Productive behaviors are actions that foster digital thriving. Developers who care about digital thriving should take steps to promote productive behaviors throughout the entire life cycle of their products.
- Productive behaviors make digital thriving possible and are good for business.
- “Productive” is not exactly another way of saying “positive.”
- Productive behaviors are not about carrots-and-sticks.
What are productive behaviors?
Productive behaviors are the kinds of actions you want to see in digital spaces. They help bring out the best in individuals, groups, and communities.
Productive behaviors include:
- Amenability — Balancing personal interests with a dedication to a group or community.
- Assertiveness — Protecting the integrity of the whole (self, group, or community).
- Creativity — Producing something that is both original and useful.
- Inclusion — Cultivating a sense of belonging and empowerment.
- Mastery — Getting increasingly better at something challenging.
- Prosociality — Acting in ways that benefit others.
- Resilience — Withstanding hardship or challenging situations.
- Sociability — Forming and maintaining healthy relationships of various types and intensities.
Are we talking about “positive” behaviors? Not entirely.
Calling productive behaviors “positive” would paint an incomplete picture. They produce positive outcomes after overcoming negative feelings and circumstances. In other words, productive behaviors are positive things to do, but they don’t always feel that way.
Mastery means work, amenability requires compromise, assertiveness takes courage, and so on. Thriving comes from overcoming negativity on the way to a possibility. The outcome is positivity.
Productive behaviors make possibilities possible.
This is why productive behaviors are at the heart of the Digital Thriving Playbook: They’re directly responsible for making digital thriving possible in individuals, groups, and communities.
Are we talking about “carrot and stick?” Preferably not.
The term “carrot and stick” refers to an (arguably outdated) method of using rewards and punishments to promote desired behaviors and discourage unwanted ones. Use of this term can be a sign you’re heading in the wrong direction. Why? Because the “carrot and stick” method treats behavior as something to either bribe or penalize, instead of looking at what really drives behavior: situation and motivation.
The “carrot and stick” method is only moderately effective, and it only works decently for short-term, simple tasks. Digital thriving, however, is a long-term outcome best produced through a mix of intrinsic motivation, good social situational design, and some external rewards.
What do productive behaviors mean to developers?
Productive behaviors will increase the likelihood that people will stay in your digital products. How? Productive behaviors help people thrive, and people tend to stay where they thrive.
To foster productive behaviors, developers should consider:
- Your values — If your company doesn’t value productive behaviors, you aren’t likely to support them well.
- Intrinsic motivation — Don’t give people busywork, give them tasks they feel good about completing. Internal rewards are more powerful than external ones.
- Situational design — Undesired behavior is quite often due to situational factors. What is your design doing to produce undesired behaviors?
- Proactive design — Systems that induce productive behaviors are tough and expensive to retrofit onto finished products. Begin thinking about them early in your game’s development.
- Measurement — Determine what productive behaviors you want to see and how you’ll know you’re seeing them.
What do productive behaviors look like?
Not an exhaustive list, the following are examples of productive behaviors from the categories listed above:
| Success signs | Warning signs | |
| Individual | Friendliness Confidence Defends self and others Speaks up Adopts group norms Practices deliberately | Antisocial actions Lack of confidence Adversarial to others Refusing to speak Inability to conform Cuts corners |
| Group | Values dedication Welcomes strangers Resolves group conflicts Consistent membership Cooperates Compromises | Encourages cheating Not open to new group members Regular in-fighting and blame High member turnover Lack of cooperation Inability to compromise |
| Community | Diversity of engagement High-value on craftsmanship Adapts to new situations Has paths to reducing skill gaps All groups can safely engage Seeks fairness and growth | Exclusionary practices Values “good enough” Resists change Has widening skill disparity High percentage of antisocial groups Uses resilience to excuse injustice |
Now what?
Continue reading about other kinds of behavior in Introduction to Disruptive Behaviors.
