Introduction to Behaviour Change

Introduction to Behaviour Change

• Behaviour is often explained by intentions and attitudes.
• Antecedents (motivation) of behaviour include attitudes, subjective norms, and behavioural control.
• Attitude: A feeling/opinion about something, often automatic and quick.
• Subjective norm: Influence from one's social environment.
• Behavioural control: Perceived and actual behavioral control.
• Perceived behavioral control (PBC): measures the perceived efficacy of a behaviour.
• Actual behavioral control (ABC): the real obstacles that hinder the execution of a behaviour.
• Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB): a descriptive theory that identifies factors predicting behaviours, but not how they occur.
• Assumes behaviours are deliberate (ignores habits).
• Does not include factors like biases, resistance, and motivation.

Antecedents of Behaviour

• Attitudes: The degree to which a person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation of a behaviour; considers outcomes of performing the behaviour.
• Behavioural intention: Motivation influencing a behaviour; a stronger intention increases behaviour likelihood.
• Subjective norms: Beliefs about whether most people approve or disapprove of a behaviour; considers the perception of peers' opinions.
• Social norms: Customary codes of behaviour in a group; considered standard within a group or culture.
• Perceived power: Perception of factors facilitating or impeding behaviour performance.
• Perceived behavioural control: a person's perception of the ease or difficulty of performing a behaviour; varies depending on situation and action; later addition to the Theory of Reasoned Action and created the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Biases

• Primacy effect: Information presented earlier is remembered more than later information.
• Confirmation bias: Seeking information that confirms existing beliefs.
• Belief perseverance: Maintaining a belief despite discrediting evidence.
• Single action bias: Performing one particular sustainable action reducing risk perception
• Moral licensing: Considering oneself to be more moral as a result of already performing a good act; justifies not doing another good act.
• Confirmatory dissonance theory: People are motivated to reduce psychological tension caused by conflicting thoughts.
• Vicious cycle: Forming expectations about a person that eventually causes them to behave in a way that confirms those expectations.
• Dual process model of persuasion: Elaboration-likelihood model and Heuristic systemtic model; Central/systematic route and periphal/heuristic route.
• Central route= considering pros and cons, periphal= feeling based route.

Individual Level (Attitudes)

• Individual tendencies: varying levels of strength and speed of attitudes.

Social Level

• Social influence: The ways people are affected by real or imagined pressures of others; includes conformity, compliance, and obedience.
• Conformity: Changing perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in line with group norms.
• Social Identity Theory: People categorize themselves and others to belong to an ingroup and are favorably biased toward the ingroup.
• Ingroup identification: Aligning attitudes and behaviors with the ingroup.
• Ingroup vs Outgroup: How we view others; ingroup (“us”) versus outgroup (“them").
• Minimal Groups: Groups created by arbitrary or insignificant distinctions, demonstrating ingroup favoritism.

Social Level (Social Identity Theory)

• Social identity: Internalized group membership; self-perception in relation to a social group.
• Social Identity and self-categorization: Social identities, internalized membership; Feeling part of a group
• Group norms: Important values and expected behaviors.
• Black sheep effect: Deviating behavior of ingroup member is punished more harshly than an outgroup member.

Understanding Sustainable Consumption

• The "attitude-behavior" or "intention-behavior" gap is a major issue in the transition to a circular economy; involves consumers' self-reported intentions towards circular actions not reflected in actual buying behaviour.
• Consumer activities related to this transition include purchasing, product usage, and end-of-life product disposal.
• End-of-life product disposal is vital because it influences the potential for reuse and recycling; strongly influenced by infrastructure and individual consumer characteristics
• A set of features can classify products, including types of circular strategies, length of waste prevention time, and contributions toward circularity/potential.
• Targeting involves identifying segments, and evaluating their attractiveness (e.g., effective, measurable, accessible, actionable, profitable) by defining segments.
• Various marketing approaches (e.g., undifferentiated, differentiated, focused, customized) can address diverse segments.

Technology and System Level

• Technology as intermediary: Usage choices determine environmental impact.
• Technology as amplifier: Technology can enhance or cause behaviour to become more resource-intensive, direct and indirect effects of this include the rebound effect, impacting energy savings by half.
• Technology as determinant: Technology can channel, and shape, behaviour, even without considering people's initial motivation.
• Technology as promoter: Technology can be designed to promote desired behaviours.
• Persuasive technology: Changes attitudes and behaviour through persuasion and social influence.
• Spillover effect: An intervention's impact on behavior that was not directly aimed at. The effect may be positive or negative.

Ethical Aspects

• Ethics is the philosophical study of right and wrong. In marketing, ethics seeks to promote honesty and responsibility.
• Ethical decisions frequently include trade-offs between personal/organizational profits; there is an ethical dilemma in pursuing profits in ways that conflict with personal values or organizational ethics.
• Consumer behavior, understanding consumers' motives (for example regarding environmental issues and sustainability), and designing ethically responsible/sustainable products (e.g. manufacturing processes, distribution chains, disposal methods) are essential for ethical consideration.
• Moral dilemma in business: choices requiring trade-offs between profits and ethical behaviour; examples are unethical practices like misleading/exaggerated claims and harmful product disposal/manufacturing.
• Change in consumer attitudes and behaviours: can be facilitated by ethical consumption, raising awareness, raising awareness about ethical behaviour , and nudging through subtle cues.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in ethical considerations, includes making environmentally and socially responsible choices.