Compliance to Health Promotion Campaigns Research:



          A line of research I have been working on with Mark Fleming, Jason Slaunwhite, and Leandre Fabrigar involves integrating Cialdini’s Focus Theory of Normative Conduct into a health promotion campaigns (see Slaunwhite et al., 2009a; 2009b; Kredenster et al., 2011). Many health problems confronting Canadians have a substantial behavioural component. Thus, public health campaigns are often conducted to alter citizens' attitudes towards health relevant behaviours (e.g., sunscreen use, exercise, hand-washing).  Unfortunately, these campaigns sometimes fail to alter the attitudes and behaviours of the general public.  The question then becomes how do we overcome these existing attitudes and behaviours and convince people to engage in more healthy behaviours.  For example, a recent set of public service announcements being broadcast by Health Canada shows a group of children running after an ice cream truck, but giving up because they are too out of shape to keep up. The message the designers are trying to get across is to stay active. Interestingly, research by Cialdini (2004) suggests that this approach may backfire.



          Cialdini has demonstrated convincingly that one important psychological factor that affects behaviour is the salience of group norms (Cialdini, 2001). For example, he found that if participants parked in a littered parking garage, they were almost twice as likely to litter themselves, than if they parked in the same parking garage, but no litter was seen. Thus, the activation of the norm (litter on the ground), led to littering. We are currently conducting research exploring the effect of injunctive norms (i.e., norms that highlight the negative social stigma of violating the norm) versus descriptive norms (identifying what the “typical” person would do in the same situation). Cialdini has demonstrated that activating descriptive norms (e.g., showing a person littering in an anti-littering commercial) can actually increase littering behaviour. This happens because people see the behaviour (littering) as normative. Thus, we are conducting a research program designed to provide insights that will allow public health professionals to design more effective public health communications. Specifically, this research program has combined laboratory and field studies to explore the theoretical underpinnings of Cialdini’s theory (e.g., as related to the Elaboration Likelihood Model; Cacioppo & Petty, 1986), and determine how best to apply these to real world situations. To date we have explored the role of these norms on hand hygiene in a major metropolitan hospital, on stair use in public areas, as well as with flu vaccination campaigns in Nova Scotia. The overall aim of this research is to provide empirical support for specific approaches to changing people's health behaviours. Although far from complete, this research has provided promising results (see Smith et al, in press, Makrides et al, in press).