The psychology of social influence and healthy public policy

Social-psychological research has led to effective health interventions based on social influence processes. For example, school-based substance abuse prevention programs using the social influences model consistently produce better results than programs emphasizing only health information. Other areas of application have been prevention of AIDS, marketing social action programs, community-wide health promotion, anti-prejudice intervention, aggression control, crime and injury prevention, and resource conservation. Yet another area for application is the emerging field of health promotion, which seeks to cross traditional boundaries to build healthy public policies in all sectors of society. A comprehensive social influences approach is needed because education alone is not likely to change fundamental ideas about where the responsibility for health rests. Current assignment of responsibility to the health sector and victim-blaming will be difficult to defeat. Positive changes at the required levels will depend on better understanding of how to instill health promotion values in policy arenas beyond the health care sector and better understanding of the dynamics of policy-making behaviors and related social influence processes. Social psychologists can and should assist the health promotion field to meet these challenges by conducting descriptive and intervention research on the psychology of social influence processes in public policy-making arenas.