Content

Changing human behavior is at the heart of solving global problems central to well-being, social cohesion and environmental sustainability. For example, preventing obesity, pollution and waste of resources and improving cyber security and economic stability all require behavior change at individual, organizational and population levels. Government and public bodies, charities and commercial companies now routinely seek to integrate Behavior-Change research within their policies and practices in areas such as health, environment and transport.

While changing people’s behavior is an important aim for policy-makers, healthcare providers, organizational psychologists, safety specialists, people tackling environmental challenges, educators, researchers, etc., the task is most often a challenging one. Deeply ingrained behavioral patterns are often hard to change, and the same is true for one-off behaviors where one is working against a strong psychological, social, or environmental gradient.

The aim of this course is to provide a practical guide that facilitates the design and evaluation of behavior change interventions. No practical guide can of coarse do without solid theory. In that sense, we will adhere to Kurt Lewin’s words ‘there’s nothing as practical as a good theory’.

When designing an intervention, it is important to follow a systematic approach that allows for an intervention to be developed with the highest likelihood of success. Despite this perhaps seeming obvious, there are still a plethora of interventions that are developed simply using a common-sense model of behavior and without a systematic method (i.e., many interventions seem to be designed according to the ISLIGIATT-principle of intervention design[1]). While such interventions may be successful and may even be those that have the highest probability of success, these outcomes would be largely driven by chance rather than method. Moreover, although it is recommended to use theory when developing complex interventions, many behavior change interventions are still developed without a systematic method or theoretical basis and do not take into account existing evidence. This is the case in many areas in which behavior change interventions are frequently introduced (e.g., health, safety, environmental, etc.) and may lead to many interventions being not, or less, effective. However, theory provides a scaffold for intervention development from being an evidence based source for understanding the behavior of interest and possible leavers of change to allowing a systematic evaluation of the intervention outcomes. Because there are an abundance of behavior change theories (a recent systematic review identified 83), intervention developers require guidelines for how to select a theory that is appropriate for their behavioral problem and/or setting.

The proposed starting point for this course is The Behaviour Change Wheel, which is a recently developed framework that provides intervention designers with a comprehensive, coherent, and universal toolkit that can help overcome the problems outlined above. It represents a concise way of linking a model of behavior to a range of intervention functions to change behavior, linking, in turn, these intervention functions to policy categories that can facilitate each intervention function.

A provisional table of contents for this course: In progress

1.       A general introduction on behavior and behavior change

1.1.    Why change?

1.2.    Towards a model of behavior: What determines our behavior?

1.2.1. A simple model: COM-B

1.2.2. A comprehensive, theory-informed approach identifying determinants of behavior: The Theoretical Domains Framework

1.3.    The plethora of behavior change theories

1.4.    Some classics: 10?

1.4.1. Transtheoretical model of change

1.4.2. Theory of planned behavior

1.4.3. (selection 3 from list of 83 theories – Information-motivation-behavioral-skills model?)

1.4.4. Social cognitive theory

1.4.5. Health belief model

1.4.6. (selection 6 from list of 83 theories – Self-determination theory?)

1.4.7. (selection 7 from list of 83 theories)

1.4.8. (selection 8 from list of 83 theories)

1.4.9. (selection 9 from list of 83 theories)

1.4.10.   (selection 10 from list of 83 theories)

1.5.    Behavior change theories versus determinants of behavior versus behavior change techniques.

2.       Using the Behavioral Change Wheel to design interventions

2.1.    Understanding behavior

2.1.1. Step 1: Defining the problem in behavioral terms

2.1.2. Step 2: Selecting the target behavior

2.1.3. Step 3: Specifying the target behavior

2.1.4. Step 4: Identifying what needs to be changed

2.1.5. Identifying what needs to change using the Theoretical Domains Framework

2.2.    Identifying intervention options

2.2.1. Step 5: Identifying intervention functions

2.2.2. Step 6: Identifying policy categories

2.3.    Identifying content and implementation options

2.3.1. Step 7: Identifying behavior change techniques

2.3.2. Step 8: Identifying mode of delivery

3.       Case studies:

3.1.    A case study on health promotion

3.2.    A case study on an environmental issue

4.       What is a behavior-based safety approach and how does it fit within this framework?

5.       Inside the Nudge Unit - Behavioral Insights Team.

5.1.    Behavioral economics & the ‘nudge’

5.2.    More than simply a ‘nudge’?

5.3.    Some success stories and some failures.

Course material

Slides: Toledo

Handbook: Michie, S., Atkins, L., & West, R. (2014). The Behavior Change Wheel: A Guide To Designing Interventions. Silverback Publishing.

Format: more information

Lecture and assignment