We are besieged by daunting societal problems. Thanks to the 24/7 news cycle we probably know more than we would like about the nation’s obesity epidemic, thousands if not millions of medical errors, Wall-Street greed, online scams, cyberbullying, violence and drugs in schools, alcohol abuse, bankrupt cities, and political gridlock. This is certainly a time of significant adversity. Human behavior contributes to each of these societal problems; it must also be part of the solutions.
What a difference it would be if people were more considerate and empathic to the circumstances, opinions, and behaviors of others. Imagine the beneficial impact of a world with more interpersonal compassion and collaboration. The practical behavior-based interventions evaluated in the research articles of this themed issue for the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community illustrate how such a culture could be successfully approximated. Indeed, these articles reflect the Actively Caring for People (AC4P) Movement (Geller, Citation2014, Citation2016), which combines humanism and behaviorism (i.e., humanistic behaviorism) to improve behaviors related to the health, safety, and well-being of people worldwide (www.ac4p.org).
Skinner (Citation1971) told us, “Our culture has provided the science and technology to save itself” (p. 181). Believing this assertion, I have spent 45 years exploring and evaluating ways to empower people of colleges, corporations, and communities to apply behavior-based interventions for promoting environmental sustainability, health care, occupational and transportation safety, and for preventing interpersonal conflict, alcohol abuse, and community theft. This and the related research from other behavioral community psychologists have led to the development of practical procedures to address the human dynamics of each of these problem domains. Yet, large-scale adoption of this behavior-change technology has been rare.
It seems we need a unifying theme to connect the diverse behavior-change innovators with the variety of societal concerns for enhanced global dissemination and citizen engagement. I believe the AC4P Movement is a solution. Why? Because it empowers individuals to be self-motivated to perform AC4P behaviors and increase the occurrence of AC4P behaviors from others, as well. An AC4P culture empowers change agents to continuously improve their school, work, and home environments; and as they do this, AC4P cultures will begin to develop in organizations and communities worldwide. The six research articles in this issue evaluated interventions designed to increase the occurrence of prosocial behavior that would be the descriptive social norm in the ideal AC4P culture.
The first article by Ekema-Agbaw, McCutchen, and Geller studied the impact of an intervention designed to increase the frequency of students thanking others for their AC4P behavior. While the intervention increased students’ intentions to express statements of gratitude, self-reports of actual thanking behavior were significantly higher in the control (non-intervention) classes. The authors employ cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, Citation1957) and psychological reactance (Brehm, Citation1966) to explain these unexpected discrepancies between intention and behavior.
The second study by Furrow, McCarty, and Geller evaluated the impact of two prompting techniques to increase pay-it-forward behavior in a university dining facility. The hypothesis that extrinsic controls on a benefactor’s AC4P behavior would decrease the frequency of the beneficiary’s pay-it-forward behavior was not supported, suggesting directions for intriguing follow-up field research.
The third field study by McCarty et al. applied the humanistic behaviorism principles of the AC4P Movement to successfully prevent bullying at an elementary school. The promising success of this positive approach to significantly reduce the frequency of bullying behavior should serve as a model for bullying-prevention intervention that avoids the excessive response cost and negative side-effects of the popular punitive approaches in this problem domain.
The fourth study by Downing et al. investigated factors influencing the checking of customers’ identification when using a credit/debit card, and also evaluated the impact of a “Check My ID” prompt strategically placed on a customer’s credit/debit card. This field study sets the stage for programmatic intervention research to prevent credit-card fraud.
Next, Fournier et al. address the ubiquitous transportation plight of texting while driving. The authors test practical intervention strategies applicable on any college/university campus. The promising results should inspire other behavioral–community researchers to replicate the intervention approach and evaluation methodology in other settings.
Finally, the sixth prevention-intervention study by Smith et al. evaluated the impact of specific field-sobriety tests at dissuading alcohol-impaired university students from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. As with the prior study that targeted texting while driving, the methodology and results of this study are extremely informative with regard to the advancement of prevention interventions for a most serious transportation problem found throughout most industrialized countries.
References
- Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York, NY: Academic Press.
- Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Geller, E. S. (2014). Actively caring at your school: How to make it happen (2nd ed.). Newport, VA: Make-A-Difference, LLC.
- Geller, E. S. (2016). Actively caring for people: Cultivating a culture of compassion (5th ed.). Newport, VA: Make-A-Difference, LLC.
- Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York, NY: Bantam Books.