To address this issue, some of the brightest minds in academia (including Kurt Lewin, creator of the team-based intervention approach) were recruited to convince Americans to eat more undesirable meat. Under the team-based intervention framework; a group of housewives, chefs, and other food aficionados were recruited to develop an effective strategy to encourage their neighbors to eat undesirable meat. The group produced positive results, and the new campaign strategy they developed was a success. Livers, hearts, and glands were spiced and diced at home and in restaurants in order to ration the best cuts for loved ones fighting overseas.
Team-based intervention approaches work because they allow citizens to problem solve in a socially supportive context. Citizens are asked to reflect on their successes and failures, and through this process take ownership of the intervention strategy. But in order for team-based intervention to work, a dedicated team must be identified to commit time and effort to developing the behavior change strategy. Finding this team may be more difficult than it sounds.
In the United States during WWII, citizens had many internal and external incentives to promote the behavior change: a desire to support loved ones overseas, fearing a world in which the allied powers lost the war, a government mandated ration system, cultural values that lauded frugality (built through experiences of war and the Great Depression). If a team developed a program to encourage Americans to eat more organ meat today , how might the internal and external incentives used change? How do the contextual factors/setting differ between the United States in World War II and today? How might you convince communities to participate in a team-based intervention approach to this behavior change today?
I'm kind of shocked that the group of chefs, housewives, and other food aficionados were successful in their behavior change strategy. First of all, because I'm pretty grossed out by idea of eating organs. Second, I sort of thought that the team based interventions proposed by Lewin only really affected those who were involved in those participatory citizen meetings. Where the participants proposed their own solutions, ran small experiments, and then reflected on the success or failures of their experiments within their own behavior. The success of these interventions was due to the fact that the people whose behavior changed were involved in the process. It seems strange to me that those who weren't involved in the process would still change their behavior. Maybe there is something else going on as well, like a role-model effect or something?
ReplyDeleteHi there! My understanding was that the strategy they developed was a propaganda campaign to promote behavior change(posters, cook books, etc.). Someone correct me if I'm wrong! To this end, the "team" was truly acting as agents of change and not the particular targets of an intervention. Again, someone correct me if you think I got it wrong!
DeleteExactly on point! This is one of the great things about team-based interventions. The idea is that you may get to work with a small team of highly motivated individuals, but that through the process of working with the team, they each become more knowledgable and skilled and then are able to take the things they've learned back to the rest of their communities. What evaluation metric does this apply to?
DeleteWhile there are a lot of factors that determine what a country eats, I would say that the economic ones are one of the biggest. I've seen it my country, Chile, while growing up: when I was a kid eating organs (or interiors, as we called them) was very common. When you bought a chicken you bought the whole damned chicken! My mom and most home cooks used the organs for a typical plate called cazuela, a soup with chicken or beef meat, potatoes, corn and squash, and the organs were really useful to make the soup more savory. In those days nothing went to waste.
ReplyDeleteWhile growing up i started to notice a change in consumers' behavior mostly because the options on how to buy a chicken are so many now: you can buy just the thighs or the wings or the breast, or a combinaton or a semiprepared version. Now, only the poorest buy a whole chicken (because its cheaper) and the organs are starting to lose their appeal.
I would say that it has to do with how Chile has tranformed in the last few decades from a developing nation into an almost developed one, so now the industry and we as consumers don't care as much if something go to waste. In the US you are used to this type of behavior but as Lewin and his team probably knew, that behavior is cirscuntantial: human diets adapt to the environment and the availability of food. I would say that the callenge for them was to speed up the process... Maybe as you suggested they tried to create role-models and tweak social norms from "organs are disgusting!" to "hey! organs can be delicious if you know how to cook them!".
And they are! When i was a kid i loved eating beef's tongues and guts and chickens hearts not only because i had to, but because once you get over the social construct that organs are disgusting you realize they are as good (and in some cases even better) that any type of meat.
I think this could a powerful metaphor for tons of environmental behaviors that have a stigma and give people a "bad taste in their mouths." Whereas the people during WWII and Nicolas's community a few decades ago were able to 1) understand the personal importance, logic, and "greater good" aspect of eating organ meat and 2) see it as a social norm to eat those things. It sounds not so different from a thing like composting--could be perceived as gross, undesirable, and unnecessary in some communities. However, already in some places--where the communities recognize and appreciate the benefits--composting has become not only acceptable but cool. I think the key is to tap the personal connection to the need for the behavior, like the support for family members in the war, but at the same time combine it with making the behavior socially acceptable and encouraged.
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