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Chapter 45. Social Marketing of Successful Components of the ... >
Section 7. Supporting and Maintaining Behavior Change >
Supporting and Maintaining Behavior Change |
Tools & Checklists | Contributed by Phil Rabinowitz Edited by Valerie Renault |
Tool 1:
Chart of barriers to action and strategies for removing them
Tool 2:
Chart of barriers to maintaining change and strategies for removing them
Tools
Tool # 1: Chart of barriers to action and strategies for removing them
| Barriers to Action Action is impossible because circumstances won't permit it. The necessary action is too complex. The action is too hard for people to undertake on their own. The action takes too much time. The action isn't important to the target population. The action is regularly forgotten. | Strategies for Removing Barriers Address the issues that make action impossible (change the circumstances). Simplify the action, either by breaking it down into manageable pieces, or by providing the background necessary to understand it. Support people - with support groups, mentoring, etc. - in taking difficult action . Use more efficient or more creative and flexible planning and scheduling. Use marketing to increase the urgency of the action in the target population's perception. Institutionalize reminders so that people can remember to act. |
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Tool #2: Chart of barriers to maintaining change and strategies for removing them
| Barriers to Maintaining Change The consequences are unsatisfactory: - Unrealistic expectations aren't met
- Outcomes are hard to detect
- Outcomes are deferred
- Outcomes are hard to see because they're the absence of something
There are excessive negative consequences, either greater than anticipated, or unexpected. Influential people give negative feedback about the change. Behavior control is less than expected because of the system or the self. | Strategies for Removing Barriers For unsatisfactory consequences: - Clarify realistic expectations
- Make the invisible visible, or adjust behavior to obtain the desired results
- Break along-term goal up into manageable pieces, with benchmarks
- Emphasize the consequences of the presence of what you're trying to prevent
Help people control negative consequences with information, alternative plans, and skills. Market to influential people as well as the target population from the outset. Set up the system to provide support and to help develop internal personal resources . |
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Checklist
Here you will find a checklist summarizing the important points of the section.
__ You have conducted, and will continue to conduct, market research to find out what factors are likely to get in the way of the target population's making and maintaining the desired changes, whose opinions they value, and what kinds of support they need in order to accomplish and maintain the desired behavior changes.
Providing support for action:
__ You address the issues that make action impossible by providing transportation or changing location to deal with geography; reducing or subsidizing costs; making the unavailable available; or changing circumstances.
__ You address actions that are too complex by simplifying them to the extent possible .
__ You address actions that are too hard by providing support to people to help them through difficult behavior change.
__ You minimize the importance of the time element by more efficient and more creative and flexible planning and scheduling.
__ You increase the target population's perception of the urgency of the desired behavior change.
__ You institutionalize reminders, so that people are less likely to forget to take action.
Providing support for maintaining change:
__ You use market research to monitor the target population's satisfaction with the changes they've made.
__ You try to anticipate and plan for any possible negative consequences of change .
__ You are totally honest with the target population about possible negative consequences of change, and about what can be done about them.
__ You address unsatisfactory consequences by helping to adjust unrealistic expectations ; making hard-to-detect outcomes visible or adjusting change to improve outcomes; making deferred outcomes easier to live with by establishing benchmarks and breaking them down into a series of reachable goals; and using your marketing message to discuss the consequences of lack of the presence of those events or circumstances the changes are meant to prevent.
__ You address excessive negative consequences by trying to prepare people for them beforehand, by helping them acquire tools - skills, education, training, information - to deal with them, and by formulating alternatives to them.
__ You deal with negative feedback from important people by marketing change to those people as well.
__ You address behavior control that is less than expected by creating systems that provide support and help people develop their internal resources.
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