This document discusses behavior change models and the Integrated Social Marketing (ISM) framework. It provides an overview of over 60 behavior change models from disciplines like social psychology, economics, and public health. The ISM framework emphasizes understanding behavior in multiple contexts (social, material, individual) and involving multiple stakeholders to create substantive and lasting change. The document gives examples of how ISM has been applied to issues like recycling, transportation, and health behaviors. It also provides a worked example mapping pre-drinking behavior among university students using the ISM tool to identify priorities, stakeholders, and potential interventions.

1. Behaviour Change in Context
Dr Fiona Spotswood
Bristol Leadership and Change Centre
University of the West of England
29th June 2017

2. Introductions
Consumer research
‘behaviour’
Behaviour change
What (is)
behaviour
?

3. Theory matters
Welch (2016, p.240):
“Conventional behaviour change strategies, primarily influenced by social psychology and
economics…draw on an implicit model of behaviour, which assumes individuals’ capacity to
achieve change, and emphasises the deliberative character of behaviour… [T]his model
structurally overestimates the role of choice in routine behaviour and fundamentally
underestimates the extent to which individuals’ autonomous action is constrained by
infrastructures and institutions, by collective conventions and norms, and by access to
resources.”
Collective
conventions
Individual
responsibility

4. What is behaviour, how do we change it?
GSR Behaviour Change Knowledge Review (July 2008)

5. 60+ Models of Behaviour:
Mindspace

6. 60+ Models of Behaviour:
Triandis’ Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (1977)

7. materials
objects
competence
procedure
skill
images
symbolic
meanings
60+ Models of Behaviour:
Circulation of Elements in a Practice (Shove 2008)

8. 60+ Models of Behaviour:
Dahlgren & Whitehead’s Main Determinants of Health (1993)

9. 60+ Models of Behaviour:
Foresight’s Obesity System Map (2007)

10. “There is no one winning model”
(GSR, 2008)

11. ISM
(Darnton & Evans, March 2013)

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

13. ISM
(Darnton & Evans, March 2013)

14. Where ISM has been used...
The Scottish
Government
Zero Waste
Scotland
Scottish
Local
Authorities
The Scottish
Parliament
West
Lothian
Schools
Energy
Saving Trust
Carbon
Trust
Cwm Harry /
Zero Waste
Presteigne
Defra UK DfT UK DH
FCRN /
Wellcome
Trust
NUS /
HEFCE
NUS /Home
Office
Northern
Ireland
Executive
Scottish
Natural
Heritage

15. ...and for what?
RPP2&3 eg.
Electric
Vehicles
Doggy Bags Active Travel
Engaging in
Democracy
Recycling
Beyond
Conservation
Areas
Solid Wall
Insulation
Low Carbon
Workplaces
Community
Waste
Management
Line Drying
Mobile Phone
Driving
Physical
Activity /
Healthy Eating
Eat Less Meat
Edible
Campuses
Pre-Drinking
Prog for Govt
eg.
Drug Courts

16. ISM applied to Women cycling to work
• SOCIAL CONTEXT:
MEANINGS
• MATERIAL CONTEXT:
TIME & SCHEDULES
• INDIVIDUAL
CONTEXT:
COSTS & BENEFITS
SOCIAL
MATERIAL
Norms
Roles & Identity
Opinion
Leaders
Networks &
Relationships
Meanings
Infrastructure
ObjectsTechnologies
Institutions
Rules &
Regulations
Time & Schedules
Tastes
INDIVIDUAL
Values, Beliefs, Attitudes
Emotions
Agency
Skills
Costs & Benefits
Habit

17. …and for ‘pre-drinking’
Head (individual)
Habit
Values, beliefs, attitudes
Agency
Emotions
Costs, benefits
Skills
Belonging and friendship
Socialising is vital to make contacts and friends
Pre-drinking ‘doesn’t count’
Learnt in fresher’s week
Costs of bar entry no a problem
(after midnight, or when price goes
up)
Using apps, e.g. ‘dial a booze’Little planning required to
go out after pre-drinking
Car sharing
Booze cruises
Taking sport seriously – how serious is your sport?
Managing volumes of drink and also £
through pre-drinking
Eviction, ‘black marks’ are a deterent to
anti-social behaviour
Getting wrist bands for free entry
then leaving to pre-drink
somewhere else
Freshers want to dress up, later
years aren’t so bothered
Anxieties about fitting in; getting to know people
Noone wants to be the boring sober one
Lots of energy – get up the next day
and go to lectures
Emailing lecturers to
apologise for missing
lectures during a
night out
Wanting to look good
Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
routines (different on each
campus/city)

18. Circle (social)
Tastes
Keeping academic and social sides of life
separate – ‘fitness to study’
Meanings
Networks and relationships
Norms
Institutions
Opinion leaders
Roles and Identity
‘Eating is cheating’ – not enough food
consumed during or before drinking
Clubs and bars – no one goes before
midnight
Pre-drinking is normal before undergrads
get to uni (school, college)
Variable per campus, per year, per
university, per course, e.g. medics party
hard, work hard
The expectation of fresher’s week – ‘this is what we do’
Calorie counting (girls, particularly) –
starving themselves before a night in/out
Older sports team members
International cultures have their own
tastes – often don’t drink/not in the same
way
Returners want to ‘knuckle down’ but ‘go hard’ in freshers week,
often because of sports teams
Initiation ceremonies (driven underground
by ‘bans’), and ‘dirty’ pint punishments
Team and society captains
Societies and sports clubs – influence of
older returners
Parents bring beer to help freshers settle
in
First years dress up for the SU, later years
less so

19. Square (material)
Rules and regulations
Dial-a-booze
Time and schedules
Infrastructures
Objects
Technologies
Delivery of online shopping – clubbing
together for free delivery (organized via
WhatsApp)
Religious groups – no drinking
No drinking on buses – or are drivers
lenient
‘No parties’ in halls – rules around noise
Facebook (etc) for organizing the booze
cruise
Social media – stories after the night out,
also planning pre-drinking and sports club
initiations (not allowed)
Bars and clubs open later, not filled up
until midnight (don’t close earlier due to
competition)
Provision of sick bags on buses to SU
Some sports teams, if serious, no drinking
before a match
Exam and lecture timetabling creates
concentrations at different times of
day/year
Halls of residence – some have kitchens,
others just corridors or rooms to socialize
in. Some have rooms for ‘hire’ where pre-
drinking can occur.
Supermarkets around campus –
competition keeps prices low
SU shop – booze readily available
Supermarket delivery (free over £40)
No £1 required for trolleys – leads to
trolleys wheeled back to halls
Supermarket booze prices very cheap
Drinking often starts before undergraduate
life – at college when approaching 18 (and
often much younger)
Sponsorship of sports teams often by
bars/clubs

20. Next…
• Priorities
• Stakeholders
• Interventions
This is likely to be an iterative process. Have you got the ‘behaviour’ right? Are
the right people in the room?

21. Worked example
• What ‘behaviour’ shall we consider?
• Mapping with ISM tool
• Identify priorities. Where are the key links? This is your
‘theory of change’
• What are the key implications for intervention
• Priority (focus of change)
• Key stakeholders
• Intervention ideas…

22. Further Reading:
ISM User Guide
www.gov.scot/resource/0042/00423436.pdf
ISM Technical Guide
www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00423531.pdf
See: www.fionaspotswood.uk or www.adranda.co.uk

23. Visit the CharityComms website
to view slides from past events,
see what events we have
coming up and to check out
what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk

24. 29 June 2017
London
#CCPsychComms
Psychology of
communications
– what can communicators learn
from the behavioural sciences?