Seeking Shared Meaning in Social Norms Approaches for Sustained Behavior Change - Reflections from the SBCC Summit

Authors: Jennifer Gayles, Betsy Costenbader, Mariam Diakite, Warren Feek, Alessia Radice, Laura Itzkowitz, and Rebecka Lundgren, presenters at the Blue Sky Session, 3rd Social and Behavior Change (SBCC) Summit (December 5 2022) in Marrakech, Morocco - February 24 2023

Background

In late 2020, the Passages Project called for a challenge dialogue to grapple with a perceived lack of community consensus regarding what is needed to ensure that social norms are adequately addressed in social and behavior change (SBC) programming and research. Over 100 SBC and social norms implementers, researchers, and donors from around the world came together in a series of online discussions to deliberate on how best to apply social norms approaches and measurement to SBC programming to facilitate and achieve sustained behavior change. Discussions resulted in a collaboratively-written Challenge Paper, which sought to capture the state of progress and points of agreement. Participants agreed that attentiveness to how social norms influence program implementation and outcomes can transform SBC work and acknowledged a growing body of evidence that explicitly links social norms programming to successful SBC efforts. Discussions also identified how diverse cultural contexts and disciplinary backgrounds contribute to different perspectives on social norms and how best to address them in SBC programming.

Coming up short of consensus in many areas, we sought to engage a broader audience in this debate to raise awareness of unanswered questions about how social norms should be addressed in SBC and to prompt breakthroughs in thinking to lead to concrete next steps for bringing social norms awareness into SBC work. During this Blue Sky session, social norms experts presented four unresolved challenges from this collective work and invited audience members to join them in breakout groups for further discussion. Key reflections and recommendations from each group are documented below.

Discussion and Recommendations

Challenge 1: How can we incorporate decolonization principles and rights-based frameworks in the development and implementation of social norms theories, frameworks and approaches?

• It is hard to define what decolonization means. What is the goal? The underlying idea is that countries should be starting with what exists – the culture. However, what you see on the surface may not be representative; there is a need to better understand social structures, leadership, etc. and then work through those systems.
• Recognition that the term "decolonization" itself comes from the global North. So local communities need to understand the term/concept, decide if it is applicable and useful for them, and then adapt it for their own means. Decolonizing development means understanding local communities’ challenges and needs, then supporting local generation of solutions, not telling people what to do.
• Exploration of how decolonization links with foreign aid-driven localization agendas. There is need for a true power shift, not just a new way of talking about how decisions are made.
• What would a decolonized approach to social norms work look like? Negotiation? Amplifying voices?

Calls to Action

1. Global conveners must support equitable and locally led processes to define and facilitate decolonization at multiple levels. This should include revisiting processes and typical ways of working, and jointly developing indicators based on consultations.
2. Funders should provide more "no strings attached" money. Many are pushing for locally identified challenges and solutions, but they place so many restrictions on funding that it can be difficult to realize local initiatives. Any requirements should be mutually negotiated and agreed upon.
3. Researchers and implementers should tailor research and adaptation of social norms theory to local contexts, in collaboration with local experts and communities. All development organizations should be held to a higher standard for understanding and working through local structures, hierarchies and dynamics as the basis of sustainable development.

Challenge 2: How do we determine when it is enough to be aware of social norms, versus when we need to shift norms or undertake broader social change?

• We are still working to understand this. We need more context-specific research to understand if/when norms are a primary driver of behavior (or not). This in turn requires unpacking norms and understanding the relative influence of pluralistic ignorance versus how people's attitudes, beliefs and other social influences converge to create internalized norms.
• Norm change and social change go hand in hand. Norm change may be limited if formal structures (institutions, policies, etc.) are not also transformed. It should instead be grounded in social movements, for example feminist and women's rights movements that are already pushing for change at multiple levels of the socio-ecological framework.
• Recognition that some social movements are also opposition movements. We have to ensure that we agree on what it is we want to change - social structures that systematically disadvantage certain groups, or political structures. Agreement on this is not always a given.

Calls to Action

1. Practitioners should undertake more context-specific research to understand when and how norms drive behavior, as well as what aspects of social interaction and pressure are most influential in formation and maintenance of norms.
2. Practitioners should partner with and work through local organizations and movements that are already advocating for social and norms change in local communities. Donors should encourage and support such partnerships.

Challenge 3: How can we develop simple, portable measures that provide a comparable evidence-base for SBC interventions while retaining their context-specificity and complexity?

• Consider what scales are used to develop measures (i.e., Likert scale or other scales with Western origins) and whether they apply in cross-cultural contexts. Scales developed elsewhere may not reflect typical ways of framing perspectives on acceptability. Can they be adapted to apply cross-culturally? How can they be validated?
• Promote the use of formative research to ensure understanding of context. Use participatory approaches and third-person perspective techniques (i.e., vignettes), which serve to build trust with communities and reduce bias to avoid responses that please the researcher. Pre-test with local partners or communities to increase adaptation and acceptability.
• Quantitative results often carry more weight, so we need to incorporate them too. Mixed methods can be a good strategy.

Calls to Action

1. Researchers and implementers should use participatory approaches to conduct research in partnership with local groups. They should prioritize mixed methods research, which offers the benefit of integrating different ways of asking questions and interpreting data.
2. Researchers should take a phased approach to research and measurement, using results continuously to improve implementation, monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Challenge 4: How can we ensure that culture is adequately centered in social norms work, reflecting the collectivist non-western perspective of communities where work is most often implemented?

• It is important to remember that culture is not static or fixed; it is constantly changing.
• As a result, norm change can happen quite quickly, but people need to see a tangible benefit to change their behavior. Abstract concepts like human rights or equality are not tangible. Furthermore, in many cultures, cohesion is valued above equality.
• Culture is often presented as a barrier to change. However, we can also find solutions within culture if we look more closely. This includes looking outside of the nuclear family for support and influence. Recognizing elders and other traditional "gatekeepers" as a cultural resources and involving them as advocates for others may be a culturally appropriate approach.
• Large cities and urban "melting pots" also provide opportunities to catalyze change. Many different ethnic groups come together with different values, cultures and traditions, often far from their birth/home communities, which creates an opening to adapt new practices and norms.
• The large volume of research focused on cultural barriers to health behaviors adds to the perception that culture is a challenge. It is necessary to develop and test conceptual approaches that focus on positive influence of culture and build out a literature base that counters this.
• Practitioners need to understand that it is not up to them to determine what is "positive" or "negative", but to understand the community's perspective. This requires convening all stakeholders and understanding their lived reality. Human centered design can help take people out of their usual ways of thinking, to provide more adapted approaches.
• Using cultural mediums/channels such as dance, song, theater, etc. is also a way to increase ensure that SBC and social norms interventions are culturally appropriate and acceptable.

Calls to Action

1. Practitioners must seek to understand the structural aspects of culture - hierarchies, roles and influences - and work within them. Likewise, they must understand the community's perception of which cultural values and traditions are important and desirable, and why.
2. Researchers and implementers should work together to evaluate and document program approaches that leverage positive aspects of culture for improved community health and well-being.

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