"When Helping Hurts"
Several years ago, I listened to a Freakonomics podcast episode called, “When Helping Hurts.” It told stories of different social programs that tried to help different people and situations, but they actually had the opposite effect. These common sense ways of helping failed to look at all six areas of influence, and this not only did not change behavior in the intended way but sometimes even increased the negative behavior that was the initial focus. I think common sense can be the enemy because it is made from a lot of assumptions based on our own experiences but also relies on faulty information. In her Ted Talk, Jeni Cross shared that people really do not understand what motivates them. In the study, social norms were the most influential factor in changing behavior, however most people expected to be influenced more by value and education based factors (Cross, 2013).
The recommendations made by Dr. Cross and the Influencer’s Model of Six Sources of Influence are connected because they both emphasize looking more deeply at the social science and research of how to influence changes in behavior instead of just “feeling” a situation out and using common sense. Too often administrators and educators, including myself, resort to structural motivators such as rewards and punishment, yet that was shown to be the least effective way to change behavior (Grenny et al.,2013). With the structure that the six influences provide, I hope to move beyond just a momentary change to survive the moment to more lasting changes in my students and organization.
References:
Cross, J. (2013, March 20). Three myths of behavior change - what you think you know that you don't: Jeni Cross at tedxcsu. YouTube. Retrieved January 24, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5d8GW6GdR0
Dubner, S. J., & Tam, S. (2017, July 12). When Helping Hurts. Freakonomics. Retrieved January 26,
Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: the new science of leading change, second edition (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
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