Designing Behavioral Technologies with Community Self-Help Organizations

Abstract

Attempts to bring about improvements in communities, or to enhance the functioning and well-being of their individual members, are laden with assumptions about the causes of problems and the mechanisms of change. Similarly, several assumptions are implicit in a strategy to contribute to social change efforts through the development of behavioral technologies for community self-help organizations. It is assumed that the problems of living experienced by many individuals in society may be a function of such fundamental social problems as poverty and power-lessness (Ryan, 1971a). If the causes lie outside the person in the broader social system, to treat problems of adjustment and coping individual by individual is to "blame the victim" for problems in society (Ryan, 1971b). Thus efforts to prevent problems of living in individuals might focus on improving the capacities of society's various community support groups to promote individual functioning and human fulfillment (Kessler & Albee, 1975).