Can an app change human behavior? This behavioral economics professor is banking on it

Mashable:

Whether personal or professional, change is hard. And the cumulative data is not on our side.

Take something obviously detrimental, like smoking. A mere 4% to 7% of people successfully quit without the aid of medication or outside help. Even experiencing a traumatic event — like the death of a loved one or being diagnosed with cancer — only leads to a 20% success rate.

Not to be a killjoy, but as the Washington Post found, roughly 25% of New Year resolutions fall apart within the first two weeks. And even when it comes to our work — where money’s on the line — “70% of [management-led] transformation efforts fail.”

So why is change such a struggle?

Dan Ariely, best-selling author of Predictably Irrational and professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, explains it like this:

“Usually when people approach solving problems, they think, ‘Let’s just give people some information and then they’ll make the right decision,’” he said.

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