The Behaviour of a Behaviour Changer

As you may be able to tell from my “about me” page I was recently hired by the Wales Centre for Behaviour change as a Behavioural Psychologist. Since I got the job a number of people have asked me… “What do you do?” and often I have to stop and back track my thoughts because… well… it’s not exactly easy to describe what a Behavioural Psychologist does, it’s more about what a Behavioural Psychologist is.

Simply put I provide theoretical expertise to the team I work with, and I help with intervention design for businesses that work with us.

But that’s not what I am; it’s just what I do. What I am is something very different… and it’s hard to come to terms with.

So a little bit of context is necessary here; 4 years ago I started my undergraduate degree at Bangor University, I was 18, impressionable and armed with only a vague sense of what I wanted to do with my life. At first it was difficult to acclimatize to my new role as “student”, I was equipped with my own home, disposable income, responsibility. No one was breathing down my neck, and no one was following up on my every move. I was free – but trapped by the unfamiliar contingencies of my surrounding.

Over the three years of my degree I got used to it. Then, just as I was used to being a student I became a post-grad. Damn, now there is a jump! The most interesting thing for me was seeing with hindsight how controlled undergraduate study was (even though relatively it was free), compared to post-grad which was very hands-off. There’s no spoon-feeding. It’s sink or swim.

So that’s me until now. I was a student, and then I was a post-graduate student. If you aren’t flush with academic culture there is a big difference between an undergraduate and a post graduate in terms of respect and expectation, but there is a sheer gulf between student and behavioural psychologist.

When I found out I had got this job I was elated. The reality, of course, hadn’t really set in. At first I didn’t believe it. I told myself it wasn’t what I thought it was. I told myself it would be revoked. I told myself everything except; “you’re going to be a Behavioural Psychologist”.

I started the job.

The weirdest thing is that people actually listen to me. Imagine going to work every day and being told what to do by people who know way more than you, and then once you just start to master a task they pull the rug out and expect you to learn something new again – imagine this repeating itself for four years and you’ve got yourself the basic student experience. Now imagine the next day you go into work and all of a sudden people are hanging on your word, nodding as you speak, actually asking your advice. That’s what it’s like to go from student to Behavioural Psychologist.

It’s ridiculously scary.

So one and a half months into my job, what am I? Well I’m a behavioural psychologist and I’ve shrugged off most of the student mantle. It’s amazing really how much we are defined by the opportunities presented to us. Would I be as I am had I simply passed in

There’s a lesson, if you’re willing to look. We are a product of our environment. Our self-image, our sense of responsibility, our way of relating to ourselves and others – all are tied inextricably to the context we find ourselves in.

to a PhD program typical of my peers? Probably not. I’d have assumed a different set of behaviours to cope with the differing contingencies.

P.S/ A bit of meta-reflection – as I sit here writing this blog I’m casting my mind back to the last month or so, trying to distil the essence of it, and as I re-read the words I’ve written it all seems much of a muchness. It’s anti-climactic. More of a musing. I hope I haven’t bored you with it!