[MUSIC] A significant revolution occurred in Egypt in 2011. Characterized mainly by demonstrations and other forms of non violent protests. The 2011 protest in Tahrir Square, perhaps the most memorable moment in the revolution, look like a sudden spike in behavioral change. In truth, it was preceded by progressive change in personal beliefs that were not made public. As discussion was probably limited to small groups of dissenters. There was a progressive accumulation of collective unrest and dissatisfaction with the old regime that finally found a voice in the Tahrir Square protest. The very act of protesting is a costly signal powerful enough to convey the idea that dissenters are committed to change. As was the case with the civil rights movement, the media eventually amplified the effects of the protest by disseminating information that the uprising was happening. The progressive change in personal normative beliefs, that is, an increasing disapproval towards the police brutality, lack of democratic elections, and a lack of free speech under President Hosni Mubarak. And the updating of normative and empirical expectations facilitated by the media, sufficiently motivated Egyptians citizens to coordinate a collective change. A continuous progressive change in personal beliefs manifested as a discontinuous shift or series shifts in behavior. This figure is different from the one we saw in the previous video. Here, you still see and s shaped continuous curve, but it does not represent behavioral change. Instead, it represent the percentage of people who through time, change their personal normative beliefs about a particular norm. The change may initiate slowly but then acquires momentum as more and more people are convinced that change is necessary. Now, look at the top of the s curve. Here, almost 100% of the population have change beliefs about a norm. Yet, this does not mean that 100% of people will act. For a long time, we may not see a change in behavior. And only when enough people have change their personal normal beliefs, there will be a spike. Appearing as a sudden abandonment of the social norm by the majority of it's former adherence. Note, the different majority of individuals care about the norm that is have high norm sensitivity, believe change will probably be very slow and you may not take the shape of an s curve. I will discuss this case later in this lecture. What I want to stress here is that the curve that represents belief change will look different from the one that represents behavioral change. In the lecture about tools for change, we explore various ways in which individual beliefs factual and normative can change. I've also pointed up that belief change especially when dealing with special norms is not sufficient to induce behavioral change. Individuals want to be reasonably sure that their choice to abandon standing norm will not be finalized. A spiking behavioral change therefore occurs when a mechanism that coordinates empirical expectations that is our believes about each other actions is in place. So what induce a majority of people to change behavior? What causes this panic? What sort of coordination mechanism can help achieve behavioral change? The Media will play an important role in coordinating empirical expectation as they inform about the change in behavior as it happens in real time. It is not only important to know that deviant behavior exists but, at the same, to know that thousands of people who watch television or listen to the radio are aware that change is occurring. A Trusted government mandate is also coordination device due to his public character. Another way to build trust that indeed changes occur is a public commitment that he is promising to abandon the old practice and to adopt a new one. A public commitment may be very effective if it is made with people we know. And with whom we have repeated interactions. We are motivated to standby what we agreed to, lest our reputation be tarnished. Nothing will convince others about the death of our commitment like a costly signal. In communities were promises are honored, such commencement are empowered for tool to generate trust that changes coming. When we trust that other people will abandon an old practice and adopt a new one, we are functionally changing our empirical expectation about the future behavior of members of our reference network. Changing empirical expectation lessens the grip of normative ones and norm change will follow. Many NGOs report witnessing massive public declaration where several villagers pledge conformity to a new behavior. As a result, the new normative expectations were created about how many members of one's referenced network approved of the newest establish behaviour. Public commitments when successful are effective way to coordinate people's expectation that change will come. >> In the communities where people have singed onto the abundant LGC. When a family goes against the pledge or the declaration and cuts a girl, then the opposite happens. That family now is ostracized. Nobody wants to visit them. They'll not even come to the celebration, if they have one. Neighbors will not come and congratulate you on cutting your girl, because it's a collective decision. We are not cutting the girl and you've gone against it. It's important that we see a lot of people in the community openly declare that they are not going to cut their daughters for it to translate into general change. So it's important that lots more people openly come out and say that, we stand for not cutting our girls. So that others will see that, yes, it's okay not to cut your daughter. >> Coordination, however, is rarely perfect. Either the message may not last long enough, or it may be heard by only a part of the population. Or there may be some doubt about the legitimacy or truthfulness of the signal. An imperfect coordinating mechanism may induced part of population to initiate new behavior. But these behavior, when of inadequate magnitude, maybe too costly for people to sustain. The figure you see tells a common story of imperfect coordination. Like in the previous figure, the change in personal normative believes is gradual, and change in behavior is discontinuous. Change here takes place at intervals that represent the working of coordinating mechanisms. We may observe some change and then a decline until some new coordinating device is implemented. In this respect, norm abandonment can be quite fragile. This process may continue with stops and starts for a relatively long time until the majority has moved along. The step y function will represent how coordinating signals may only induce some partial change. When the signal ends, even some who were convinced to change, may revert to their old ways. Realizing that not everyone coordinated on the signal. New persistent signals will be needed to drive that population to sustainable change.
