Social and Interpersonal Approaches to Design for Behaviour Change

Abstract

This paper reviews a diverse set of social and interpersonal influence approaches and techniques which could be relevant to designers seeking to influence behavior change for social and environmental benefit. These include work on social proof (which already has some practical applications in household energy use reduction studies) and dramaturgical and contextual approaches to modelling interaction. Perspectives on interpersonal influence are also covered, such as techniques extracted from Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', and a brief dive into the world of neuro-linguistic programming. In each case, implications for designers are highlighted and summarized at the end of the paper.