Social Change Media consultant Les Robinson explains the 7 Doors Model he developed for designing and evaluating behaviour change programs. According to him the Seven doors is model of personal voluntary change that's useful as a checklist for programme design ad evaluation.
Predisposing factors Door -1. Role models or visions In this model people tend to adopt voluntary changes because they are unhappy, frustrated or dissatisfied with their lives or businesses. Dissatisfaction happens when the reality of life contradicts people's hopes, dreams and sense of identity. This dissatisfaction provides the energy and motivation for change. When messages are sold through role models, they demonstrate a personal future that addresses dissatisfaction in accordance with norms of social set. The individual moves to a situation " I want to".
Enabling factors Enabling factors are things that assist change to occur. They don't make change happen, but change is unlikely to be sustained in their absence. In the 7 Doors model there are three kinds of enabling factors.
Rationalization
Confidence
Convenience
Door-2 Rational knowledge People need good amount of information of beliefs and arguments that challenges negative belief and support positive belief which helps in overcoming the barriers. The individual moves to a situation " I know I should".
Door- 3 Confidence Confidence or 'self-efficacy' is essential. People need to believe they are capable of initiating a change and having the skills to follow through to completion. Personal change can be tremendously threatening. Even simple changes like going on a diet or going to a gym can be put off for years because people doubt they have the will-power to follow through. Hence a hands on learning that builds a sense of self efficacy is essential to make the individual to move on to a situation " I can do it".
Door-4 Convenience It's a basic principle that new actions should be easy to do, simple to understand, accessible and the right price. The overall 'cost' of acting, in time, effort, brain power and money, should be as small as possible. Actions that actually save time and effort are highly likely to be adopted. Those that increase the actors' costs may prove difficult to sustain. This convenience experience will make the individual to enter into a situation where he can feel " It is easy."
Triggering factors Door- 5 Social influencers In the 7 Doors model, change is a social phenomenon. Virtually no one adopts a new change in a private bubble. Family, friends and work-mates are intimately involved as triggers of change. Significant words are spoken by them. The actors are dragged out of their comfort zones by people they know they will have to go on living with. The individual enters into a situation through social pressure that encourage trial behaviour resulting in a changed feeling of "Ok I will give it a go".
Door - 6 Change spaces It is a place where all the above five doors open into it, which inturn directs to the trail door that is the seventh door. Each door either independently or together can enter into trial behaviour. The significance of this door is without entering into change space one can not have behaviourial change.
Satisfying factors Door-7 Satisfaction Lastly, the change must work. It has to be satisfying in terms that matter to the actors. It must deliver ease, cost savings, status or prestige. It must actually reduce the dissatisfactions that led to the initial involvement of the actors into the program. It may also deliver unexpected satisfactions, just as going to the gym may unexpectedly improve one's social life.
Last modified: Thursday, 15 December 2011, 6:37 AM
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