Kahneman: Drive behavior change by reducing friction rather than increasing motivation
Daniel Kahneman · Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You · Jul 22, 2025 · at 20:41
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains Kurt Lewin's equilibrium model of behavior change to Shane Parrish.
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“Kurt Lewin's insight was that this is not what you should do. You should actually work on the restraining forces and try to make them weaker, and that's a beautiful point, and he showed, he had that image that, you know, I've had since I was an undergraduate, and I'm not sure actually whether it was his image or something that I drew from reading him, but It's like you have a plank, and it's being held by two sets of springs. You know, you want it to move one direction, and so you could add another spring that would push it that way, or you could remove one of the springs that are holding it back. And the interesting thing, and that's the striking outcome, is when it moves, If it moves because of the driving force, you've added to the driving force, then at equilibrium, it will be in a higher state of tension than it was originally. That is because you've compressed wet spring and such pushing back harder. But if you remove a restraining force, at equilibrium, there'll be less tension in the system.”
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