Evidence Based Psychological Theories of Behavioral Change
Psychological research shows that individuals change their own behavior in predictable ways, suggesting that social environments can be designed to promote behavioral change. The most basic “learning” and “motivational” theories are well known and follow the same basic pattern. First, individuals attain feedback that alerts them to wants and needs. They may look inwardly to realize that they are dissatisfied with their current state, but often this evaluation has a social context. Next, individuals decide to act on one or more of these wants and needs. There is a general tendency to satisfy basic needs (physiological, safety) before addressing more complex needs (social, esteem, or actualization: Maslow, 1987). Finally, individuals take action and behave in a manner that is intended to satisfy their wants and needs. The actual action is selected because it has worked before (classical conditioning, operant conditioning), it has worked for someone else before (vicarious learning, modeling), or it seems like it should work (expectancy, VIE). However, evidence based psychological theories of behavioral change go beyond this foundation, and there are four well supported theories that can be used to change organizations. Each is described below, and the last section of this chapter combines elements from these theories to suggest practical techniques for creating infectious organizational change.
Personality Domain Description
Individuals Are Predisposed to Play Different Roles During Organizational Change. In any given population there will be some individuals who are relatively more adaptive to change, some who are more anxious about change, some who are more influential in changing others, and some who are more likely to be influenced to change. Although more complex than Gladwell’s Maven-Salesman-Connector description, personality theory also suggests that employees have different roles to play in an organizational change initiative. Decades of empirical research have led to the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, which uses five broad domains to describe a person’s behavioral tendencies that distinguish the individual’s identity (see table 1). While each of these five domains can be broken down into subparts, generally personality boils down to a person’s degree of Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. The FFM has not only been rigorously validated (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987; Goldberg, 1990; Barrick & Mount, 1991), but it also has been found applicable across multiple societal cultures (Howard & Howard, 2001; Rolland, 2002). As a result the FFM provides an empirically supported set of profiles or roles that can be used to cast an infectious change.
Some individuals are prone to search for novel, unfamiliar experiences and would be classified as scoring high on the Openness to Experience domain. Because these individuals are biological recipients of more dopamine and dopamine receptors in their brains (Howard & Howard, 2001), they display more curiosity and exploration in their thoughts and behaviors. They are willing to change for the sake of change, and they tend to be bored in the absence of change. Thus, employees who are very open to experience are more likely to adopt newly prescribed behaviors. If these new behaviors are likely to create uncertain consequences for the employees, then the most perseverant individuals will likely be those who are relatively high on Emotional Stability, meaning that they tend to be calmer in stressful conditions. A recent study suggests that individuals who have low Emotional Stability have such a high need for certainty that they actually prefer definitive bad news rather than uncertain but possibly good news (Hirsh & Inzlicht, 2008). So, it would seem that only certain employees are prone to be the first to change their behavior to match a new standard, especially with uncertain consequences for making the change.
Making these few early adopters’ changes infectious, however, calls for two further circumstances to hold true. The first condition involves Extroversion. Some portion of these early adopters need to be extroverted enough to be perceived as influential (cf. Gladwell’s salesman role), and some portion of the individuals being influenced need to be extroverted enough to pass on the new behavior to others as being worthwhile (cf. Gladwell’s Connector role). Extroversion marks a person’s need for sensory stimulation, it is mostly expressed by the need to be with other people, and it is positively related to a drive to lead other people (Howard & Howard, 2001). It follows that the more extroverted the early adopters are, the more likely that they will be seen as charismatic leaders whose behavioral changes will be imitated. The same holds true for the “early imitators” who first follow the leader and replicate the behavioral change.
It is this distinction between the leader and the follower that highlights the second condition for infectious change. Those early adopters who are subsequently imitated are challenging the established behavioral norm and any social pressure that exists to maintain that norm. Likewise, many of those early imitators must also challenge the status quo. Yet, at some point in a successful intervention, change becomes the norm, meaning that subsequent imitators are not so much challenging others as they are accommodating others. Again, the FFM indicates that individuals have different predispositions for challenging or accommodating others. Individuals who score lower on Agreeableness scales tend to be more comfortable with conflict, more willing to express their own opinions, and more apt to stand out from the crowd. So, extroverted early adopters with below average agreeableness have the right profile to start a small counter-culture. Conversely, individuals who score high on Agreeableness scales tend to avoid conflict, let others “win,” and go with what the crowd wants. Combine these tendencies with high extroversion and high openness to experience, and you have the profile of those who can make that counter-culture more mainstream.
[Figure 1: Individual predispositions to organizational change roles.]
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To create the psychological equivalent of a domino effect, one needs some assertive individuals to push on others, but one also needs compliant individuals who will fall into place. While individuals are not always consistent with their personality in all situations, personality does represent individuals’ default tendencies. As illustrated in Figure 1, I posit that an employee’s role in an organizational change initiative can be predicted through the eight possible combinations of dichotomous scores on Openness to Experience, Extroversion, and Agreeableness. By first harnessing the power of Instigators to publicly change their behavior to influence their social networks and then relying on Ambassadors to make this behavioral change widely acceptable, an infectious change movement can spread from the Open-Minded Swing Voters and the Disenfranchised to the more accommodating Guardian groups. While popular personality assessments (e.g., NEO-PI-R, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) could be used to identify Instigators and Ambassadors, I will discuss in the last section of this chapter how a peer-nominated team will allow these influential early adopters to rise to their necessary position for a successful intervention. Given the cross-cultural validity of the FFM (Howard & Howard, 2001; Rolland, 2002), there is no reason to believe that these profiles would be any less useful outside of the US.
Please support the editors/authors of these related books:
"Creating Infectious Change in Global Organizations: Applying Psychology to Large-Scale Planned Interventions" from the 2010 book Going Global: Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace, Edited by K. Lundby & J. A. Jolton (Eds.), New York: Jossey-Bass.
This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. The First Domino, available at http://the-first-domino.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.
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