LITERATURE NETWORKS 2
Network Interventions
People can be influenced by their social networks to adopt practices that influence their lives
accelerate behavior change, improve organizational efficiency, enhance social change and
improve diffusion of innovations.
1) Network interventions depend on the goals and objectives that initiate the
intervention.
2) Network information should be used to learn from the community and to better
serve community needs.
Strategies that capitalize on network data to develop planned change programs:
1) Identifying individuals who are selected on the basis of some network property.
a. Leaders.
b. Bridging individuals (brokers), they can have better positions to change
others.
c. Low-threshold change agents, they are willing to adopt an idea earlier than
their peers create early momentum for the change and accelerate the time
to reach a critical mass.
2) Segmentation: the intervention is directed toward groups.
a. Mutually exclusive vs. cliques.
b. Core-periphery network.
c. Identify nodes that occupy the same roles in the organization or community.
3) Induction: excitation of the network occurs such that novel interactions between
people are activated.
a. Word-of-mouth (interpersonal among any and all social ties).
b. Snowball-sampling (respondent-driven sampling), hard to reach respondents
(closely-associated peers).
4) Alteration: interventions that change the network.
a. Adding/ deleting nodes
i. Outside change agents (e.g., expert consultants, support groups).
ii. Remove nodes that occupy critical positions in a network (terrorist
groups).
b. Adding/ deleting links
i. Bridge disconnected or loosely connected groups.
c. Rewiring existing links
i. Increase efficiency or improve performance based on certain goals.
ii. Connect individuals with different attributes.
iii. Optimal networks are those with short average distances between
nodes and a high degree of clustering.
Factors that play a role in choosing the appropriate network intervention:
Network structure
o Advice networks: experts and people with credible sources of information,
they have considerable technical knowledge about the idea of product.
1
, o Discussion networks: relationships are high in trust, mutual understanding
and interpersonal affect in which communication and persuasion flow easily.
Geographic distance
o Smaller, local organizations will rely on trusted peers for information and not
on geographically distant leaders.
Characteristics of the behavior
o Increase in value as more people adopt them.
Prevalence
o High levels of prevalence network interventions can be used to find
individuals who have not yet adopted the behavior in question.
o Low prevalence network interventions can identify whether early users are
leaders and are thus well positioned to accelerate behavior spread.
Perceived political support or acceptability of the behavior
o Behaviors that are likely to be accepted are likely to be adopted by early
leaders.
2
, A Taxonomy of Behavior Change Methods: An Intervention Mapping
Approach
Origins, the dynamics of behavior change and definitions of the proposed taxonomy
Steps of the IM process:
1) Conduct a needs assessment or problem analysis by identifying what needs to be
changed and for whom.
2) Crate matrices of change objectives by combining (sub-)behaviors with behavioral
determinants to identify which beliefs should be targeted by the intervention.
3) Select theory-based intervention methods that match the determinants into which
the identified beliefs aggregate and translate these into practical application (e.g.,
group discussion face to face).
4) Integrate the practical applications into an organized program.
5) Plan for adoption, implementation and sustainability of the program in real-life
contexts by identifying program users and supporters and determining what their
needs are and how these should be fulfilled.
6) Generate an evaluation plan to conduct effect and process evaluations to measure
program effectiveness.
Determinants
Understand the behavior.
Lowest level
o Individual thoughts, emotions, automatic associations or elements of a
process.
Aggregate level
o Similar related thoughts, emotions, etc. are aggregated in ‘determinants’
(e.g., attitude).
Determinants are defined commonly they cannot be targeted directly. You have to target
a specific belief.
3
Network Interventions
People can be influenced by their social networks to adopt practices that influence their lives
accelerate behavior change, improve organizational efficiency, enhance social change and
improve diffusion of innovations.
1) Network interventions depend on the goals and objectives that initiate the
intervention.
2) Network information should be used to learn from the community and to better
serve community needs.
Strategies that capitalize on network data to develop planned change programs:
1) Identifying individuals who are selected on the basis of some network property.
a. Leaders.
b. Bridging individuals (brokers), they can have better positions to change
others.
c. Low-threshold change agents, they are willing to adopt an idea earlier than
their peers create early momentum for the change and accelerate the time
to reach a critical mass.
2) Segmentation: the intervention is directed toward groups.
a. Mutually exclusive vs. cliques.
b. Core-periphery network.
c. Identify nodes that occupy the same roles in the organization or community.
3) Induction: excitation of the network occurs such that novel interactions between
people are activated.
a. Word-of-mouth (interpersonal among any and all social ties).
b. Snowball-sampling (respondent-driven sampling), hard to reach respondents
(closely-associated peers).
4) Alteration: interventions that change the network.
a. Adding/ deleting nodes
i. Outside change agents (e.g., expert consultants, support groups).
ii. Remove nodes that occupy critical positions in a network (terrorist
groups).
b. Adding/ deleting links
i. Bridge disconnected or loosely connected groups.
c. Rewiring existing links
i. Increase efficiency or improve performance based on certain goals.
ii. Connect individuals with different attributes.
iii. Optimal networks are those with short average distances between
nodes and a high degree of clustering.
Factors that play a role in choosing the appropriate network intervention:
Network structure
o Advice networks: experts and people with credible sources of information,
they have considerable technical knowledge about the idea of product.
1
, o Discussion networks: relationships are high in trust, mutual understanding
and interpersonal affect in which communication and persuasion flow easily.
Geographic distance
o Smaller, local organizations will rely on trusted peers for information and not
on geographically distant leaders.
Characteristics of the behavior
o Increase in value as more people adopt them.
Prevalence
o High levels of prevalence network interventions can be used to find
individuals who have not yet adopted the behavior in question.
o Low prevalence network interventions can identify whether early users are
leaders and are thus well positioned to accelerate behavior spread.
Perceived political support or acceptability of the behavior
o Behaviors that are likely to be accepted are likely to be adopted by early
leaders.
2
, A Taxonomy of Behavior Change Methods: An Intervention Mapping
Approach
Origins, the dynamics of behavior change and definitions of the proposed taxonomy
Steps of the IM process:
1) Conduct a needs assessment or problem analysis by identifying what needs to be
changed and for whom.
2) Crate matrices of change objectives by combining (sub-)behaviors with behavioral
determinants to identify which beliefs should be targeted by the intervention.
3) Select theory-based intervention methods that match the determinants into which
the identified beliefs aggregate and translate these into practical application (e.g.,
group discussion face to face).
4) Integrate the practical applications into an organized program.
5) Plan for adoption, implementation and sustainability of the program in real-life
contexts by identifying program users and supporters and determining what their
needs are and how these should be fulfilled.
6) Generate an evaluation plan to conduct effect and process evaluations to measure
program effectiveness.
Determinants
Understand the behavior.
Lowest level
o Individual thoughts, emotions, automatic associations or elements of a
process.
Aggregate level
o Similar related thoughts, emotions, etc. are aggregated in ‘determinants’
(e.g., attitude).
Determinants are defined commonly they cannot be targeted directly. You have to target
a specific belief.
3
