your team for instance so
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those are a couple practical
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implications and then Temptation
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bundling of course suggests that you can
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just encourage people to bundle their
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Temptations with things that they know
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they should do so for instance as we
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talked about earlier um you know
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bundling and engaging audio novel say or
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TV show with exercise or you could only
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allow yourself to say get a pedicure
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when catching up on over do work or to
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uh watch your favorite TV show at home
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when catching up on some household
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chores or listening to your favorite
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music while catching up on chores so
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those are a bunch of different practical
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implications of my
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work one thing I found really surprising
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was how huge the demand was in a study I
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ran for Temptation bundling so in this
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study we asked participants in our study
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if they' be willing to pay us um to take
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away a possession they could otherwise
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use freely an iPod we'd given them as
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gift that was pre-loaded with ATT
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tempting audio novel of their choice and
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lock this possession they could
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otherwise use freely at the gym so they
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could only access it when working out so
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we thought you know not that many people
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will find it attractive to pay us to
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take away something they could otherwise
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use whenever they want and in fact more
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than 60% of our participants said oo
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sign me up that sounds great and they
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wanted to give us money in order to take
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away this tempting possession so it
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could help them exercise more so that
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was one really interesting I thought and
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surprising and exciting finding I have
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another one that's kind of funny my
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other surprising finding is actually in
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the research I did on Fresh Starts also
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in a study looking at gym attendance and
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what we found in that study one of many
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things we found in that study is that
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people are more likely to go to the gym
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in the months following a birthday than
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in the months preceding it so following
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this fresh jart event now interestingly
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that's true for every birthday that was
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in our data set except one notable
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birthday and that's the 21st birthday uh
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you know when we first found this we
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were a little surprised and then pretty
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quickly we realized maybe there's a
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reason for that maybe that's not so
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bizarre after all but that was that was
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something that stuck out at us as
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interesting in our
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findings well one thing that
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organizations could do is simply use
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planning prompts whenever they want to
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encourage follow through and a good
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behavior so they could prompt people to
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Think Through the where when and how of
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engaging that behavior and that's likely
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to increase takeup another thing they
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could do is try to provide tools to
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facilitate temptation bundling so for
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instance at their gyms they could offer
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to um have a subscription available to
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Netflix that you could log into and
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watch your favorite show pick up where
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you left off they could hold your iPod
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and a locker for you so that you could
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pick up listening to your favorite audio
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novel where you left off on your
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previous visit those would be a couple
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of examples of things organizations
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could
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do well one story that's been in the
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news quite frequently is America's
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obesity epidemic and a lot of my res
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Arch provides tools that people can use
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to try to overcome The Temptations that
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often lead us to gain weight like
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failing to exercise frequently enough or
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eating healthy
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foods I think one of the main
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misperceptions these studies topel is
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that there's not a lot you can do if
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you're say overweight or in debt or
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haven't achieved the educational goals
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that you hope to achieve what these
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studies say is that there are indeed
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tools you can use and strategies you can
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employ and that your friends can
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actually help you as well and your uh
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your colleagues as well as your family
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by uh using those tools providing those
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tools to help motivate you to achieve
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your
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goals a lot of This research that I've
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done and that I've described to you
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today is actually really new so no one
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had ever looked at Fresh Starts before
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so that's sort of wildly new no one had
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ever looked at this idea of Temptation
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bundling um the one set of studies that
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uh that overlap a little bit more with
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past work are the studies on planning
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prompts so people had looked at the
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power of planning prompts in the F in
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the past and what sets our work apart um
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is sort of two things one a lot of past
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studies involving planning prompts
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actually involved um face-to-face
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contact or contact over the phone with
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someone who asked you to walk through a
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plan and what we actually did is sent a
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simple mailing you never interact with
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another person you're simply prompted to
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write down the date and time when you
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plan to engage in a given behavior and
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so there's no social pressure that might
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be increasing the power of the planning
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prompt and we still see huge benefits so
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one of the things that we do is sort of
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isolate the fact that it's not something
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about social pressure it's just the act
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of forming a plan privately that can
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really increase and follow through we
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also do that study with a very large
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real population thousands of people
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looking at real flu shots whereas a lot
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of past Studies have looked at
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hypotheticals or
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self-reports I'm doing a lot of research
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right now looking at other ways we can
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encourage people to follow through on
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their goals and overcome Temptation one
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study that I'm particular excited about
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is a large field experiment looking at
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encouraging people to save more for
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retirement so we have about 30,000
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people and in our experiment we're
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encouraging them all to sign up to take
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money out of their paycheck and send it
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to their 401K now some people are
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offered the opportunity to do that to
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start having the money move in the
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future at a fresh start moment so say
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following a birthday or following New
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Year's whereas other people are also
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offered the opportunity to do it in in
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the future but at a fairly arbitrary
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date and what we're hoping oping is that
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um our hypothesis will be confirmed
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which is that people will be more
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motivated to save and enroll in these
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retirement savings programs following
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fresh start dates and that that will be
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a strategy that can then be employed
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more
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[Music]
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widely
