It Takes Behavior Science to End Violence against Children

Behavioural science is an interdisciplinary field with roots in social psychology, cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, data science and anthropology. It uses evidence-based methodologies to understand the barriers and facilitators that drive how people make decisions and how they respond to programmes. SBC interventions apply systematic insights about why people behave the way they do and how their behaviours change. Designing for behaviour change implies four main steps that start with defining the exact behaviours to be changed by all actors at all levels. The barriers and facilitators to the desired behaviours need to be diagnosed and understood in as much detail as possible, via formative research, after which appropriate intervention areas are identified and designed. Most importantly, target groups are closely consulted again, and the interventions are tested before they are scaled.