Applying ISM

to Alcohol Impact

Andrew Darnton

for NUS Alcohol Impact Year 2 Partnerships

at NUS HQ

14th October 2015

What is Behaviour Change?

• For policymakers:

An intervention to encourage individuals to change their behaviour in a way that will

help Government achieve its policy goals...incorporating a better understanding of

behaviour (NAO 2011)

• For practitioners:

A way of working based on the understanding of behaviours and audiences which

results in learning and change (Darnton 2012)

…implying that:

- Most effective interventions/policies/projects result in changes in behaviour – but that

does not make them ‘behaviour change’ interventions

- Interventions/projects which do not result in changed behaviours are not necessarily

failures IF they result in learning

- Behaviour change does not always mean targeting individuals

How do you do Behaviour Change?The GSR Process Model (Darnton 2008)

SocialPsychology Sociology

Behavioural Economics

Spanning 3 Schools of Behavioural Theory…

SocialPsychology Sociology

Behavioural Economics

…with 3 different views of people

Individual asSocial Animal

Individual asRational Man

Individual as Actor

SOCIAL

MATERIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

Meanings

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Institutions

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

SchedulesTastes

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

The ISM Model (Darnton & Evans for TSG 2013)

Components of the

Motivational System

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

Introducing ISM: Individual Factors

Basis of Rational Choice,

and ‘Bounded Rationality’

‘Hot’ Evaluations

Sense of Personal Control,

‘Self Efficacy’

Competences inc.

‘Know How’ and ‘Know

What’ Past Behaviour,

Routine Practices

SOCIAL

MATERIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

MeaningsInstitutions

Tastes

Introducing ISM: Social FactorsPersonae / Repertoires;

Sense of Self (& Other)

Sense of Others’

Conduct, & of Approval

Preferences &

Dispositions; can signal

‘Distinction’

Mechanisms

governing Group

Conduct –

‘Formal’ & ‘Informal’

Images,

Ideas,

Associations;

‘Frames’

Interpersonal

Influences,

‘Social Capital’

Nodes.

Influencers,

Authorities,

Celebs…

MATERIAL

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

Schedules

Introducing ISM: Material Factors

‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’

Infrastructure as

Boundaries

Interact with

users, generate

new ideas

Things involved in

practices, but also

‘act back’

‘Formal’ &

‘Informal’/Emergent

Finite resource, also

institutionally set

ISM applied to... recycling

• INDIVIDUAL CONTEXT

ATTITUDES

• SOCIAL CONTEXT

NORMS

SOCIAL

MATERIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

Meanings

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Institutions

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

SchedulesTastes

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

• MATERIAL CONTEXT

SCHEDULES

ISM applied to... mobile phone driving

• SOCIAL CONTEXT:

MEANINGS

• MATERIAL CONTEXT:

TIME & SCHEDULES

• INDIVIDUAL CONTEXT:

COSTS & BENEFITS

SOCIAL

MATERIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

Meanings

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Institutions

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

SchedulesTastes

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

London Support Day #2

Worked Example:

‘Prinking’ by First Years in Halls

• Wanting to get Drunk

(‘determined drunkenness’)

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

ISM applied to Prinking in Hallsi) Individual Factors

• Perfectly Rational: Price per Unit

• Time Efficient: drink while

getting ready (esp. girls)

• Context of student fees/loans:

hardworking ‘professionals’ who

work late then go out

• Once drunk, everything is

less rational

• (Note ‘Discounting’ effects:

booze worth a lot late at

night/when drunk – and

early evening calculations

about ‘cost per unit’ go out

the window)

• Fun! Pre-drinks ‘in’ often

more fun than the night

‘out’

• Belonging to your group

who prink together

• Prinking habits

learnt/established pre-Uni

• Prinking a habit/routine across

society (u-30s?)

