How the fresh start effect bias motivates (and inhibits?) behaviour.
The pressing urge to reset your goals at the start of a new year; the motivation to assess finances at the beginning of every month; and the newly-found confidence to promptly work through your to-do list as a new week begins, all have in common something that can be described in a few words - the fresh start effect.
The fresh start effect defined
Biases, as we know, are irrational, subconscious beliefs which influence our decision-making processes. The fresh start effect bias is our tendency to behave in a goal-attaining manner once some temporal landmark kicks in. We are more likely to behave in ways that move us towards meeting our goals at the onset of ‘new beginnings’. From a psychological perspective, the separation of our old selves from our current selves makes way for a clean mental slate on which better decisions can be made. Fresh starts effectively afford us the opportunity to better ourselves.
How does this bias affect us?
I’m unashamed to admit that my birthday - which also happens to fall at the onset of the Spring season - is a key temporal landmark for me. It is the start of my personal new year which prompts me to get on with my major health checks and set new goals. Coupled with the entrance of a new season, this temporal landmark comes with a profound sense of new beginnings for me.
In their study of this evidently powerful bias, Dai et al. (2014)* found that temporal landmarks such as birthdays and the beginning of new weeks, months and semesters are associated with increased visits to the gym and Google searches which incorporate the term “diet”.
The researchers investigated how these landmarks prompt aspirational behaviours that assist people in reaching personal goals. Given the perceived time discontinuity that temporal landmarks create, we are able to disconnect ourselves from previous behavioural blemishes which are at odds with how we see ourselves. The temporal discontinuity shifts our focus away from seemingly insignificant day-to-day details towards bigger-picture thinking. As a consequence, aspirational behaviour is favoured.
“...temporal landmarks such as birthdays and the beginning of new weeks, months and semesters are associated with increased visits to the gym and Google searches that incorporate the word 'diet'.”
The fresh start effect in practice
In the world of applied behavioural science, the fresh start effect is often used to the point of exhaustion as a means of nudging better financial, health and education-related behaviour (for the benefit of both consumers and corporates). Financial institutions encourage consumers to save and budget for the new month ahead, and gyms tend to offer discounts on memberships or personal trainer services at the start of the new year. An important caveat to note though, is that the effectiveness of this bias in the applied world may hinge on the choice architect’s understanding of the nudgee’s meaningful temporal landmarks (my birthday 😉).
While the fresh start effect bias generally seems to have positive consequences, what lies on the flip side of the coin? Given that fresh starts encompass the separation of one’s old poorly-behaved self from their new and improved self, what happens to us if we come out of successful periods ahead of our temporal landmarks?
In contexts where performance is reset at a new temporal landmark, previous strong performances may result in detrimental future performance through decreased commitment and lowered motivation.** Just a few weeks ago, a win from my netball league match left me feeling unmotivated to train the week following the win!
In looking into this bias, I came across an article by Psychology Compass that provides a few tactics for how we can use fresh starts to our advantage. Resonating with me most is their third recommendation … tunnel your vision when you are most susceptible to the effect in order to focus on current success only.
Can you think of other useful ways to make fresh starts work for you?
* Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis (2014); The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
** Hengchen Dai (2018); A Double-Edged Sword: How and Why Resetting Performance Metrics Affects Future Performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 148 (2018) 12–29
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