Fogg Behavior Model

The Fogg Behavior Model is a universal way of thinking about the drivers of behavior change. According to the model, there are three main elements that are needed for a change to occur.1

1. Motivation: This is the desire to perform the behavior. A person’s motivation can vary from low to high, denoting the difficulty of the task they can handle. For instance, someone unmotivated may only be able to complete an easy task, while someone highly motivated may be able to complete a hard task. There are three core motivators:
2. Sensation: The physical pleasure or pain we experience. For example, the feeling of pleasure pushes us to continue doing something, while the feeling of pain makes us want to stop.
3. Anticipation: The emotional hope or fear we feel. For instance, the feeling of hope drives us to continue while the feeling of fear makes us avoid an activity.
4. Belonging: The experience of social acceptance or rejection. For example, a sense of belonging encourages us to continue while rejection is discouraging.
5. Ability: This refers to the ease or difficulty of performing the behavior. There are six factors that influence people’s ability: time, money, physical effort, brain cycles (mental effort), social deviance, and non-routine.
6. Prompt: This is the trigger or cue that initiates the behavior. Someone can be very motivated and have the appropriate ability to perform the behavior—but without a call to action, it is unlikely any change will occur. Prompts can appear in many different forms such as text, human speech, or AI-facilitated dialogue. Overall, there are three types of prompts:
7. Facilitator: When motivation is high, but ability is low, a facilitator can help by making the behavior easier to perform.
8. Spark: When motivation is low, but ability is high, a spark can boost motivation.
9. Signal: When both motivation and ability are high, something as simple as a signal can prompt the behavior.

It is important to note the compensatory relationship between motivation and ability. In other words, differing levels of motivation and ability can balance each other out. For instance, when motivation is high, ability can be low. So when a prompt appears, behavior change still occurs.

The Fogg Behavior Model is illustrated in the graph below.

The “action line” in the FBM graph represents the threshold at which behavior occurs. Behaviors above this line indicate sufficient levels of motivation and ability triggered by a prompt, while behaviors below the line lack one or more of these elements. The convergence of motivation, ability, and a prompt to produce behavior change can be summarized in the following equation:

 B = MAP

What makes the Fogg Behavior Model unique when compared to other theories of behavior change? One, it suggests that behavior comes from the converging presence of three elements. Second, the detailed outline of each element’s subcomponents highlights the specificity of the model. Finally, the model is useful for designing interventions and products that aim to change behavior from maintaining health behaviors to being active on a social media app.²

Motivation: The desire to perform the behavior, driven by factors such as pleasure/pain, hope/fear, and social acceptance/rejection.

Ability: The ease with which a person can perform the behavior, influenced by factors like time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine.

Prompts: The trigger that initiates the behavior, which can be a signal, cue, or reminder.

Behavior Change: The process of altering or modifying human behaviors. It includes a wide range of interventions and actions aimed at encouraging people to adopt new behaviors or stop existing ones. Behavior change is crucial in various fields from healthcare to environmental sustainability to organizational behavior.

Behavior Design: The process of creating environments, products, or interventions that intentionally shape human behavior by leveraging principles from behavioral science. It involves manipulating motivation, ability, and prompts to encourage desired actions and facilitate positive behavior change across various fields.

The Fogg Behavior Model was developed by Dr. BJ Fogg, a behavioral scientist at Stanford University. Although a major figure in the fields of behavior change and design, Fogg’s early work focused on persuasive technology. 

In 2009, Fogg shifted gears and began studying general human behaviors, particularly human health habits. This change in focus, along with his background in persuasive technology, led Fogg to propose the Fogg Behavior Model. It served as a framework for analyzing and designing human behavior in addition to simplifying and clarifying the mechanics behind behavior change. His ideas expanded and led to the creation of “behavior design,” a subcategory of the design field concerned with the way design can be leveraged to incite human behavior change. The Fogg Behavior Model is one of the theories of behavior change the field follows.

BJ Fogg: The inventor of the Fogg Behavior Model who is considered one of the pioneers of the study of behavior change. In his book Tiny Habits, Fogg details additional models and methods that comprise what he calls “behavior design.”

The Fogg Behavior Model has been applied to various fields and industries. Let’s take a look at just a few:

1. Product Design: The model has been particularly instrumental in shaping UX design principles. UX designers leverage the model’s insights to create user experiences and interfaces that effectively encourage behavior change. For instance, Fogg himself believed that long-term behavior changes can be achieved by applying the model through “baby steps.” The Nike Run Club app takes this into account by encouraging users to start with shorter runs and then steadily increase the length over time.³
2. Healthcare: The idea of balancing motivation, ability, and prompts has been used to design health interventions. An example would be the use of apps and programs for chronic disease management (find out more on this under “Case Study”).⁴ 
3. Public Policy: Social change organizations and governments also apply the insights gathered from the model to create public campaigns and initiatives that drive behavior change. For instance, behavioral interventions informed by the model saw an increase in human papillomavirus vaccine uptake amongst teen girls in Nigeria.⁵
4. Consumer Behavior: Businesses and their marketing campaigns make the most of the Fogg Behavior Model to carefully craft campaigns that influence consumer behavior. They champion the three pillars of the model to ensure consumers that the desired action is easy to perform, sufficiently motivated, and well-timed with appropriate prompts.

