Susan Middlestadt on "Role of Behavioral Theory"

The way I see it is there are a bundle of theories out there -- in psychology, anthropology, social psychology, sociology -- and they all address issues like why do people do what they do? How does behavior change happen? How do systems change? How do people get meanings of things? So it's a bundle of theories in the behavioral and social sciences that can be useful in social marketing. And I'm not quite sure where the boundaries between behavioral and the other social sciences lie. Can we call it communication sciences, decision theories? There are a whole bunch of them out there. But what, from a social marketing point of view, what you need to know is those theories spend a lot of time -- people that study those things spend a lot of time trying to understand behavior. And since behavior is one of the central constructs of social marketing, then why not learn from those scientists?

I see social marketing as an applied science, and these other things are like basic science. So I see social marketers as applied scientists are drawing on all these other kinds of scientists -- behavioral science being one of them. And they're using it for a particular reason, so the social marketers are the appliers and the behavioral scientists are the people that spend all their time trying to understand things. So one's applied and one's basic, so why not learn from that in doing social marketing?

...a theory is a concept plus a way to measure it. And the scientists spend a lot of time defining the concepts and figuring out how to measure it. It's a good theory when we capture something that marketers are doing naturally. We just help them define it better, help them figure out how to measure it better, help them differentiate it from some other concept.

It's a good theory if we have a construct or a concept that works. That social marketers actually use.

….when you're thinking about the process of social marketing, in the beginning the social marketer needs to define the behavior. Behavioral scientists spend a lot of time thinking of that. Well, what is a behavior? Is that a behavior or not? Is that an outcome? Is that an action? Is it observable? So we can help inform the process of deciding the behavior. Once you have the behavior, then you need to understand what are the factors that cause that behavior to happen.

We need to figure out which factor you have to address by any one social marketing campaign. Is it a consequence? Is it an attitude? Is it a norm? Is it a skill? Is it accessibility? So the behavioral scientist can tell you, these are the determinants or the factors to think about. And, at the same time, they can help you do formative research to help you figure out which one is the one we need in this situation, this context, for this target audience. So they help you figure out what to ask about, how to ask the questions, and if they're good, about how to analyze the data because there are different ways to analyze the data.

The set of theories that I find most useful are the theories that try to say, “This is how people behave.” And they look at attitudes and beliefs, and there are a bunch of them: the theory of reasoned action, the theory of planned behavior, social cognitive theory, the health belief model. They all have some of the same concepts in them. I don't use any one of them; I use that bundle of concepts, that bundle of determinates, that bundle of factors.

…behavioral scientists are out there developing new theories -- so sometimes they're developing theories around things that address their new challenges. So you can go to those other theories and pick up a new concept. “You know I heard about social capital. How does that help me?” And so sometimes it enriches our thinking and allows us to be more creative because there's a new concept that comes in. So concept wherever you can get it. I don't believe in being strict about a theory. I think it needs to be informed by theory, but you're not testing a theory. You're using a theory. So you should just use the theory that works best in your context.

Have somebody on your team who wears the behavioral scientist hat, who asks, “Is that a behavior?” Or, “What are the determinates of that behavior?” Or, “How shall we ask folks about their behavior?” How shall we analyze it? So have somebody on your team that can be there to ask those questions -- and there usually will be someone who is a behavioral scientist. They may or may not be formally trained --but there are enough resources around with consultants and technical assistants and manuals and things that people have written that they can represent that viewpoint. I think that's my best advice is to make sure there's somebody in the room wearing that hat when you're making decisions.