These are slides of a talk given at the Aalto University Complex Systems seminar. Contrasts two views to changing behaviour; the pathway view and the complexity view, the latter being at its infancy. Presents some Secret Analysis Arts of Recurrence, which Fred Hasselman doesn’t want you to know about. Includes links to resources. If someone perchance saw my mini-moocs (1, 2) and happened to find them useful, drop me a line and I’ll make one of this.

Lifestyle factors are hugely relevant in preventing disease in modern societies; unfortunately people often fail in their attempts to change health behaviour – both their own, as well as that of others’. In recent years, behaviour change design has been conceived as a process where one identifies deficiencies in factors influencing the behaviours (commonly called “determinants”). Complexity thinking suggests putting emphasis on de-stabilisation instead.

The perspective taken here is mostly at the idographic level. At the time of writing, we have behaviour change methods to affect e.g. skills, perceived social norms, attitudes and so forth – but very little on general de-stabilisation of the motivational system as an important predictor of change.

Perspectives are welcome!

ps. Those of you to worry about brainwashing and freedom of thought: Chill. Stuff that powerful doesn’t really exist, and if it did, marketers would know about it and probably rule the world. [No, they don’t rule the world, I’ve been there]

pps. Forgot to put it in the slides, but this guy Merlijn Olthof will perhaps one day tweet about his work about destabilisation in psychotherapy contexts. Meanwhile, you can e.g. be his 10th Twitter follower, or keep checking his Google Scholar profile, as there’s a new piece coming out soon!