Understanding Human Motivation for Behavior Change

Our Main Goal as Dental Professionals is : To devise strategies for “motivating” oral self-care behavior by teaching clients how to recognize their own signs of dental distress or neglect

Sources of Information

Clients often learned this information (and the misinformation) : 1- school-based health programs 2- the dentist 3- media, and advertising; and 5- from peers, friends, neighbors, or relatives

Dental professionals learn preventive dentistry: 1- as part of the curriculum in dental and dental hygiene schools, 2- through reading professional dental journals, 3- by attending professional meetings and conferences, 4- and trough participation in continuing education programs

Information transmittal Which involves learning, so it is desirable to turn to the teaching profession for how information is best imparted to ensure long-term retention

For dental professionals --- Is only having the information enough??

Many dental professionals do not have adequate skills to provide information to clients appropriately to ensure long-term retention

Is providing knowledge to a client sufficient to change the client's behavior???!!!!

Motivation Internal knowledge and will of the entire individual to act. It is an inner drive pushing an individual to satisfy a need When individuals have found a motive, to spur them to action, we say that they are motivated

Energy (motives) Can be defined as the internal mental and physical strength and endurance available to an individual to apply to focusing on and wanting a goal

Sources of Motivation 1-The internal movement: involves thoughts and emotions focused on the desire for a certain object or result whereas 1-The external movement: involves actions that are geared towards creating or obtaining the object or result

The Learning Process and Motivation 1- Bloom’s Cognitive domain 2- The learning ladder 3- Socioeconomic Needs (Maslow’s Needs)

1- Bloom’s Cognitive domain Benjamin Bloom ( ) Academic Educational Psychologist PhD in education University of Chicago Benjamin Bloom ( ) Academic Educational Psychologist PhD in education University of Chicago

Evaluation judges the value of information Synthesis builds a pattern from diverse elements Analysis separates information into part for better understanding Application applying knowledge to a new situation Comprehension understanding information Knowledge recall of data

During the 1990's, a former student of Bloom's, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly (Schultz, 2005)

Remembering: can the student recall or remember the information? Understanding : can the student explain ideas or concepts? Applying: can the student use the information in a new way? Analyzing: can the student distinguish between the different parts? Evaluating: can the student justify a stand or decision? Creating: can the student create new product or point of view?

Incorporating knowledge into Value Systems Values reflect one's judgment as to what is important in life

Concepts, less numerous than facts, represent the organization and classification of facts into meaningful personal habits or patterns The greater number of correct facts arising from different inputs, the greater the possibility of developing correct concepts

Dental values can be Positive or Negative We must be careful how we approach the value systems of our clients or of the community We must respect the fact that others have their own value systems tied to their own set of expectations that may be quite different from ours We must be careful how we approach the value systems of our clients or of the community We must respect the fact that others have their own value systems tied to their own set of expectations that may be quite different from ours

The mouth represents a body area of special importance and “value” for children and adults

Making changes in one's behavior is often very difficult and involves dealing with conflict Therefore it is necessary that the dental professional understand that because of the client's value system, resistance is normal and permanent changes in some forms of behavior are difficult to achieve

Can human values be changed??? But Values are slow to form and slow to change. Even if the factual information is complete and adequate, time is required for concepts to evolve and mature; even more time is required before other additional facts and concepts are acquired to support a new value

“knowing how to do something motivates people to do it “

2- The learning ladder (the learning process) (Merging motivation with education)

Unawareness -The in­dividual simply lacks information -Has faulty data concerning the problem

Awareness occurs when the correct information obtained but does not have any personal meaning 0r effect

“Leapfrogging ” over one or several steps can result in failure to reach the top of the ladder In such an event no permanent behavior change occurs

Once that top rung has been reached with habit formation, the learner has a new value In other words, the facts are gained at the bottom of the ladder, the concepts acquired as the learner progresses, and a full value emerges at the top

Also the sequence of events seen in Bloom's hierarchy and in the learning ladder are somewhat parallel The main deference is that Bloom's hierarchy emphasizes the learning process per se, whereas the learning ladder focuses on how motivation must be considered along with learning in skills development to facilitate and accelerate attainment of the top rung

3- Socioeconomic Needs (Maslow’s Needs) ABRAHAM MASLOW PhD 1934, Psychology University of Wisconsin One of the founders of humanistic psychology His famous book, The Organism (1934) (viewed the human organism as an integrated, organized whole and not as a collection of separate organs and functions)

The Maslow believed that the inner forces that drive a person to action were referred to by Maslow as needs & an individual takes action to satisfy these needs, and he conceptualized five levels of basic human needs

Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: 1-deficiency needs and 2-growth needs Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: 1-deficiency needs and 2-growth needs

According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if “and only if” the deficiency needs are met