Opposing Forces Theory
From product development to biz dev to consumer marketing to every decision we make as human beings, there are reasons to do a thing and there are reason not to do a thing. Known as opposing forces (or dual process) theory, it’s a concept near and dear to AuthenticMatters advisor and behavioral psychologist Matt Wallaert.
The following excerpt is re-posted from Matt’s blog, An N of 1. For the full article, go here.
Opposing forces (or dual process) theory is my psych shorthand for a powerful but relatively simple way of understanding human behavior. Speaking in sweeping generalizations, all decisions and behaviors are the the product of two fundamentally opposing sets of forces: reasons to do something (promoting pressures) and reasons not to do something (inhibiting pressures). These can be internally or externally generated, and how receptive you are to internal vs external cues can itself be acted upon.
The reason this is such an important concept in behavioral change is that if you want to inspire a particular behavior that is not already occurring (or make an existing behavior occur more or less frequently), you start by understanding the balance of forces behind the current state of the world. Once you know why people are doing what they are doing, you can figure out whether you need to remove obstacles or place more in the way, or make something more or less rewarding.
Generally speaking, I see companies (and non-profits and the government) leap towards promoting explanations much too quickly. Want people to eat healthy? Most programs are about telling people why it is important (promoting pressure). But the answer most likely to yield results? Make healthy food cheaper and easier to get (inhibiting pressures). Most people love strawberries (they already have plenty of promoting pressure) but not when they cost three times as much as a bag of pretzels and are in terrible shape at your corner bodega.
In short, we love this. In that much of our time is spent trying to encourage someone - be it a journalist, user, potential partner or anyone in between - to do a thing, understanding why people do what they currently do helps us understand what we need to do (i.e., remove or place obstacles) in order to create the behavior or action we seek.
It doesn’t sound like rocket science but as Matt mentions, people don’t always take the time to really understand what’s happening.
