12. Dr Mark Boulet on behaviour change

View the full show notes on the Amplifying Research website: https://www.amplifyingresearch.com/podcast/12-dr-mark-boulet

 

Today's episode is a deep dive with Dr Mark Boulet.

Mark is the Environment Portfolio Lead for BehaviourWorks Australia, which is based in the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, and it's the largest applied behaviour change research unit in Australia.

So far on this show, we've talked a lot about communicating and engaging with different types of stakeholders and audiences. But it's one thing to get people to understand your research, to know something new, but what if you want them to do something new? What if you want to actually change their behavior?

This is exactly what Mark and I discussed in today's episode.

Our conversation covers:

• Changing behaviour ≠ increasing understanding

• A 101 breakdown of behaviour change

• Changing the behaviour of a group of people

• Being more targeted

• Taking advantage of industry partnerships

• How institutions can help

• When to call in the experts

Find Dr Mark Boulet online:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-boulet-78a65846/?originalSubdomain=au
• https://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/team/mark-boulet
• https://www.monash.edu/msdi/about/people/research/mark-boulet

Resources:

• BehaviourWorks INSPIRE framework
  https://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/blog/inspired-communications

Find Chris Pahlow online:

• Chris Pahlow on LinkedIn

• Amplifying Research

 

 

Credits:

Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow

Edited by Laura Carolina Corrigan

Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy

 

Quotes:

 

"I think even a researcher just taking a little bit of time to inform themselves around how humans tick can give them some insights around how they communicate their research. And that's really at the heart of it."

 

"One of the things that we often say at Behaviour Works, particularly when we're working with research partners or when we're teaching courses is, you are not your target audience. What motivates you is more than likely not gonna motivate the people that you're engaging with..."

 

"If you want someone to take up a behaviour, make it easy for them to do so. Make it attractive so they can see the benefits to themselves. Make it social and make it timely."

 

"It could even be being a little bit more target about when people may actually be paying attention to the thing that you're interested in... This is why a lot of groups talk to people about a particular issue on days, you know, biodiversity day or forest appreciation day or all that sort of stuff. It's because you know that you've got a greater chance of talking to people about your issue when they're actually paying attention to it. "

 

"We often talk about, we need to create culture shift within an organisation or we need to create a social norm around this sort of thing. You can't create a social norm within a day, right? A social norm is a cumulative thing. And I would say that's the same thing with amplifying research, right? It's a cumulative thing. And most of your guests, you know, when you listen to their stories, it's been repeated attempts to engage, and then as a result, they've had an impact, right? And it's been a big, exciting impact, but it's very rarely just, wow, they just got up one morning and thought I'm going to be really impactful, right?"

 

"Sometimes with these research partnerships, and suspect it's also when it comes to questions around communicating and amplifying research, we need to take our research hats off sometimes... And realise that the things that motivate your colleagues in the discipline, the things that motivate the reviewers of your papers, the arguments that you have and the things that make you get very excited at conferences are probably the things that are going to bore and annoy the people that are outside of your discipline."

 

"As a general idea, you know, even being a little bit more nuanced in how universities see and define impact could be helpful. You know, we have this sort of general expectation that we need to be impactful, but what does that mean? Is impactful a conversation article that you've had half a dozen comments on? Or is being impactful the fact that you've worked with a community organisation for two years and you've generated a number of useful reports for them? A little bit more nuance around how we understand and define impact within the university sector, and then obviously how we recognise it... I think the university sector and the research sector talks good game around impact. And yet still it's the traditional metrics of research income and publication that gets you promoted."