“Switch” Application Paper

“Switch” Application

Points: 40
Due: Sunday, May 31st (Module 9)

The purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to demonstrate your engagement with and understanding of the strategies presented in “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard” and to apply them in a practical and relevant way, and ideally to also incorporate other concepts from the course. In broad terms, the assignment is to create and try out a “switch” for some situation in your life. This could be for an individual (such as getting your housemate to recycle more) or a group (such as introducing walking meetings at your workplace). You will come up with implementation ideas that address the rational, emotional and environmental aspects of change, as outlined in the book, and then use them to try to influence change in your “customer.”

Steps
1. Think of a behavior change that you would like to make. The focus is on other people as your “customer,” but you can also be part of the customer group. In the example given above, the “switch” could be that your household does more recycling, including you, rather than just one housemate. Note: Your goal should NOT be weight loss. Weight loss is not a behavior. You can use behaviors such as eating more of certain foods or a specific fitness routine, but the focus should not be losing weight.
2. Read the book! While chapters in this book are assigned in the various modules, feel free to read ahead if you would like to get a jump on this assignment. You will need to give yourself enough time to do the implementation and then write the paper. This is not a paper you can sit down and write the night before it is due! You will need time to complete the steps.
3. As you are reading, make notes on ideas that might work for your behavior change, at least one idea for each aspect: the Rider; the Elephant; and, the Path.
4. By Week 5, decide on your three strategies and create a plan for implementing them.
5. For at least 3 weeks, implement your strategies, keeping notes about how your customer responds along the way, and any adjustments you make along the way.
6. Write your paper. Submit your paper to the corresponding Assignment Folder in D2L. Please submit files with either a .doc, .docx or .pdf extension.

Paper Requirements (expected length is between 2000 and 2500 words)
1. The Switch – The change you are asking of your customer group doesn’t necessarily need to be a health behavior, but it does need to be a behavior. Following the “Switch” framework, the behavior should be fairly specific (“Ambiguity is the enemy.” Page 53). So, rather than “get more exercise,” it should be something like “walk for 20 minutes during lunch hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”
2. The “Customer(s)” – How many people? Any particular traits that are relevant to this switch? For example, housemates who are new to Portland and have never lived anywhere with a city-wide recycling system would be a much different customer group for a recycling switch than life-long Portland residents.
3. Your Plan – Specifically describe what you will do for each aspect, the rational, the emotional and the environmental. In your writing, you should relate these back to the book concepts. This section should be detailed, and it should be clear what strategy addresses the Rider, the Elephant and the Path.
4. Implementation – Describe how the implementation went. How did your customer(s) respond? Did you make any changes along the way?
5. Reflection – How did it go? Describe what worked and didn’t work. What were the keys to the successes? What surprised you about how your customers responded? What ideas do you have about things that didn’t work? What might you do differently?

A “total success” isn’t required for a good grade on this assignment. What is required is a good faith effort and a thoughtful reflection. If your customer(s) fail to make any noticeable change, you can reflect on why you think that happened. Most likely, you will land somewhere between “total success” and “total failure.” Since this is a relatively short amount of time to make a behavior change, you may have seen some small steps toward the goal, but not what you would consider a “total success.” Be sure to include all of these. Reflect on all aspects. Include other topics of the course, where possible. For example, you may not turn your housemate into a recycling wizard, but you might move them from contemplation to preparation. Your reflection on the process and outcomes will be what determines your grade, not necessarily whether you definitively changed anyone’s behavior, as long as you made a reasonable effort.

Important Note! Be transparent in your work with your customers. You are not trying to trick or manipulate anyone! The framework is about reframing our message to appeal to different aspects of a customer’s needs – logical appeal, emotional appeal and changing the environment. For example, you don’t necessarily need to say, “I’m going to convince you to improve your recycling.” If you are creating an emotional appeal (from Motivate the Elephant), it will be very apparent what you are trying to do: “Look at all the non-recyclables I pulled out of our recycling bin! I hope we can improve how we do our recycling.”
If at any point, you feel like you are being tricky or manipulative, let’s talk. That is not the intention of this assignment.

Tips for Success!
• When you are sitting down to read “Switch,” review the instructions for this assignment each time before you begin, so they are fresh in your mind as you are reading. This will enable you to take notes and jot down ideas as you go, rather than having to go back to look for things later.
• After writing your paper, review the requirements above to make sure you covered them.
• Have you demonstrated that you actually understand the concepts? For example, don’t just say, “I would use some action triggers.” Demonstrate that you understand how to use this concept by, for example, saying why you picked it, how it fits with this situation or why you think it would be effective, and then some examples.
• Have you integrated concepts from throughout the course? While this isn’t a basic requirement, it demonstrates a thorough understanding of the course.
• Be careful about repetition, repeating the same ideas or points at different places in the paper. This is sometimes unintentionally “disguised” as different ideas by using different words, but the underlying point is repeated. Look for this as you are editing.
• Thoroughly edit for misspelled or misused words. Let your great ideas shine through without distractions! My pet peeve is using defiantly for definitely. It is important to be clear whether you are being defiant or definite!
• Check to be sure everything is properly cited! Using other people’s work or ideas without proper citation is plagiarism and will result in a zero score for the assignment. This includes using sections or ideas from a previous student’s paper. Please do your own work! Good resources for proper APA citations can be found on D2L on the Course Essentials page and at:
o Purdue OWL: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
o APA Style Blog: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/
o Specifically for e-books: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/06/how-do-you-cite-an-e-book.html