Document details

The Science of Behaviour Change

Ipsos (2020), 10 pp.

Series: Ipsos Views

"In a review of the academic and practitioner literature on behaviour change we find that one system offers the best response to the challenges we have identified: The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW), developed by Professor Susan Michie and colleagues. It is comprehensive, theory-based, evidence-backed and links the problem to intervention design. At the heart of the BCW is the system of behaviour called “COM-B”. This means that for any behaviour change (B) to take place, people need to have Capability, Opportunity and Motivation: 1. Capability involves psychological dimensions (e.g. the knowledge and skill to perform an action) as well as physical dimensions (strength and stamina); 2. Opportunity includes both social (e.g. norms) and physical (e.g. resources) enablers; 3. Motivation includes “reflective” (e.g. conscious decision-making) and “automatic” (e.g. emotion and habit) processes. Beneath these are fourteen sub-dimensions or “domains”, including knowledge, skills, memory, emotion and social influences, among others. The COM-B system is linked to a further layer of nine intervention functions including education, persuasion, training and modelling. Finally, these intervention functions are mapped against policy categories, including communication, marketing and guidelines." (Page 5)