Designing social tipping interventions: a systematic framework for scaling up behavioural change

Social tipping, the process by which a new behaviour spreads rapidly upon reaching a critical mass, offers a promising pathway for large-scale behavioural change. However, systematically designing interventions to trigger such tipping points remains a key challenge. This paper introduces a two-phase framework to guide researchers and policymakers in developing effective social tipping interventions. The first phase involves assessing the potential for social tipping by evaluating the prevalence of the target behaviour and the underlying preferences and social expectations that sustain it. We propose a method for eliciting individual thresholds for changing behaviour, distinguishing between conditional subjects (those who require social proof for changing behaviour) and unconditional subjects (those who are independent of others' decisions). The second phase uses the diagnostic information to inform strategic decisions about whom to target and how to intervene to activate the social tipping process. We analyze the trade-offs between targeting different subpopulations (e.g., amenable vs. resistant individuals) and propose a “stepping stone” approach that breaks down change into manageable steps, which can be particularly effective in populations with polarized individual thresholds. Taken together, our framework offers a roadmap for scaling up large-scale behavioural change through social tipping.