Rob Stein of the washingtonpost.com discusses how the impact of traditional social networking maybe underestimated when seeking behavioral change at epidemic levels. He sites the success that social networking had in decreasing the number of smokers. Citing a study released last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, Stein talks about the numbers of people who quit smoking when others in their social network quit. According to the study, they were influenced even by people they did not know directly but were connected to through friends, family and co-workers.
He goes on to discuss the possibility of harnessing the social network influence to decrease obesity, dangerous sexual behaviors and/or crime.
Is this so different than what we know about the power of adventure and the Adventure Group Process? By their very nature, the foundational concepts of Project Adventure (Full Value Contract, Challenge by Choice, Experiential Learning Cycle and Goal Setting) create the ultimate social network including an emotionally and physically safe environment for testing out and trying on new behaviors and ways of being.
Although the study doesn't go specifically into why smoking decreases more dramatically in a social network than when individuals attempt to quit in isolation...it is stressed that it could be based on changes in the social norms of the group.
In PA's residential and day treatment programs run and managed in Covington GA under PA Kids leader Cindy Simpson, Behavior Management through Adventure is the model utilized to empower children and youth to create the social norms for their group, class and residence. These norms follow the Full Value Contract (Be Here, Be Honest, Care for Self and Others, Set Goals, Let Go and Move On) and become tools for discussing behaviors, behavioral change and positive and negative consequences for operating within and outside of the norms.
As one young woman in the Challenge program at PA Kids told me, "I tell the new kids who come here....Yeah when I first came I thought all this group stuff was stupid. Then before I knew it, I was using the Full Value Contract, calling 'Group' and behaving better. So I tell them, all you have to do is fake it til you make it. And you'll be behaving better too".
Stein also warns that as happened in the smoking changes, as the social norms change, those who don't quit smoking become isolated, stigmatized and isolated. And states that this could happen if the social network theory is applied to fighting obesity. Those who are unable to lose weight or change behaviors will become isolated and disenfranchised in society.
This would be a good place to incorporate the norm of "Caring for self and others".
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