1. Behaviour change:
Untangling theory
Presentation by
Fiona Spotswood
Senior Lecturer
in Marketing and
Behaviour
Change, Bristol
Centre for
Leadership and
Change, Bristol
Business School
October 3rd 2017

3. Behaviour change
• Growing emphasis in policymaking, academic and commercial
research
• Not a single field - multiple approaches
• No silver bullet, but vested interests and political tensions
• Interdisciplinarity not rewarded in academia
• Innovations come in many forms
• Theory
• Technology
• Collaboration
• But academia and government can be silo-ed.

4. No Silver Bullet
“Although we acknowledge that further applied research at a population level is
needed, we also found that the available evidence supports a number of
conclusions. Our central finding is that non-regulatory measures used in isolation,
including "nudges", are less likely to be effective. Effective policies often use a
range of interventions.
“We concluded that it is important to consider the whole range of possible
interventions when policy interventions are designed. We place particular
emphasis on this conclusion because the evidence we received indicated that the
Government's preference for non-regulatory interventions has encouraged officials
to exclude consideration of regulatory measures when thinking about behaviour
change. Though there is a lack of applied research on changing behaviour at a
population level, there is other available evidence that the Government need to
use to better effect. We were therefore disappointed to find that, although we
received some examples of evidence-based policies, such as policies on energy-
efficient products and smoking cessation services, we were also given many
examples of policies that had not taken account of available evidence, including
policies on food labelling and alcohol pricing”.
House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, 2011
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldsctech/179/17902.htm

5. Interdisciplinarity
• Multiple agencies?
• One problem being tackled in different ways?
• Multiple theories?
• One approach incorporating multiple theoretical
approaches?
Multi-disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity, trans-disciplinarity…
Understand your
theoretical assumptions
about behaviour change

6. Social
Psychology Sociology
Behavioural
Economics
Assumptions: 3 schools of theory

7. Social
Psychology Sociology
Behavioural
Economics
Three different views of people
Individual as
social animal
Individual as
predictable
man
Individual as
actor

8. Psychological models
• Social psychological models are the most commonly
understood bedrock of behaviour change
• Individual makes choices, based on various influences
• Factors inc.
– Values, beliefs, attitudes
– Norms
– Agency
– Habit
– Affect

9. Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (1985)
“For the most part, social change is thought to
depend upon values and attitudes (the A),
which are believed to drive the kinds of
behaviour (the B) that individuals choose (the
C) to adopt” (Shove, 2010: 1275)
Shove, E 2010, 'Beyond the ABC: climate change policy and
theories of social change' Environment and Planning A, vol
42, no. 6, pp. 1273-1285. DOI: 10.1068/a42282

10. Triandis’ Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour
(1977)

11. Sociological approach
• Study of social phenomena in which people are involved, rather than
people doing things and making decisions
• Individualist approaches “have often not been as effective at creating
change as has been expected or hoped… [and]… come with a range of
concerns regarding issues of inclusivity, scalability and the ethics of
intervening in an individual’s private space” (Chatterton and DECC, 2011).
• Socially-oriented approach
– Provide a useful framework for understanding the complexities of structures and processes that
generate certain practices and hold them in place
– Incorporate multiple stakeholder and approaches to change

12. Practice Theory 101
• No fixed Theory of Practice, but collection of writings gathered by eg.
Schatzki (1996) & Reckwitz (2002), Shove et al (2012), new book edited
by Hui et al. (2017)
• For Shove et al, three principal elements can be identified in “open, yet
fundamentally contingent” practices:
– Materials (‘things’; also necessary infrastructure)
– Competences (skills and ‘know-how’; procedures)
– Images (also ideas and interpretations)
“A ‘practice’ (Praktik) is a routinised type of behaviour
which consists of several elements, interconnected to
one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental
activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background
knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how,
states of emotion and motivational knowledge”
(Reckwitz 2002: 249)

13. materials
objects
competence
procedure
skill
images
symbolic
meanings
Elements (Shove 2008)
• Human social life is organised by
patterns of practices.
• People perform practices and are the
crossing point of multiple practices.
• Practices die when they aren’t
performed, and evolve when they are.
Changes in any elements, and in
neighbouring practices can create
practice change.

14. Do I have to choose one?
What was all that stuff
about interdisciplinarity?

15. GSR Behaviour Change Knowledge
Review (Darnton, 2008)

16. Enter The Toolkit
• Models of Behaviour and Theories of Change are both
conceptual devices – ‘theoretical’ – saying something about
how behaviours happen, and change
• Tools and Techniques are overtly ‘practical’ – step by step
how-to guides - often conflating analysis (why) with actions
(what): factors become levers
• But all of them come from somewhere (some from several
places – interdisciplinary), and are better suited to some
problems/purposes than others

17. ISM (Darnton & Evans, March 2013)

21. ISM Principles of Change
For substantive and lasting change:
i) Work in multiple contexts
ii) Draw on multiple disciplines
iii) Involve multiple stakeholders

22. 1. Identify
policy
area and
owner
2. Owner
defines the
problem
3. Define
audience
and
behaviour
4.
Behaviour
lit review
5. ISM
internal
workshop
6. What
works lit
review
7.
Assemble
working
group
8. ISM
external
workshop
9. Draft
intervention
workplan(s)
10.Run it
and
monitor
it
11.Report
on pilot
results
12.Prepare
biz case for
roll out
PLAN
PROTOTYPE
PILOT
ISM as a Process (5 Steps)
MAP IT ONCE (OR TWICE)
CONVENE A WORKING GROUP
MAP IT AGAIN
PULL LEVERS
CHECK BACK

