This is one of the very first books to explore behaviour change from a range of disciplinary perspectives. There is no restrictive focus in this volume, on say health or the environment. The wicked problems that society faces are complex – huge – and ‘behaviour change’ has taken on a life of its own as the thing all these problems have in common: the need for people to change their behaviour. These problems are not the fault of obscure bacteria. There is no extra-terrestrial attack. These problems – obesity, pollution, congestion, smoking-related disease and many heart diseases and cancers – are human-made. However, the phrase ‘behaviour change’, which has become so pervasive in political, academic and media commentary, is loaded with meaning, assumption and ideology. Some dislike the term because it presumes that the individuals ‘doing’ the behaving (the smokers, the drivers or the consumers of unhealthy food) should be the sole focus of intervention and that this ignores the socio-cultural structures in which all individual behaviour takes place. Alternatives, however – terms like ‘social change’ or ‘societal influence’ – are equally lambasted for the sense that ‘population control’ feels too Orwellian. In the middle comes the neoliberal view that has seen the rise of ‘nudge’ approaches – those that use behavioural economics insights to structure choices but maintain the existence of the choice. These of course have attracted their own flurry of criticism.

The point is that ‘behaviour change’, used in the title of this volume for its recognisability more than for its representation of any overarching viewpoint, is rapidly becoming viewed as a ‘field’ of knowledge in its own right. There are a growing number of Masters’ and continuing professional development courses in the subject (at the Universities of Derby, Stirling and the West of England [UWE], for example), plus a growing number of specialist research centres (such as at Bath, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Stirling, University College London and UWE) that grapple with a variety of behaviour-change-related research conundrums. However, the reality, as this book demonstrates, is that the range of perspectives within ‘behaviour change’ is as considerable as the disparity between them.

Until now there has been no volume that brings together the range of viewpoints, disciplines, theories, ideologies and critiques that pervade ‘behaviour change’.