The social context of behavioural change

Chapter 39 The social context of behavioural change


Few would dispute that good health is a worthy goal for individuals and states or governments to pursue. In most industrialized countries, health education bodies promote healthy, and discourage unhealthy, behaviour. The emphasis on the individual’s responsibility to make good health choices is literally evident in the message from the Scottish Health Education Board: ‘Choose to be different’. However, individuals operate within a social context and we need to appreciate this when considering the notion of choice in behaviour change.


This spread looks at two ways in which behaviour change can be seen in a social context: firstly, the social context in which individuals come to alter their behaviour; and secondly, the role society plays in influencing citizens’ health behaviour.



The social context of individual behaviour change


There is clear evidence that behaviour such as smoking, eating large quantities of salt or certain fats and failing to exercise is detrimental to health. Lay people are not necessarily unaware of this (health warnings are printed on the sides of cigarette cartons, for instance) and it seems only common sense that people will make sensible decisions to change their behaviour on the basis of such information. So why do people often fail to do so?


You will see that behaviour prediction models like the Health Belief Model endorse the assumption that the individual will indeed think rationally about costs and benefits before engaging in particular behaviour. This model has demonstrated fairly good predictive power in certain health domains. However, to the extent that it forefronts the role of a person’s cognitions (e.g. perceived susceptibility to disease) in influencing specific behavioural intentions, it is heir to early research in persuasion which assumed that influencing behaviour was simply a matter of targeting people’s thoughts (attitudes/beliefs), on the basis that attitudes cause behaviour in a fairly unproblematic way. Pioneer health promoters therefore believed that information, once disseminated, would be sufficient to alter beliefs and hence behaviour: they were wrong!


Interestingly, advertising companies had long recognized that the most successful of campaigns will usually only be effective in altering the consumption habits of a small percentage of the targeted audience. Early health education initiatives probably had too high expectations of behaviour change and, importantly (unlike advertising campaigns designed to, say, switch the consumer’s allegiance to another brand of soap powder), they were often aimed at altering behaviour that was pleasurable, such as smoking. Further, in some cultural contexts, hazardous behaviour may be valued and engaged in precisely because of the associated risk, e.g. a type of cigarette marketed under the brand name Death Cigarettes has sold successfully (Bunton & Burrows, 1995).


Note that someone’s established behaviour may also become habitual (automatic; independent of conscious thought). As there is evidence that such a person is less likely to attend to information relating to his/her habit, persuasion is even more problematic as a behaviour change strategy. If a habit is addictive as well, persuasion becomes only one element in a battery of potential interventions and supports for behaviour change.



Investigating ‘unhealthy’ behaviour


Specific behaviours such as smoking occur in a social context – a web of interdependent causes and cultural meanings. A classic study that illustrated the importance of investigating the context and complexity of the role played by smoking was that by Hilary Graham (1984). She argued that caring for children and managing the financial and organizational burdens of domestic life may be so stressful that smoking can be conceptualized as a coping strategy. One of her respondents said:



After lunch, I’ll clear away and wash up and put the telly on for Stevie [her son]. I’ll have a sit down on the sofa, with a cigarette… It’s lovely, it’s the one time in the day I really enjoy and I know Stevie won’t disturb me. I couldn’t stop, I just couldn’t. It keeps me calm. It’s me [sic] one relaxation, is smoking (Graham, 1984, p. 172.).

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Jun 10, 2016 | Posted by in PSYCHOLOGY | Comments Off on The social context of behavioural change

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