Why Big Ideas Fail to Change Culture: The Science That Works

Using behavioral science to design culture shifts that actually stick

Everyone loves a vision statement, until it asks them to do something different. That’s why most change fails. A school launches a literacy campaign, but teachers don’t get better materials. A district promotes academic rigor, but quietly lowers the expectations. Some leaders talk about change, but they double down on the existing systems. Ideas don’t change cultures, but reinforcement does. Right now, we’re watching this unfold globally. The Israel–Iran conflict isn’t just a clash. It’s a collision of cultural contingencies, practices that have been shaped, reinforced, and transmitted across generations. What may seem like escalation is the predictable outcome of each group’s long history of reinforcement.

Each side’s behavior has been selected over time by consequences (military success, political gains, historical narratives), reinforced by communities, leaders, and global allies, and transmitted from one generation to the next through schools, rituals, and media. This analysis isn’t about equating ideologies. It’s about understanding the science behind deeply entrenched cultural behaviors, so we can start to ask what might shift them. It is the same science that explains why smoking declined, why public health campaigns fail or succeed, and why your district’s initiative died after the professional development day. Cultural behavior only sticks when it's reinforced.

The Cultural Science You’ve Never Been Taught

We often think cultural change happens because someone declares a new mission, unveils a new plan, or launches a bold initiative. Cultures don’t shift just because of ideas. They shift for the same reason individual behavior does, through variation, reinforcement, and transmission. First, there has to be variation: a new behavior, expectation, or norm introduced into the system. Then, that behavior must be reinforced by social, emotional, political, or practical consequences, or it dies out. Finally, for any new behavior to become cultural, it must be transmitted. That means it must be modeled, taught, and passed on repeatedly across people, generations, and settings.

This process doesn’t just explain changes we’ve experienced, such as declining smoking rates or shifting dietary norms. It also helps us understand why classroom practices don’t change after a single professional development session, why school initiatives often fade by October, and even why large-scale conflicts on the global stage persist generation after generation. Cultural behavior is just behavior. It sticks when it’s reinforced.

Why So Many “Big Ideas” Fail

The reason most initiatives fail, whether in schools, companies, or governments, is that they skip the science. They focus on what should be done instead of understanding what people do, and why. Culture isn’t just belief. It’s behavior: repeated, shared, and shaped by consequences. This is why people wear seatbelts, quit smoking, or recycle, not just because they believe it’s good, but because doing so is embedded in their environment, and reinforced by laws, norms, or feedback loops. It’s also why your school’s literacy push didn’t work: if teachers aren’t given better materials, if the reward for doing something new is more stress or less support, nothing changes. The same applies to nutrition campaigns, climate policy, or any initiative that asks people to behave differently. You can’t wish or warn your way into a new culture. You have to shape it.

Why “Buy-In” Isn’t Enough

We’re often told that change starts with “buy-in.” But in behavioral terms, buy-in without reinforcement is just agreement without action. The research backs this up. A 2024 study published in Evolutionary Human Sciences makes this point clear: it’s not conformity or environmental fit that sustains cultural practices over time, it’s norm reinforcement. That means the reason some traditions last (even when they’re inconvenient, costly, or seemingly irrational) isn’t because they’re popular, logical, or even functional. It’s because people are reinforced positively or negatively for sticking with them. This explains why change doesn’t stick when the old behavior is still rewarded or even tolerated, and the new one isn’t. The study goes further, norm reinforcement doesn’t just preserve culture, it can create new cultural differences. When groups come into contact, they may diverge to protect their identity. Reinforcement doesn’t just freeze culture, it also shapes it, sometimes in ways we don’t realize.

What does change culture?

Here is a quick framework that I find helpful, which is rooted in the science I am talking about. Next time you're faced with a failed initiative, whether in a school, an organization, or a broader system, ask yourself three key questions. First, what was the new behavior? Was it actually something different, or just a rebrand of old practices? Second, what reinforced it? Did people receive meaningful, desirable outcomes for engaging in the new behavior, more time, stronger relationships, recognition, or relief from stress? And third, who modeled and transmitted it? Was this new behavior consistently demonstrated by leaders, peers, or trusted voices, and was it taught, prompted, or embedded across various settings and time periods? If any of these elements are missing, the culture is likely not to have shifted because behavior doesn’t stick without all three: variation, reinforcement, and transmission.