Behavioural change wheel

The behavioural change wheel is a visual guide that psychologists use to understand the factors that affect behaviour. As part of behavioural science, it shows three main sections that can be used to explain how behaviours can be leant and changed. There have been 19 other models to show behavioural change, however, the behavioural change wheel is thought to be the most accurate as it uses all the previous models.

The inner circle of the wheel (often green) shows the sources for behaviour: capability, opportunity and motivation, which make up the core features of our behaviour. They, also, make up the model’s main equation: COM = B (capability, opportunity and motivation = behaviour). The model explains that everyone’s behaviour is dictated by their capability, opportunity and motivation; however, these can also be changed over time.

The next circle within the behaviour change wheel (often red) contains the intervention functions that can affect and change the core sources of behaviour: education, persuasion, incentivization, coercion, training, restriction, environmental restructuring, modelling and enablement. Each of the functions have the ability to change a person’s behaviour in different ways, however, they can all change at least one of the sources for behaviour.

The third, and final, part of the behavioural change wheel is the policy categories (often grey) which form the outer-most circle of the model. The policies are the factors that enable the interventions, and consist of: environmental/social planning, communication/marketing, legislation, service provision, regulation, fiscal measure and guidelines.

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