1. The Method
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

2. A Common Method for understanding behavior change.
At the core of SOBC is a systematic, rigorous, and transparent way to create a unified science of behavior change.
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

3. Experimental Medicine Approach
Aims to identify key mechanisms underlying successful behavior change Offers intermediate targets on the causal path to behavior change Helps us understand why an intervention worked or didn’t work
Experimental Medicine Approach
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

4. Experimental Medicine Approach
The experimental medicine approach opens up the black box of behavior change by focusing on underlying mechanisms.
The purpose is to identify mechanisms underlying behavior change, so that we can develop targeted interventions to influence those mechanisms.
The first step is to IDENTIFY an underlying mechanism of behavior change, for example, some measurable dimension of self-regulation. This is merely a hypothesis, rooted in theory, about an important driver of behavior change.
Next, we figure out and demonstrate how to reliably and validly assess that mechanism. We MEASURE the mechanism.
The third step is to show that we can influence that mechanism, using the measure we’ve identified or developed. Here, we’re merely doing early phase laboratory or brief intervention research powered to move only the intermediate target (the identified MECHANISM) that we hypothesized and measured.
Fourth, we determine whether the influence we exert on that measure correlates with behavior change on the actual health behavior of interest.
If so, we have found ourselves a mechanism of behavior change!
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

5. Key Domains of Mechanisms
Prior SOBC research suggests that mechanisms in these three domains are relevant for understanding behavior change: self-regulation, stress reactivity and stress resilience, and interpersonal and social processes.
These three mechanism domains are the focus of the research being conducted as part of the SOBC Research Network.
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

6. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

7. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

8. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

9. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

10. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

11. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

12. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

13. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

14. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

15. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

16. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

17. Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018

18. Hypothesize mechanisms first Determine whether you can measure them
SOBC/Experimental medicine approach
Hypothesize mechanisms first
Determine whether you can measure them
Determine whether you can influence them
Determine whether changing them can change behavior
Test an intervention optimized to change them, and thereby change behavior
Donald Edmondson, "Achieving and Sustaining Behavior Change to Benefit Older Adults" Dec 6-7, 2018