Influencing Behaviours and Practices to Tackle Poverty and Injustice

Convinced that effective behaviour change strategies can play a vital role in combating poverty, injustice, and environmental degradation - whether by helping end gender-based violence, improving health and hygiene behaviours, or reducing resource-intensive consumption patterns - Oxfam developed this paper to help practitioners understand how to change behaviour and practices from a range of different viewpoints. It draws on learning from theory and practice to provide practitioners with an understanding of the range of influences that shape different behaviours at individual, group, societal, and system levels. With a view to going beyond information provision and awareness raising, it suggests a menu of possible behaviour change interventions and highlights the need for resources and skill-building. The paper may be relevant for practitioners involved in programming, humanitarian, influencing, and campaigning work, as well as for government officials and donors.

This paper is designed so that practitioners can dip in and out of the sections that interest them:

• Section 1 provides an introduction.
• Section 2 highlights why behaviour change is relevant to the work of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs).
• Sections 3 to 7 review (a) the different individual, group, societal and system-level influences - including power and gender relations - that shape human behaviours and (b) associated interventions. Each section includes case studies and ends with a summary of practical considerations for the design of behaviour and practice change strategies. The practical considerations, which are informed by or inferred from the theories, are suggestions for consideration, adaptation, and testing, rather than definitive recommendations.
• Section 8 provides a summary checklist of the different theories, influences, and associated interventions reviewed in this paper.
• Section 9 outlines key steps in planning a behaviour change strategy and interventions.

In brief (see pages 46-47 for a table that summarises theories, influences, and practical considerations/interventions):

At the individual level:

• The theory of rational choice, which underpins many government behaviour change interventions, emphasises the role of individuals' internal decision making processes on behaviours. It assumes that we are autonomous, rational, and self-interested and that individuals' preferences are based on their attitudes, beliefs, and expectations, etc. The practical focus here is on: information, price signals, and legislation.
• Socio-psychological behavioural theory emphasises the role of individuals' internal decision making processes on behaviours. It emphasises that we often act unconsciously or irrationally and points to unconscious mental short cuts and habits, mental models (values and frames), emotions, self-concept, agency and intentions, time, and choice architecture. Mothers' emotions about nurturing their children were, for example, found to be a powerful motivator for promoting handwashing with soap in an Oxfam project in Nepal. The practical focus here is on: careful use of framing and narratives, public goal setting and commitments, feedback, starting where people are, prompts and environmental cues (nudges), and addressing practical barriers.

At the interpersonal/group/institutional level: Theories (social norms, social learning, social identity and reference groups, organisational change, and institutional) emphasise that humans are social - rather than totally autonomous - beings, highly influenced by peers and role models, social identity and reference groups, and institutional cultures and practices. The practical focus here is on: use of attractive messengers and champions; norm appeals (social proof); safe, informal, interactive, group-based action and learning; organisational change processes; and changes to institutional cultures and practices. Even just simply communicating that other people are behaving in certain ways - social norm appeals - can be powerful. One experiment increased the recycling rates of hotel towels by adding a message to their signs saying that most other guests recycled.

At the structural/societal level: Theories (policy change, technological and economic, sociological and cultural, socioeconomic, and social networks) emphasise how individuals' behaviours are shaped by external societal/structural influences that are largely beyond their control. A South African health campaign, LoveLife, realised that HIV/AIDS among youth was driven more by disenfranchisement due to high unemployment, gender inequality, and low self-esteem than lack of awareness of health risks. It increased youth use of condoms and reduced the number of their sexual partners by involving them in health, education and employment programmes, along with festivals, sports, and other recreational activities. The practical focus here is on: influencing policy (e.g., via advocacy and campaigning), addressing other practical barriers to participation, combining bottom-up critical awareness and mass information and social marketing campaigns, and using social networks to spread new behaviours.

At the system level: Theories (positive deviance, social practice, and transition theory) emphasise how behaviours are embedded in wider systems made up of different system elements that interact or co-evolve to constrain or enable behavioural change. The practical focus here is on: (i) identifying, pioneering, and promoting desirable behaviours and strategies by (a) disseminating them through social networks and shared learning processes; (b) influencing government and other organisations to adopt, fund, support, and promote them; and (c) identifying and changing key structural influences or system elements that constrain change. (ii) identifying, implementing, or catalysing a mix of mutually reinforcing change interventions by different actors at different levels and sectors to address the different influences. For example, the Cool Biz campaign - introduced in Japan in the summer of 2005 - reduced the use of office air conditioning, and hence carbon emissions, by changing clothing customs rather than environmental awareness raising. The campaign got government staff, including the prime minister, to model a new casual dress code at work. As the dress code didn't involve a suit or tie, offices were able to turn down the air conditioning, hence lowering carbon emissions.

At a cross-cutting level: Theories (power relations, and gender theory) hold that power and gender relations cut across, and are relevant to, all levels and influences. The practical focus here is on: strengthening individual agency (power within) and collective capacity (power with); ensuring interventions address visible, hidden, and invisible power; conducting risk assessment and risk management; and ensuring access to relevant services.

From a practical perspective, the different theories and change interventions can best be understood as complementary. In addition, the selection and design of an appropriate strategy or tactic will depend on the issue, local context, and capabilities (time, skills, resources) of an organisation. Nevertheless, the following insights can be drawn from this review:

• Information provision and awareness raising have a useful role to play in influencing behaviours, particularly when carefully framed and delivered by "attractive" messengers. Even just simply communicating that other people are behaving in certain ways - social norm appeals - can be powerful.
• However, on its own, information is likely to have only modest effects on deep-seated or habitual behaviours, as people are influenced by a range of other influences at individual, group, and societal levels.
• Interventions also need to address social and group influences. Interactive action and learning groups have been found to be effective ways of changing behaviours, as they create safe informal spaces where people can pioneer, model, learn, and test new behaviours with others. If designed appropriately, they can also help strengthen individual agency and group capacity, change group standards, and spread new social norms to the wider community.
• But addressing individual and group influences can only achieve so much. Interventions may also need to address structural influences such as physical infrastructures, social norms, cultural and religious beliefs, and power relations. Improving public health or hygiene behaviours, for example, depends in part on the provision of safe water, adequate sanitation, health services, and medicines.
• The range of possible influences on routine and deep- seated behaviours suggests that multi-pronged, multi-level, strategies will be most effective at changing them than partial ones. While few CSOs are able to carry out multiple interventions on their own, they can contribute to wider system change in a number of ways. They can spread desirable behaviours by (a) modelling new behaviours and behaviour change strategies to others (b) influencing other organisations - such as governments and faith institutions - to adopt, support, fund, promote and complement them, including where appropriate with legislation and/or (c) by changing key structural constraints or elements of the wider system including government policy.

The report provides an outline of seven key steps for planning and designing a behaviour change strategy, beginning with clarifying aims and objectives: Is your aim to improve health, hygiene, or the environment, or is it to empower people to take sustained action? Is your objective to promote desirable behaviours or curtail undesirable behaviours?