• Habit of rotating venues around

the group (‘share the mess’)

• Prinking Know How (where

to meet, how to co-ordinate

the group, where to get

cheap booze etc)

• Getting ready skills (while

prinking) [girls]

• Drinking game skills (to get

loaded faster) [boys]

• Retailer knowledge: where

booze is cheapest

• Believing you are able

to plan your

drinking/drunkenness

SOCIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

MeaningsInstitutions

Tastes

• Being a student

• Fitting in to your friendship group

• Being a first year

• Being a home student (assume

hard drinking? Certainly more so

than international students)

• Student norms around

drinking (perceived vs

actual? – NB hard

drinking probably more

visible than low/non

drinking, so more

salient as a ‘descriptive

norm’)

• Prinking as the norm

for every night out

• Prinking later

• Staying out later

• Pre-drinking as

gendered? prinking

(girls) and pre-lashing

(boys)

• Bars and Clubs (with own

cultures & ‘rules’)

• ‘SciBars’ (themed evenings

involving academic-style

presentations)

• ‘Takeovers’ (exchanges

between clubs and

societies)

• ‘Prinking’ (and in

contrast to eg a house

party)

• ‘Drinking’ ie. to get

drunk

• Drinking out as safer

than drinking in (if in

Union/linked venue)

• ‘Safe drinking’

• ‘A good night out’

• Friendship group

• Formal affiliation to

clubs. societies

• Leaders of sports/clubs and

societies (can do block deals

eg. to incentivise early entry)

• Co-ordinators of friendship

groups (who prink)

• Leaders of ethnic/interest

student communities (eg.

Chinese; allotment/growers)

ISM applied to Prinking in Hallsii) Social Factors

MATERIAL

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

Schedules

• Supermarkets, corner shops

• Pubs, bars

• Clubs (Union-linked or not, sometimes ‘rogue’)

• Alcohol free (smokefree) halls/accommodation

• No minimum price per unit

• No licensing hours

• Smoking, Drugs (less illegal at home)

• Drinking games rules inc. forfeits

• Supermarket home delivery (& Dial-a-Drink)

• Social media (eg. to organise prinking

time/place)• Cheap Booze (from off trade)

• (24 hr) Supermarkets

• Staff in bars and clubs (decide if

you’re sober enough to get in, if

you get served, and what happens

when you leave)

• Prinking in the 7 till midnite slot (may also involve

food/eating)

• Club hours: empty at 11, busy from midnite, open later

• Spontaneity: often don’t end up going out at all [esp. girls?]

• Synchronise getting ready and prinking [a few hours – girls]

• Seasonal events (eg. Chinese New Year) as opportunity for

themed events and group celebrations (in Union venues)

ISM applied to Prinking in Hallsiii) Material Factors

Additional Findings: Problems

i) A Free Market Problem

• Part way through mapping the behaviour onto the model, one participant said

“we’re screwed”. ISM had highlighted a set of interlinked barriers to tackling pre-

drinking, based on the current legislative ‘Rules and Regulations’ (or lack of them

– notably all day opening, and no minimum price per unit) coupled with ‘Costs

and Benefits’ calculations that make pre-drinking a rational choice (and the

normal way to start a night out). The assumption was that with these factors

combining to sustain pre-drinking, the other factors or ‘levers’ which could be

pulled would be insufficient.

ii) A Social Problem – What Problem?

• A second participant identified a combination of factors on the ISM map that

showed pre-drinking not only to be economically rational, but emotionally

pleasurable. As such it makes sense as a practice, because it adds feelings of

fun, and the emotional and psychological pleasures of socialising with your

friends, to the economic case for drinking at home. For girls, it also makes extra

sense as it is time efficient: a way to enjoy getting ready to go out even more. All

this combined to leave the participant asking whether we should be tackling

prinking at all.

Additional Findings: Solutions (towards Interventions)

After pausing to recognise the truth in both the ‘problems’ identified above, the group

moved on to identify the following possible solutions and work-arounds:

• Address the Social

If the pleasure of pre-drinking is largely the socialising, work with social groups

who pre-drink to encourage them to try other ‘activities’. This is almost an

extension to those schemes which already target club and society leaders to

offer them incentives to come out earlier (thereby restricting pre-drinking)

• Respecify the Behaviour, or the Audience

If prinking is rational and pleasurable, then target a different behaviour which is

unambiguously harmful. Eg. Male ‘pre-lashing’, binge drinking (total units by the

end of the night), or focus on the drinking patterns of the most at risk of harm

(eg. those with other conditions, mental health issues, or the heaviest drinkers)

• Go Younger

Address pre-drinking among young people before it becomes a habit ie. at

schools and colleges. Potentially encourage HE students to do outreach or link

activities with local schools and colleges, to deter pre-drinking and promote

alcohol related harms

[cont…]

Additional Findings: Solutions (towards Interventions)

cont...

