Promoting Sustainable Collective Action: Lessons from Behavioural Sciences

Abstract

"Several tools and techniques are used by psychologists and the counsellors for behaviour shaping. Some of the techniques such as contingency management of reinforcement, modelling procedures and rational emotive approaches have considerable relevance for community groups. In community development activities, rights and incentives provided for motivating community members act as reinforcement for collective management of resources. If the benefit flow from collectively managed resources increases, it further acts as reinforcer. The extension activities such as exposure visits to some exemplary cases or success stories provide as models for communities. The participatory exercises, community meetings and other sensitization activities act like rational emotive approaches of behaviour shaping. This study has been carried out in south Rajasthan where Joint Forest Management approach has been implemented for nearly two decades. The delivery and process of community development activities in selected villages were analyzed in each community to understand how they compared with the community behaviour shaping approaches. This was then related to the effectiveness of community institutions. The results indicated decline in effectiveness of institutions in many cases which was primarily associated with absence of proper scheduling of reinforcement while delivering development activities. While in some cases sustained collective action was observed where a combination of factors motivated community members. In overall, it was evident that collective action remained sustained when the combination of rights, incentives, benefits and sensitization processes was delivered in a manner that they acted as reinforcers of the desired behaviour. Based on these observations, a strategy of delivering a combination of development interventions is discussed to promote sustainable community institutions."