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
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
• 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
• 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