While the Fogg Behavior Model is a powerful tool for motivating behavior, it isn’t without its flaws. Here are some key limitations of the model:

1. Oversimplification: Boiling down behavior change into three elements may help us wrap our heads around its complexity but doing so also ignores other factors. There are many unconscious influences that have huge implications on our behavior.6 So, perhaps it is not always that we are missing one of the three elements if we don’t observe a behavior change, but rather there is something entirely different going on beneath the surface. Wider social and environmental influences also impact our behavior, but they are not adequately considered in the model.
2. Application: Due to its simplicity, those applying the model outside of the behavioral science sphere—such as product designers or policymakers—may neglect taking other factors into account, such as cognitive biases or emotional influences. By failing to consider the limits of our rationality,⁷ these applications may result in ineffective interventions.
3. Commercial exploitation: The goal of the Fogg Behavior Model is to strike a balance between motivation, ability, and prompts to produce behavior change—sometimes, without the knowledge of the person the model is being used on. Businesses can exploit these techniques in their designs for their own benefit, raising ethical concerns.⁸

For example, while using Instagram, you may have noticed a pop-up asking if you want the app to use your activity history to improve your ad experience. Two boxes are shown to indicate your options. In a dark black shade, there is the option to make ads less personalized and in the bright blue shade, there is the option to make ads more personalized. Here it is clear that Instagram is trying to deceive you to pick a certain option because making ads more personalized gives the app indirect permission to access your private activity data—which is extremely valuable for the company.⁹

The Fogg Behavior Model and Chronic Disease Management

We discussed earlier how the Fogg Behavior Model has helped guide how we design effective health interventions. One example is the creation of health messages for capABILITY, a mobile app for type 2 diabetes management.

A study conducted in the US aimed to examine the effectiveness of the app using a mixture of communication techniques—including insights from the Fogg Behavior Model. They wanted to see whether the theory-driven trigger messages were feasible in modifying self-care, self-efficacy, knowledge, and health behaviors in diabetes patients.¹⁰ The patients received either health messaging or no messaging as they interacted with the app. For example, some patients received the message, “Tracking your carbohydrates is EASY using the carb tracker in capABILITY.” The researchers found that the app made a statistically significant difference in patients’ self-efficacy and exercise frequency.¹¹ This suggests that communication derived from the Fogg Behavior Model may be a feasible means of encouraging healthy behaviors and attitudes in patients managing a chronic disease.

The Use of the Fogg Behavior Model in BeReal

BeReal is a photo-sharing app that took the Gen Z world by storm back in 2022. It was even chosen as the 2022 iPhone App of the Year. Essentially, users are notified any time once a day to post a photo of themselves within a two-minute window. The point is to share with your friends a glimpse of your authentic self. The limited time window and zero opportunity to edit the photo encourage just this. So, how does this app utilize the insights from the Fogg Behavior Model? Let’s break this down using the three pillars of the model:

• Motivation: What drives users to continuously use BeReal is staying connected with their close friends, inciting a feeling of belonging.¹² 
• Ability: Posting a BeReal is a low-effort way of staying in touch.¹³ All you need to do is respond to the BeReal notification, take a photo, and press “Send.”
• Prompt: The prompt comes as a daily notification from the app telling the user that they have two minutes to post a BeReal, urging immediate action.¹⁴

Dark Patterns

Dark patterns are deceptive design techniques used to manipulate users’ decision-making at their expense. They exploit psychological principles to encourage unintended choices in users. The Instagram pop-up we mentioned in the “Controversies” section is an example of a dark pattern. Ultimately, dark patterns erode users’ trust and raise ethical concerns about the way organizations design online experiences. Read more about it in this TDL article above.  

The COM-B Model for Behavior Change

We have long been theorizing ways to change our behaviors. In addition to the Fogg Behavior Model, the COM-B Model provides another take on the subject matter. It proposes that there are three necessary elements for any behavior to occur: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation, i.e. COM. While there are clear similarities with the Fogg Behavior Model, there are certain nuances highlighting key differences. Discover what they are in this TDL article.

1. Stanford Behavior Design Lab. (n.d.). Fogg Behavior Model. Behaviordesign.stanford.edu. https://behaviordesign.stanford.edu/resources/fogg-behavior-model
2. [see 1]
3. Canvs Editorial. (2020, November 5). Understanding Fogg behaviour model. Medium. https://uxdesign.cc/understanding-fogg-behaviour-model-dd2cc78e4a2
4. Sittig, S., Wang, J., Iyengar, S., Myneni, S., & Franklin, A. (2020). Incorporating Behavioral Trigger Messages Into a Mobile Health App for Chronic Disease Management: Randomized Clinical Feasibility Trial in Diabetes. JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 8(3), e15927. https://doi.org/10.2196/15927
5. Agha, S., Bernard, D., Francis, S., Fareed, A., & Nsofor, I. (2024). Determinants of Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Acceptance among Caregivers in Nigeria: A Fogg Behavior Model-Based Approach. Vaccines, 12(1), 84–84. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines12010084
6. Hreha, J. (n.d.). What is The Fogg Behavior Model In Behavioral Design? The Behavioral Scientist. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/glossary/fogg-behavior-model#:~:text=Limitations%20of%20the%20Fogg%20Behavior%20Model&text=The%20model%20assumes%20that%20behavior
7. [see 6]
8. Viozat, S. (2022, January 3). The toxic influence of dark patterns on our digital experiences. SQLI. https://www.sqli.com/int-en/insights-news/blog/toxic-influence-dark-patterns-our-digital-experiences
9. Morrison, S. (2021, April 1). Dark patterns, the tricks websites use to make you say yes, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/recode/22351108/dark-patterns-ui-web-design-privacy
10. [see 4]
11. [see 4]
12. Lin, H.-J. (2023, September 20). The Fogg Behavior Model: Definition, use cases, case study. LogRocket Blog. https://blog.logrocket.com/ux-design/fogg-behavior-model/#applying-the-fogg-behavior-model-in-product-design
13. [see 12]
14. [see 12]