The Changing People’s Behaviour (CPB) research group at the University of Manchester comprises academics working in social science, economics, public health, psychology, environmental change, decision sciences and law.
This interdisciplinary group's work is focused on sharing research expertise and evidence in the field of behaviour change. In particular the work involves examining people's attitudes, intentions, motivations and behaviour and how these may change over time across the different areas of people's lives. Reviewing what has been shown to be effective in changing behaviour such as, for example, education, information, financial rewards and penalties, is a core area of interest, as is the ethics of different policy interventions.
Whether in relation to social attitudes and behaviour, such as, discrimination, anti-social behaviour, unhealthy eating, smoking, civic participation, volunteering and levels of recycling, changing people’s behaviour is at the heart of much social research and government policy making. For example, certain types of people are more likely to modify their lifestyle following a diagnosis of ill health and certain types of people are more likely to recycle than others following an awareness raising campaign. However, why do some people change their behaviour in response to interventions and others do not? What underpins behaviour change?
The group includes: Professor Iain Buchan (Northwest Institute for Bio Health Informatics), Dr. Anna Coleman (National Primary Care Research and Development Centre), Dr. Dong-Ling Xu (Decision Science Research Centre at the Manchester Business School), Dr. Sarah Coterill (Institute for Political and Economic Governance), Dr. Mark Elliot (Centre for Census and Survey Research), Professor Aneez Esmail (Equalities Office and Medicine), Dr. Rob Ford (Institute of Social Change), Dr. Jane Green (Politics), Dr. Michiru Nagatsu (Dept of Philosophy/Sustainable Consumption Institute), Dr. K. Purdam (Centre for Census and Survey Research), Dr. Dan Rigby (Economics), Dr. Dale Southerton (Sociology), Professor Colin Talbot (Manchester Business School), Dr. Paul Upham (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change) and Professor Jin Bo Yang (Decision Science Research Centre at the Manchester Business School).
Contact Information:
Dr. K. Purdam, Research Fellow, CCSR
Kingsley.purdam@manchester.ac.uk