Hot Topic Archives: Supporting behavioral change – beyond brochures
DEC along with the Western Australian Local Government Association and the City of Stirling is supporting a series of workshops on fostering sustainable behaviors, run by environmental psychologist Dr Doug McKenzie-Mohr.
Canadian researcher Doug McKenzie-Mohr is visiting Australia to address the issues surrounding environmental behavioural change and how we can make adjustments to our lifestyles, such as recycling more, being more energy and water efficient or using our car less.
Dr McKenzie-Mohr advocates a community-based social marketing approach and for more than 20 years he has been incorporating the science of behavioural change into the design and delivery of community programs.
Community Education Branch Manager Greg Allen said that Dr McKenzie-Mohr’s research on developing sustainable behavioural change was helping community educators create more effective programs.
“Dr McKenzie-Mohr has worked with more than 10,000 community educators worldwide and his experience is unique in that it has combined intensive behavioural research with grass roots application. There are not many other people with his experience and we are lucky to have this opportunity to learn from him,” he said.
“Doug’s research and the research of many other social scientists has shown that just informing people of the impacts of their actions doesn’t work. We need to have a far greater understanding of the motivators and barriers to change, and the impact of social norms on people’s decision-making, to be successful".
“Doug’s workshops enable us to enhance our expertise in this important area and also add to our professional network.”
The City of Stirling will be hosting Dr McKenzie-Mohr’s talks on Monday 9 February, Tuesday 10 February and one advanced session on Wednesday 11 February.
The introductory workshop will cover the five steps of community-based social marketing - selecting behaviours, identifying barriers, developing strategies, conducting a pilot and broad-scale implementation, and will be illustrated with numerous case studies. The advanced workshop is available to people who have attended the introductory workshop and provides participants with information on how to design and evaluate their own community-based social marketing programs.
To register for these talks please contact DEC Administration Assistant Hazel Percy today on 6467 5122.
For more information visit http://www.cbsm.com/ for the complete contents of Dr Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s book, Fostering Sustainable Behavior and a database of articles and case studies.
Published as a DECmatters article on 6th February 2009.
