Designing Social Norms Social and Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC)
Time to design some activities! To complete this section, you need…
1. A social norm(s) you have prioritised to be addressed in your activity
2. A SNAP analysis of the social norm(s)
If not, go back to the sections on how to identify the social norms impacting SRH access in your context and analysing social norms.
Choosing a strategy
There is no standard formula for settling on the right approach: you will have to get creative and look for opportunities yourself! We tend to talk about activities that “shift” or “address” social norms, but that’s not specific enough. What does that really mean in practice?
Broadly, there are 3 strategies you can choose from to design a social norms activity:
1 Weakening a social norm: Breaking down the existing norm at the individual- and community level.
2 Changing, countering or complementing a social norm: Promoting a constructive alternative to the existing behaviour, with clear benefits.
3 Leveraging a social norm: Calling attention to positive values and norms.
View FAQ
Can I combine these strategies?
You can, and you’ll see many interventions do. But there is usually one strategy that is the dominant one, so try to determine which one that would be for you.
You should use your own judgment, context insight and the previously completed analyses to determine which one is the most appropriate strategy for the norm you are prioritising. But we can give you some tips: use the SNAP framework and power calculator to take a look at the table below.
If your norm…
|
✓ Has strong exceptions: there are lots of ways to explain/ justify not following the norm ✓ Has “positive deviants”: it’s easy to find people who do not follow the norm ✓ Does not align with the broader set of community norms and values |
… could you weaken it? |
|
✓ Is connected to other community norms and values that support our mission ✓ Has some exceptions: there are ways to explain/justify not following the norm ✓ Is not morally strong: people follow the norm without thinking about it very much, but they do not actively defend the norm |
… could you change, counter & complement it? |
| ✓ Has some of these characteristics, but you don’t see an obvious opportunity |
… could you find a linked, positive norm to leverage? So far, we have only spoken about “barriers” to our mission, but in your analysis, you might have encountered linked norms that are positive. Remember the example where it was wrong for girls to explore sex before marriage, but fine for boys? That’s an opportunity right there! |
Remember, not all of the bullet points have to be true for the strategy to work, and vice versa!
From strategy to activity
Brainstorming: How might we
There are endless options for activity ideas you could come up with. The best way to do this is gather some colleagues and brainstorm!
A useful technique here is brainstorming with “How Might We.” Try to come up with a few questions related to the norm and strategy, starting the sentence with “how might we”. For example: In a certain setting, we have the following SNAP framework.
| Empirical expectations | Normative expectations | Sanctions and rewards | Reference groups | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “As a man, I believe that I should not concern myself with family planning.” | “I believe other men do not bother with family planning discussions.” | “My status as a man may change if I deviate from the norm – positively or negatively” | Mainly peers, community leaders, providers who do not talk to men about FP,… | There are economic benefits to birth spacing that might make a man more interested in knowing about FP |
We found that the norm:
- Is connected to other community norms and values that support our mission – for example, other norms around men as being the providers for the family
- Has some exceptions: there are ways to explain/justify not following the norm – for example, economic benefits to birth spacing
- Is not morally strong: people follow the norm without thinking about it very much, but they do not actively defend the norm – for example, some men have started questioning why they are never involved in family planning mobilisation activities
So, we decide to change, counter & complement this norm. We ask ourselves:
- How might we… help men understand that they have an important role to play in discussions about family planning?
- How might we… get men to talk about family planning to each other? To their wives?
- How might we…share the experiences of those who already see the benefits of birth spacing?
A lot of things might come up in the brainstorm. It could be ideas for activities, tools, training packages,… You can have big or small ideas!
Need inspiration? The next sections (Tips & Social Norms Library) have lots of case study examples and general tips to help you along!
Choosing activities
Once you have a list of potential activities, it’s time to decide which ones would be most impactful! There are eight High-Impact Approaches that are proven to be most likely to successfully shift social norms. You can use sheet 1 in the checklist tool to check which activity/ activities include these elements and refine your choice accordingly.
Final check: using a logic chain to link activities to norms
Just like we did with the SNAP framework, it is helpful to describe activities in a specific way, to make sure it all makes sense! This will also help come up with ways to monitor the activity’s impact.
A logic chain is a sentence/paragraph that:
- Describes the activity
- How the activity addresses the social norm (which of the 3 strategies)
- How reference groups will be reached
- What will change as a result among which group
Following the previous example, the activity we settle on is Statements Discussions: we are giving community mobilisers a set of cards to use with men, each featuring a statement on social norms that the men need to agree or disagree with. Afterwards, the discussion is opened.
The logic chain would then be:
The Statements Discussion will change, counter and complement the norm that men should not concern themselves with family planning, creating peer discussions where positive deviants can influence other men to want to be more engaged with family planning as a topic.
For some more inspiration, these are some examples we came up with during a workshop with 4 country programmes in Senegal:
- The discussions with community leaders will change, counter and complement the norm that unmarried adolescents should not concern themselves with contraception, by sensitising leaders to the risks and consequences of unintended pregnancies, making leaders more aware of the exceptions to the social norm.
- Organising discussions between unmarried women and peers who are satisfied MSI clients will weaken the norm that unmarried women should not and do not use family planning, reassuring the non-client peers so that they might take up a service or become champions themselves.
You can now try this yourself using the logic chain tool.
TIP! Effective brainstorms
Seven golden rules for brainstorming:
- Defer judgement: brainstorm first, judge later!
- Encourage wild ideas: embrace thinking out of the box
- Build on the ideas of others: try to use “and” instead of “but” when reading other ideas
- Stay focused on the topic: the how might we
- One conversation at a time: no interruptions please
- Be visual: you don’t always have to write your ideas, you can draw too!
- Go for quantity: the more ideas, the better! They don’t have to be perfect immediately.