Hello everyone,
In the midst of tackling climate change, a global pandemic, and other complex problems, behaviour change practitioners may be asking themselves how best to bring individual behaviour change to scale. The organization Rare has some experience with this. They've developed a program, entitled Lands for Life, which focuses on the social norms around farming. One of their techniques is to "snowball" social proof into social pressure. Essentially, they make the benefits of adopting sustainable farming practices simple and clear for "low-resistance farmers" who require minimal evidence of results to adopt new practices. Then, they publicly showcase the adoption rate and successes of the group to "mid-resistance farmers", who require evidence of results and social proof. Finally, they leverage both low- and mid-resistance farmers to generate widespread expectation of adoption.
This approach applies strategies (i.e. social norms and social diffusion) that are commonly used in Community Based Social Marketing programs. The approach also makes use of the Diffusion of Innovations theory, which is a foundational theory in the behaviour change field that explains how innovations (including behaviours) diffuse through a population over time.
To read the full story of the work that Rare has done in bringing individual behaviour change to scale, you can check out their website (see the Lands for Life link above), or read critical commentary about it in this Behavioural Scientist article.
In the midst of tackling climate change, a global pandemic, and other complex problems, behaviour change practitioners may be asking themselves how best to bring individual behaviour change to scale. The organization Rare has some experience with this. They've developed a program, entitled Lands for Life, which focuses on the social norms around farming. One of their techniques is to "snowball" social proof into social pressure. Essentially, they make the benefits of adopting sustainable farming practices simple and clear for "low-resistance farmers" who require minimal evidence of results to adopt new practices. Then, they publicly showcase the adoption rate and successes of the group to "mid-resistance farmers", who require evidence of results and social proof. Finally, they leverage both low- and mid-resistance farmers to generate widespread expectation of adoption.
This approach applies strategies (i.e. social norms and social diffusion) that are commonly used in Community Based Social Marketing programs. The approach also makes use of the Diffusion of Innovations theory, which is a foundational theory in the behaviour change field that explains how innovations (including behaviours) diffuse through a population over time.
To read the full story of the work that Rare has done in bringing individual behaviour change to scale, you can check out their website (see the Lands for Life link above), or read critical commentary about it in this Behavioural Scientist article.
I do have intellectual and practical reservations about the diffusions of innovations theory though: the theory/model is a statistical model that is expressed in terms of individual's traits (earl adopters, laggards). I think that extension and behaviour change disciplines have moved on from that simplistic model. People that have adopted an innovation late in the life of the innovation may be seeing that innovation for the first time, or may have reached a stage in their life/business where that innovation is relevant for the first time. This would make them, personally, early adopters, although the model would label them as laggards. Also. many of the people I work with are well educated and smart, and are what I call 'rational non-adopters'. They assess innovations and make decisions early on about whether the innovation works for them or not. I guess we could call them 'early non-adopters'!