Application of Behavior Change Theory to the Development

BEHAVIOR CHANGE THEORY
• Contemplation: Influence the decisional balance away from the status quo by
presenting reasons to change and stressing risks associated with a decision not to
change.
• Determination: Encourage change with suggestions regarding courses of actions
that will lead to positive change.
• Action: Promote change by offering assistance in plan development.
• Maintenance: Help identify and implement strategies to prevent relapse.
• Relapse: Assist reentry into the change process as soon as possible.
Miller and Brown (1991) reported that brief interventions are potent agents for change
because their major impact is motivational. Specifically, the authors believe these brief
interventions elicit commitments from the subjects to try changing their behaviors and a
conviction to persevere. Previous research has identified three types of elements useful
to the change process: general elements necessary to any change strategy; early stage
elements to promote movement through pre-contemplation, contemplation, and
determination; and late stage elements to elicit movement through the action,
maintenance, and relapse phases.
Both general and specific conditions are necessary to maximize a person’s motivation to
change hazardous behaviors. Traffic safety researchers also identified these conditions
as important to changing the driving behaviors of negligent operators (Appendix A-3).
Unfortunately, in traffic safety, the conditions were not pulled together into a coherent
theory of change. The general conditions Prochaska and DiClemente (1982) considered
common to any effective, brief intervention, together with relevant comments from the
traffic safety literature, follow:
• Supplying systematic feedback: Provide clear knowledge of the present situation for
change to occur.
The letters should include a summary of previous convictions (McBride, 1981).
Drivers can be confronted with feedback about their driving or provided with
direct advice in an empathic manner (McBride & Peck, 1970).
• Stressing personal responsibility: This can be stated implicitly or explicitly but the
message is the same, “If change is to occur, you are the one who has to do it”.
The content of the treatment letters should stress the driver’s responsibility for
improving their driving (Li, 1980).
• Providing direct advice: Clear advice has been shown to be very effective with
behaviors that are resistant to change. In some cases, providing specific goals has
been successful but, in others, the opposite is true. There appears to be personality
differences at work in the way specific goals are tolerated.
Drivers can be confronted with feedback about their driving or provided with
direct advice in an empathic manner (McBride & Peck, 1970).
• Offering choice of strategies: Makes use of the knowledge that intrinsic motivation is
enhanced by the perception that the negligent operator has freely chosen a course of
action.
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