• Go Wider

Tackle expectations of what it is to be a student, and especially of how first year

students are expected to behave on starting university. Most Alcohol Impact

activity should contribute to this ‘culture change’ in some way; the extra task may

be to make that activity more visible to the general public inc. future students.

• Learn Lessons from Elsewhere

In other countries it’s illegal to drink alcohol while university-aged. What

practices and schedules do they promote which fill a similar space?

Next Steps for Intervention Design with ISM

1. Convene your Steering Group

2. Agree Key Alcohol-Related Challenges and Areas for Action

3. Specify Priority Behaviours

4. Map the Priority Behaviours to ISM (as a trial run, with a small group – could ask an academic to help facilitate)

5. Identify the main actors/stakeholders on the map(s)

6. ‘Convene the system’: invite the parties to join you for a session on the priority behaviour

7. Re-map the priority behaviour

8. Ask everyone to identify which factors and influences they ‘own’ and can change

9. Design the intervention based on each pulling the levers (factors) that matter

10. Measure for change in the end behaviour, and in the target factors/levers

Annex:

Non-Alcoholic Worked Example (for Teaching Purposes)

Eat Local and Seasonal

• Eating seasonally matters

• Shopping locally matters

• Subjective interpretations of

what is ‘affordable’

• What is ‘quality’, and does it

matter?

INDIVIDUAL

Values, Beliefs, Attitudes

Emotions

Agency

Skills

Costs & Benefits

Habit

ISM applied to Eat Local and Seasonali) Individual Factors

• What are the greater health benefits

from local/seasonal food?

• What is a reasonable price to pay for

fresh food?

• Likes/dislikes for particular

foods

• Aversion to mud on food

• Higher satisfaction from

(processed/heavily

marketed) ‘comfort foods’?

• Food choice as habitual (the ‘familiarity

effect’ drives preferences)

• Shopping habits and routines

• Growing

• Shopping

• Cooking

• Storing

• Disposing (esp. green food

waste, peelings etc)

• Confidence that you can create

tasty and filling meals (for all the

family) in the time available, from

the available local seasonal food

SOCIAL

Norms

Roles & Identity

Opinion

Leaders

Networks &

Relationships

MeaningsInstitutions

Tastes

•People who shop at farmers

markets

•People who hunt game

•People who forage

•People who pick up roadkill!

• Eating seasonally is not

normal – or eating/serving

non-local/unseasonal food

not looked on as abnormal by

the majority [cf. pineapple

with our ethical lunch!]

• Local and seasonal food

characterised as a rip off (cf.

organics, famers markets)

• Changing diets

(local/seasonal more

normal for older

generations)

• Allotments (and their rules

re. what is grown and how,

and how it can be

shared/sold – qv. Rules and

Regs)

•‘Affordable’ [qv. Values

Attitudes & Beliefs]

•Quality

•Appearance (grade I fruit

and veg; muddy veg etc)

•Convenience (qv. Time)

•Local (cf. farmers

markets’ catchment

areas/criteria) NB

growing your own likely

to be much more local

(even on allotment)

• Who does the shopping, the

cooking, and who chooses

whether they eat it or not?

• Celebrity chefs

•Foody media/magazines

ISM applied to Eat Local and Seasonalii) Social Factors

MATERIAL

Infrastructure

ObjectsTechnologies

Rules &

Regulations

Time &

Schedules

•Supermarkets

•Food markets

•Growing

spaces

•Woodland

•Waterways

•Coastline

•Abatoirs

• Allotment rules (inc. not

selling produce)

•LETS/trading

schemes/timebanks

•Grant schemes for growing

spaces, local markets

•Storage spaces

•Fridges, freezers

• Local food!

•Local game

•Local forage

•Cats! (eat

chickens,

seedlings)

• Seasons!

•Weather

•Time to prepare fresh

food, cook from scratch

•24/7 supermarkets vs.

monthly farmers markets

ISM applied to Eat Local and Seasonal iii) Material Factors

Further Reading:

ISM User Guide

www.gov.scot/resource/0042/00423436.pdf

ISM Technical Guide

www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00423531.pdf

www.andrewdarnton.co.uk