23. So this is a specific
problem behaviour, not a
problem ‘phenomenon’ –
this is important.

24. • Wanting to get Drunk
(‘determined drunkenness’)
INDIVIDUAL
Values, Beliefs, Attitudes
Emotions
Agency
Skills
Costs & Benefits
Habit
• Perfectly Rational: Price per Unit
• Time Efficient: drink while getting
ready (esp. female)
• Context of student fees/loans:
hardworking ‘professionals’ who
work late then go out
• Once drunk, everything is
less rational
• (Note ‘Discounting’ effects:
booze worth a lot late at
night/when drunk – and early
evening calculations about
‘cost per unit’ go out the
window)
• Fun! Pre-drinks ‘in’ often
more fun than the night ‘out’
• Belonging to your group who
prink together
• Prinking habits learnt/established
pre-Uni
• Prinking a habit/routine across
society (u-30s?)
• Habit of rotating venues around the
group (‘share the mess’)
• Prinking Know How (where to
meet, how to co-ordinate the
group, where to get cheap
booze etc)
• Getting ready skills (while
prinking) [esp. female]]
• Drinking game skills (to get
loaded faster) [esp. male]
• Retailer knowledge: where
booze is cheapest
• Believing you are able to
plan your
drinking/drunkenness
ISM applied to Student Pre-Drinking
i) Individual Factors

25. SOCIAL
Norms
Roles & Identity
Opinion
Leaders
Networks &
Relationships
MeaningsInstitutions
Tastes
• Being a student
• Fitting in to your friendship group
• Being a first year
• Being a home student (assume hard
drinking? Certainly more so than
international students)
• Student norms around
drinking (perceived vs
actual? – NB hard
drinking probably more
visible than low/non
drinking, so more salient
as a ‘descriptive norm’)
• Prinking as the norm for
every night out
• Prinking later
• Staying out later
• Pre-drinking as
gendered? prinking
(esp. female) and pre-
lashing (esp. male)
• Bars and Clubs (with own
cultures & ‘rules’)
• ‘SciBars’ (themed evenings
involving academic-style
presentations)
• ‘Takeovers’ (exchanges
between clubs and societies)
• ‘Prinking’ (and in contrast
to eg a house party)
• ‘Drinking’ ie. to get drunk
• Drinking out as safer than
drinking in (if in
Union/linked venue)
• ‘Safe drinking’
• ‘A good night out’
• Friendship group
• Formal affiliation to clubs.
societies
• Leaders of sports/clubs and
societies (can do block deals eg.
to incentivise early entry)
• Co-ordinators of friendship groups
(who prink)
• Leaders of ethnic/interest student
communities (eg. Chinese;
allotment/growers)
ISM applied to Student Pre-Drinking
ii) Social Factors

26. MATERIAL
Infrastructure
ObjectsTechnologies
Rules &
Regulations
Time &
Schedules
• Supermarkets, corner shops
• Pubs, bars
• Clubs (Union-linked or not, sometimes ‘rogue’)
• Alcohol free (smokefree) halls/accommodation
• No minimum price per unit
• No licensing hours
• Smoking, Drugs (less illegal at home)
• Drinking games rules inc. forfeits
• Supermarket home delivery (& Dial-a-Drink)
• Social media (eg. to organise prinking
time/place)
• Cheap Booze (from off trade)
• (24 hr) Supermarkets
• Staff in bars and clubs (decide if
you’re sober enough to get in, if you
get served, and what happens when
you leave)
• Prinking in the 7 till midnite slot (may also involve food/eating)
• Club hours: empty at 11, busy from midnite, open later
• Spontaneity: often don’t end up going out at all
• Synchronise getting ready and prinking [a few hours – esp.
female]
• Seasonal events (eg. Chinese New Year) as opportunity for
themed events and group celebrations (in Union venues)
ISM applied to Student Pre-Drinking
iii) Material Factors

27. ISM applied to Student Pre-Drinking
• NUS Alcohol Impact comprises 21 Universities
o 7 ‘Partnerships’ in 2014-15 (HO funded)
o …plus 14 in 2015-16 (self funded)
• Designing an ISM intervention a mandatory criterion
• Interventions include…
o Brighton = pancakes
o Royal Holloway = breathalysers
o Leeds = ‘Fruity’ club night
• All multi-dimensional, multi-stakeholder, eg. Brighton
o inc. Wednesday pre-drinks pancakes
o Partnership with Red Frogs
o Results include: fewer incidents in Freshers Week,
new collaboration with Sussex Uni, first years
staying at Halls not going on to West St

28. ISM applied to Student Pre-Drinking
NUS Alcohol Impact at Brighton University

29. Your turn!
• Choose a behaviour to work on
• Map it
• Decide on your priority areas
• Identify key stakeholders
• Plan interventions

30. • Map the
behavioural
problem
• Decide on your
priority areas
• Identify key
stakeholders
• Plan
interventions

31. Conclusions
• Check your assumptions
• Work towards transdisciplinarity
• Use the tools

32. Thank you!
ISM User Guide
www.gov.scot/resource/0042/00423436.pdf
ISM Technical Guide
www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00423531.pdf
www.andrewdarnton.co.uk