Lecture 1 Flashcards
What are many societal, health and wellbeing, and organizational issues dependent on or influenced by?
Human behaviour
What can have a big impact on societal, health and wellbeing, and organizational issues?
Behaviour change techniques
What are health behaviour determinants?
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Motivation
- Environment
Knowledge as a health behaviour determinant
Knowledge
- About health
- About what healthy behaviour entails
- About consequences of behaviour
Skills as a health behaviour determinant
- Self-regulation
- Obtaining knowledge
- Impact on behaviour
- Impact on environment
Motivation as a health behaviour determinant
- Intrinsic motivation
- Incentives
Which is an example of intrinsic motivation and which is an example of incentives?
- If people don’t like to behave healthily, it becomes much more difficult for them to behave healthy.
- If people don’t like to behave healthily, it becomes more difficult to influence certain incentives that there might be for healthy, but also for unhealthy behaviour.
Intrinsic motivation: If people don’t like to behave healthily, it becomes much more difficult for them to behave healthy.
Incentives: If people don’t like to behave healthily, it becomes more difficult to influence certain incentives that there might be for healthy, but also for unhealthy behaviour.
Environment as a health behaviour determinant
Cues for behaviour
- May trigger certain behaviour
Social support
- Plays a role if people want to change their behaviour
Complexity (complex to navigate)
Some core theory concepts
- Intention
- Automatic behaviour
- Norms
Intention
- Intention-behaviour gap
o That people want something, doesn’t mean that they’re actually going to do it. - Self-regulation
- People who have a better self-regulation have a smaller intention-behaviour gap.
Automatic behaviour
Habits
Impulse
- This doesn’t change if you give someone more information
Nudging
- This does not focus on more information but on automatic behaviour
Norms
Injunctive
- What should we be doing according to others
Descriptive
- What you see other people doing
Who makes interventions?
Psychologists but also a lot of other people.
What should you look at when researching interventions?
It is important to look at who made an intervention and with what aim.
What do interventions target?
Interventions don’t always target the actual determinants.
For example:
- Providing information/education/knowledge
- Telling people what to do
- Trying to scare people into behaving a certain way
o This can work but it’s not advisable to do because it’s way too complex to get it right
Effective behaviour change
Assumption: Attitude => Intention => Behaviour
What are the following examples of?
- ‘Yelling at medical personnel is wrong, I should not do that’ => aggression decreases
- ‘Underage drinking is dangerous, so let’s not do that’ => drinking behaviour decreases
- ‘Snacking on sugary and fatty foods in unhealthy, so I will no longer do that’ => consumption and body weight decreases
The assumption of effective behaviour change
Theory of planned behaviour
Attitude + subjective norm + perceived behavioural control => intention => behaviour
This theory assumes intention has a direct arrow to behaviour. But if you have a model with arrows, the effect is being diluted with each level.
Meta-analysis on intention-behaviour association (Webb & Sheeran, 2006)
Successful interventions lead to medium to large effects on intention, and small to medium effects on behaviour. From all the intentions that you form, only 28% directly corresponds to the behaviour. If you do everything intentional you wouldn’t have time for anything else.
What are the moderators of the meta-analysis on intention-behaviour association (Webb & Sheeran, 2006)?
- Control
- Habit
- Impulse
- Social context
What do environmental cues trigger based on previously learned associations?
- Habits
- Impulses
- Goals (sometimes conflicting)
- (Social) norms
How do environmental cues trigger social norms based on previously learned associations?
Injunctive norms
- (Perceived) expectancy of what others think of your behaviour; what you ‘ought’ to do
Descriptive norms
- What do others do?
- Descriptive norms are strong predictors of behaviour, because we want to belong.
You don’t have to be aware of this, most of the time it goes automatically.
(Anti-) social norms
‘Broken window theory’ (Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008)
- If your environment signals norm transgressive behaviour, it’s more likely that you will display that behaviour.
o “If no one adheres to the rules, then why should I?” - Does the visible ‘breaking’ of certain rules result in norms shifting in slightly different behaviour?
- 33% vs 69% drop their flyer on the ground in the non-graffiti condition vs graffiti condition.
o People (sub)contionally look at the behaviour around them, and if they see visible rule breaking they are more likely to do so themselves.
The first step in intervention development
Look at the underlying questions
- What are determinants of the behaviour?
- Under which conditions does the behaviour take place?
- What process guides this behaviour?
- Focus on attitudes and intentions?
- Focus on norms, context cues, associations, habits?
Theory-driven interventions
With the help of the underlying questions, available knowledge, system and structure we are able to create more theory-driven interventions.
By systematically using available knowledge and theory about human behaviour, better and more effective interventions can be designed and implemented.
System: PATHS method
System: PATHS method
- A guideline for the process of an intervention.
o It doesn’t tell you anything about behaviour per se but it does show which steps to take if you want to build an intervention. - It gives you a structure.
- A general approach that can encompass different intervention methods.
PATHS (abbreviation)
- Problem – identifying and defining the problem
- Analysis – developing theory-based explanations
- Test – developing and testing a process model
- Help – developing an intervention
- Success – evaluating an intervention
o The S was added later on
P – Problem definition
Identifying and defining the problem.
You have to define the problem in such a way that you can work with it for the rest of the process.
A process withing a process: From problem to problem definition.
What should the problem in the problem definition phase be?
A concrete, applied problem for which psychological theory can offer a solution
- If it’s not applied in the sense that it’s something that really urges a solution but just an explanation, it can be difficult to analyze and to intervene.
What is the end product of the problem definition phase?
A pragraph describing and defining the answers.
What questions should the paragraph at the end of the problem definition phase of the PATHS answer?
- What is the problem?
- Why is this a problem?
- For whom is this a problem?
- Who is the target group?
- Can you already think of some possible or potential psychological causes that might be interesting to explore?
A – Analysis
This is a big part of the expansion development process.
Using theory to analyze the problem.
Start by specifying an outcome variable that you want to focus on.
Make sure that it is a behaviour, attitude, and/or emotion.
At the end of the analysis there is a list of potential explanations and variables that are important for the outcome variable.
What should the outcome variable in the analysis phase of the PATHS be?
- Relevant to the problem
- Specific
- Measurable
o (Ideally) continuous
o Something that can increase or decrease as a result of your intervention (so not a yes or no question)
T - Test
Developing a process model
- From outcome (right) to identified causes (left).
- There can be interactions and thus moderators.
Reinforcing/undermining arrows can be positive or negative.
Testing the process model.
What is the pocess of testing the process model in the testing phase of the PATHS?
Zoom in on each of the arrows
Support each arrow with the literature review
- Provide e.g., effect sizes, changeability
‘Test’ each arrow in your process model with literature review or your own research.
H - Help
Developing your intervention.
Channel: how will you reach the target group?
Methods: theory-based methods for behaviour change.
Application: operationalized methods tailored to the context.
A complex process can lead to a simple intervention
As long as you have a good evidence base, the intervention can be anything.
Many behaviors are guided by ‘heuristics’, or behavioral rules of thumb.
Non-information based interventions can target these heuristics.
Framing is the best technique to influence a heuristic.
Examples of simple nudging interventions
- A small but full plate looks like a full portion, while the same portion on a large plate might not.
- You switch milkshake labels from regular and low fat to high fat and regular.
S- Success
Evaluating your intervention
- Effect evaluation
- Process evaluation
Effect evaluation
You look at the effectiveness of your intervention by looking at the outcome variable.
Process evaluation
You look at how your intervention was implemented, what the people thought of it, etc.
