Changing people’s behaviour is tough. Or you can be cynical like Dr. House and believe that “People don’t change. They may want to. They may need to.” but they never change. If you do want to however, sell something or manage a change program; you do need to believe that people will and can change and it is important to persuade them.
Seth Godin writes about the many ways of doing it:
Here’s the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else.
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Hmmm 10-fold tax increase on something would persuade most of us to change behaviour, no? How about 100-fold increase? By the way, I find it amusing that every time someone says we’re unlike every other species for some reason, sooner or later I bump into a researcher that has proven the claim wrong… Animals are far more similar to us than we realize, much less accept. They feel pain, use tools, are social, have languages, can count, feel sadness and something similar to friendship, you name it. They certainly make decisions differently from one another. Any pet owner would know. There is no distinct difference – we’re merely different in many ways to varying degrees, just like any other animal out there.