Driving Change
While information itself does little to bring about behavioural change in the population, integrating behavioural science models in communication can pay dividends, as Jon White explores.
When Simon Baugh, the newly-appointed Chief Executive for the Government Communication Service (GCS), spoke to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ National Conference in November 2021, he called again for a revolution in skills and capability brought to the challenges of public communication.
GCS, he said, were “looking for superhero communicators who combine the data analysis, numeracy and software savvy of an engineer with the story-telling, creativity and empathy of an artist”. His sense was that there are few people around who are equally brilliant at all those things.
In this, he was echoing earlier calls in the service for communicators to develop their skills in using data analysis and the principles of behavioural science in the effective delivery of communication programmes.
Behaviour change is fundamental to all government communications, regardless of discipline.
In a 2018 document setting out how behavioural approaches improve all aspects of communication planning and execution, Alex Aiken, Executive Director of Government Communications wrote, “Behaviour change is fundamental to all government communications, regardless of discipline.” In the UK Government, “some of the core principles of behavioural science” have been combined “with existing best practice across government into a simple and practical approach all government communicators can confidently apply to their work”.
Since then, of course, the COVID pandemic has demonstrated the importance of following scientific advice, findings and principles in the management of all aspects of the response to the pandemic, including communication.
More recently, preparations for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26 held in Glasgow in October and November 2021, looked at how behavioural science may contribute to managing behaviour to lessen the impact of climate change.
Limited progress
An important paper prepared ahead of COP26 by the Behavioural Insights Team, the ‘Nudge Unit’, Net Zero: Principles for Successful Behaviour Change Initiatives, set out key principles from past government-led behaviour change and public engagement initiatives.
The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) research paper, published but quickly withdrawn from circulation in October 2021, is worth reviewing for its implications for public relations and communication practice. It is still available online.
From their review of past experience, the researchers concluded that, by itself, communication can do little to bring about behavioural change. They point to the limited progress that has been made to persuade people to give up smoking or to adopt more healthy lifestyles.
Upstream, mid-stream and downstream
Bringing about behavioural change, they suggest, requires work to be carried out ‘upstream,’ ‘midstream’ and ‘downstream.’ Their model for this is described as an Upstream-Downstream Model of Behaviour Change. Dividing work in this way is both a threat and an opportunity for public relations and communication practice.
Communication is described as a downstream activity, focussed on individuals. The paper’s writers suggest that “the weight of evidence shows that information alone is often inadequate to significantly change population behaviour”.
Government-led behaviour change communications has, they say, limited ability to drive transformational behaviour change. It can, however, serve to build public support for policy and planned courses of action.
Mid-stream interventions to bring about behavioural change work on context. This, using an idea many will be familiar with, is the choice environment:
- It should be one in which the desired behaviour is the default behaviour, the one that people would be most likely to choose, given the array of choices available.
- The desired behaviour should be the easier choice to make, and
- Should be one that has become the norm, adopted widely so that invitations to make the choice give people the opportunity to join others in having made the choice.
- It may also be necessary to attach incentives to certain choices to make it more likely that they will be made.
Upstream interventions also have an impact on choice environments but, as the paper’s writers suggest, at scale. Interventions at this level are directed towards social and economic change, to “carrying everyone in the right direction with little or no individual effort”. This is done through legislative changes, by changing business practices, changing the ways in which issues are discussed and acted upon, and through leading by example.
Much of the paper’s value comes from the examples it quotes, and the many references it makes to successful and unsuccessful interventions. Road safety provides one good example of the upstream – downstream approach applied to changing behaviour towards safer use of the roads.
Over the years, by way of downstream efforts to change behaviour, individual drivers have been encouraged to drive safely, at lower speeds and so on.
Mid-stream, the context in which they make their choices relating to driving practices has changed, as vehicles have become better equipped with seatbelts, clearer instruments, more attention to driving positions and visibility. Roads have improved, with better signage, markings and roadside information.
Upstream, laws and regulations have changed vehicle manufacture and required seat belt use. Road usage rules – such as the Highway Code – have developed to encourage safer driving, and it has become easier to monitor and regulate driver behaviour through the application of tighter controls on speed and traffic flows.
Raised awareness
Although the upstream-downstream model has been offered as a way of approaching behaviour change around large social questions – relating to public health, or to dealing with the consequences of climate change, for example – we can think of its implications for public relations and communication practice in all sectors.
Concern with behaviour change runs through practice in private sector, public and not-for-profit sectors. While objectives are often set in terms of awareness, attitudes, reputation, mutual understanding and the quality of relationships, pushing these on will lead to expectations for behaviour. Why do we work for more awareness? Because we hope that raised awareness will lead to differences in behaviour. What, exactly, is the behaviour we hope to see?
Looking at practice with the upstream – downstream model in mind, should public relations and communication practice work only downstream if our concern in the end is with achieving results in behaviour?
The question is partly rhetorical, because the emphasis for years – in government and elsewhere, for public relations and communication practice to have an impact on policy making, senior management decision-making and improvements to organisational effectiveness – upstream level impacts.
The opportunities for practice are to work more at this level, as well as mid-stream to help set the context for behaviour change.
Integrating behavioural science
To capitalise on these opportunities, and to avoid being constantly relegated to a downstream role with limited influence and scope, important though this can be, the challenge set out by Simon Baugh in his CIPR conference speech needs to be taken up.Communicators need to conceive of their roles as involving the new skills that he outlined.
Practically, there is now – through the experience of the pandemic, the coming challenges of dealing with public health and environmental issues, and changes to government and business brought on by technological developments affecting our abilities to analyse data and use aids to decision-making – a need for practitioners to develop these skills. In doing this they will need to integrate the behavioural sciences into their work.
Part of this will involve learning to think like a behavioural scientist, a recommendation made by Laura de Moliere, Head of Behavioural Science in the UK Government’s Cabinet Office, in a webinar for the CIPR’s Behavioural Insights Interest Group in September 2021.
This offers another perspective on practice, a study of behaviour in relationships, where in addition to drawing on experience, some of the methods of the behavioural sciences can be used: systematic observation, the testing of hypotheses, expectations for results, trying a number of approaches to see which may work best.
It’s also possible to draw on models developed by behavioural scientists. The 2018 document mentioned earlier, Strategic Communications: a Behavioural Approach , refers to the COM-B model developed by researchers at University College London (UCL). Applied in practice, the model invites people planning any communication activity to determine the behaviour they might hope to see as a result of their work in communication. In public relations terms, how do we hope the group that we are interested in will behave as a result of any work we might do to try to influence them?
Behaviour will be likely to follow if the individuals or group to be influenced have the capability to behave in the way hoped (C), the opportunity to behave as hoped (O) and the motivation (M).
Communication planning expands into these areas, gathering information to assess capability, opportunity and motivation. It increases insight into individual and group behaviour and widens the discussion within organisations of what will need to be done to increase capability, opportunities and motivation to behave.
UCL’s work in developing and using the COM-B model is only one of many examples that can be drawn from the behavioural sciences, where use of these aids to thinking about behaviour can produce rich insights to inform advice given to employers and clients.
As one of the centres of practice in the UK, the Government Communication Service has committed resources to incorporating the behavioural sciences into their work. These, referenced in this article, have been generously made available to outsiders and provide a very good route into the wealth of material on practical applications of the behavioural sciences in public relations and communication practice.
