Thanks for this illuminating discussion. I’d like to very briefly point out a somewhat different approach to bringing change. Violence prevention programs are often aimed at changing attitudes and more generally the culture that surrounds them. Clearly behavior is related to this attitude/culture complex so at some level this approach offers possibilities. However a pretty strong finding in social psychology (my field) is that it is easier to start the change process at the behavioral level rather than the attitudinal one. In other words, viewing behavior change as the independent variable often works best. For example rather than trying to convince folks that settling disputes in a nonviolent way is best, it might be better to create situations where groups/individuals are rewarded for using nonviolent approaches.
There are a number of theoretical approaches that support the above, such as self-perception theory which assumes that we assess our attitudes/beliefs in the same way we assess those of others, by observing their/our behavior.
Thanks for this illuminating discussion. I’d like to very briefly point out a somewhat different approach to bringing change. Violence prevention programs are often aimed at changing attitudes and more generally the culture that surrounds them. Clearly behavior is related to this attitude/culture complex so at some level this approach offers possibilities. However a pretty strong finding in social psychology (my field) is that it is easier to start the change process at the behavioral level rather than the attitudinal one. In other words, viewing behavior change as the independent variable often works best. For example rather than trying to convince folks that settling disputes in a nonviolent way is best, it might be better to create situations where groups/individuals are rewarded for using nonviolent approaches.
There are a number of theoretical approaches that support the above, such as self-perception theory which assumes that we assess our attitudes/beliefs in the same way we assess those of others, by observing their/our behavior.