The Science Bit

Professor Karen Pine

Do Something Different

www.dsd.me

Backed by years of scientific research.

Do Something Different.

Such a simple idea….

The science bit

The Professors Behind Do Something Different

Professor Ben (C)

FletcherProfessor of Psychology,

University of Hertfordshire

D. Phil (Oxon) 1978– Practitioner Occupational

Psychologist & Practitioner

Health Psychologist

– Health and Care Professions

Council Fellow Academician

Academy of Social Sciences,

Chartered Scientist

Professor Karen J PineProfessor of Psychology,

University of Hertfordshire

PhD (Herts) 1997– Member British

Psychological Society

– Chartered Scientist

Between them they have published

hundreds of peer-reviewed articles,

conference papers and books- see

dsd.me for more details

Fletcher, B. (C)., (1983)

“The role of category information in word recognition”. Memory and Cognition, 11 (3), pp. 237 – 250.

D. Phil (Oxon) 1978– Practitioner Occupational Psychologist &

Practitioner Health Psychologist

– Health and Care Professions Council Fellow Academician Academy of Social Sciences, Chartered Scientist

Pine, K. J. & Messer, D. M. (1999).

“What children do and what children

know: Looking beyond success using

Karmiloff-Smith’s Representation

Redescription Framework”. New Ideas in Psychology, 17, pp. 17-30.

Pine demonstrated that what people

do can be disconnected from what

they know (the knowing-doing gap)

and that this has its roots in our

cognitive development.

Most interventions tackle ‘knowing’ not ‘doing’

After an early lung cancer diagnosis a number of people ignore medicaladvice and continueto smoke cigarettes.

Park, Japuntich, Rigotti, Traeger, He, Wallace, Malin,

Zallen & Keating, (2012).

After coronary surgery 90% of people advised to change their lifestyle fail to do so.

Dr. Edward Miller, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, 2004

And despite millions spent on raising health awareness we have an obesity and a diabetes crisis.

National Obesity Forum, 2014

After training courses only 20% of people go back to work and do anything differently.

National Obesity Forum, 2014

People forget 80% of what they’ve learned after one day. And 98% after a month.

Thalheimer, W. (2010).

Believing that it’s enough to ‘raise awareness’ by telling, informing or educating

A fundamental flaw ?

‘Knowing’ does not equal ‘doing’

Thalheimer, W. (2010).

Try this

1. On a keyboard type the phrase:

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”

Try this

2. That sentence contains all the letters of the

alphabet, you probably typed it in under 7 seconds.

3. Now you have 80 seconds to fill in the missing

letters on the keyboard below:

Snyder, Ashitaka, Shimada,

Ulrich & Logan (2014)

“What skilled typists don’t know

about the QWERTY keyboard”. Attention, Perception and Psychophysics,

76, 1, pp. 162-171.

“This demonstrates that we’re

capable of doing extremely

complicated things without knowing

explicitly what we are doing.” (Snyder, 2014)

Pine, K. & Fletcher, B. (C). (2014)

“Shifting brain channels to change

health behaviour”. Perspectives in Public Health, 134, 1, 16-17

“Knowing and doing are frequently

disconnected – yet health educators

continue to expect understanding to

lead to implementation.” (Pine, 2014)

Jenner, E., Fletcher, B. et al (2006)

“Discrepancy between

self-reported and observed hand

hygiene behaviour in healthcare

professionals”. Journal of Hospital Infection, 63, 418-422.

No correlation found between

reported and observed behaviour

Pearsoncorrelation with self-report hand washing

Observed to wash hands BEFORE

care activity

-0.040 (p=.742)

Observed to wash hands AFTER

care activity

+0.047 (p=.698)

Observed to wash hands BEFORE &

AFTER care activity

+0.028 (p=.814)

Humans are habit machines

• We are hard-wired to stick to

routines and repeat actions.

• Habits are stronger

than willpower.

• Behaviour change

is difficult.

• Many people do what’s easy

for them rather than what’s

good for them.

FLETCHER, B. (C) & PINE, K. J. Flex: Do Something Different,

University of Hertfordshire Press: Hatfield, 2012

The power of habits (even if they’re

wrong)

Do Something Different bridges the gap between knowing and doing

• We help people to take action.

• Help them in small steps.

• Knowing and doing come together.

• Use digital technologies to reach them where they are.

• Increase behavioural flexibility.

Change what people do, not what they think

Behavioural Flexibility

Which of the following describes you best?

Circle the behaviours below that best describe you. Select as

many or as few as you like, so long as they describe how you

generally are. There are no right or wrong answers.

Increased behavioural flexibility leads to weight loss & lower stress

• In this study we increased people’s

behavioural flexibility, by getting

them to Do Something Different.

• All participants lost weight, with a

dose relationship between increase

in flexibility and weight lost.

• The weight loss was sustained

after 6 months.

• Anxiety and depression also

reduced significantly.W

eig

ht

loss T

1-T

4

Change in B-Flex T1-T4

Fletcher, B. (C), Hanson, J., Page, N. C., & Pine, K.J. (2011) “Increasing behavioural flexibility leads to sustained weight loss.” Swiss Journal of Psychology, 70 (1), 2011, 25–34.

B FLEX

Higher behaviouralflexibility=Lower BMI

Hanson, J. PhD thesis, (2007).

* r = -0.362 p < 0.01

BMI

When knowing is not enoughFrom an independent evaluation of an in-company Do Something Different programme,

called Open Mind, aimed at increasing inclusive behaviour and tackling unconscious bias.

The table shows sustained behaviour change in those who did/did not sign up for the Do

Something Different tasks (DSD):

Books authored by Fletcher and / or Pine

Thank You

Professor Karen Pine

Do Something Different

www.dsd.me