Understanding Social Affordances to Enable Workplace Behavioural Change

In my last blog I introduced the difference between cognitive and ecological psychology. I introduced the much used post box analogy to explain how a post box affords both being rested on during a run, and for communicating through when it’s a friends birthday.

What are Affordances?

Affordances are relational - they refer to the fit between an individual's abilities and the features of the environment that support action. For example, a post box affords resting on for an individual who has the ability to lean with an arm outwards. Without this matching between features and abilities, there is no affordance.

Importantly, affordances are real and exist whether they are perceived and utilised or not. For example, a tree branch may afford reaching for fruit for a human, even if no one is currently reaching for the fruit. These invitations are always being sent, if not always being received.

Ecological Psychology conceptualised specifically in Gibson’s notion of ‘Direct Perception’ has mostly been focussed on lower order tasks of movement (e.g. a post box being able to support me leaning on it). More recently it has started to explore ‘social affordances’ or integrate forms of life and complexity science to understand the meanings of things beyond their immediate physical properties . Forms of Life is what is more commonly referred to as ‘culture’-“ways of being that manifest in the normative behaviours and customs of our communities”(Rothwell et al., 2019, pg.244). As affordances emerge at the individual, task and environment level, the behaviour of the individual emerges too. Someone, is always doing something, somewhere. These 3 elements are inescapable in the emergence of behaviour.

So how does this apply to a post box? Well there is a form of life (albeit diminishing one) in the UK around communicating via post. We send birthday cards to more distant friends and family, which creates a custom. A post box affords participation in this ritual, the stronger this ritual, the stronger the social affordance, the more likely someone is to walk to find that post box.

This may explain why two identical people living the same distance away from a post box, do or do not post a birthday card. If one’s form of life they are in has a strong normative behaviour of posting cards vs the other whose is weaker, it’s the social affordance, not the individual difference that will predict behaviour. Of course in real life, it is a combination of the strength of the social affordances, physical affordances (accessibility to a post box) and individual differences (e.g. empathy, consciousness etc.).

Some examples of uniquely human social affordances include:

- Face-to-face conversations

- Family Christmas Dinners

- Social media interactions

- Teaching and learning

-Negotiations

- Collaborative work and problem solving

These social affordances emerge from skills that develop through participation in cultural customs and institutions. The norms and conventions in communities and organisations constitute additional "rules" governing social affordances. These social affordances and skills all guide attention to certain affordances which invite behaviour.

Rietveld & Kiverstein, (2014, pg.333) noted:

“what matters for succession coordination with the activities of others, is that one can reliably act in ways that fit in with the sociocultural practice of communal custom”.

This key insight suggests why we may be stuck in a traditional perception-action loop in some organisations, with our perception informed by historical sociocultural practices, habits, customs and attitudes.

Implications for The Workplace

The concepts of social affordances and forms of life have profound relevance for understanding and enabling behavioural change in organisational contexts.

For example, patterns of undesirable or underproductive work behaviours often persist because the workplace environment affords and even amplifies them through social norms and conventions. Gossiping in the breakroom or procrastination behaviours may be supported unintentionally by aspects of the work ecology. Yet, traditional HR practices and norms place the centre of poor or great behaviour in the individual and not the environment. This is not to say, that people are not responsible for their behaviour, but they are often bombarded with some undesirable invitations from the surrounding environment. These can be poorly designed incentives or targets, placed on top of executional pressure from leadership to deliver and an environment that might not reward speaking out.

On the other hand, positive new behaviours require compatible social affordances in order to thrive. Attempts to change communication styles or enable collaboration often flounder if the surrounding organisational environment does not provide supporting affordances.

As another example, the physical structure and artifacts in workspaces can constrain social affordances by regulating opportunities for particular types of interactions to occur. Access to other people afforded by open floor plans is different than in closed office layouts. Digital tools expand possibilities for remote communication, coordination and collaboration.

Enabling Behavioural Change in The Workplace

A social affordances perspective suggests some principles and strategies to more effectively enable new patterns of behaviour in the workplace:

1. Map the existing organisational environment and identify constraints on desired affordances. Tools such as socio-technical systems are great at attuning leaders to potential sources of environmental affordances,

2. Engineer new affordances in the physical and digital workplace environment aligned to desired changes

3. Adjust social norms, artifacts, policies and incentives to strengthen affordances needed for new behaviours. You want to encourage collaboration, yet name all your meeting rooms after brilliant individuals.

In this view, successful behavioural change is a process of intentionally re-shaping the organisational environment to actively afford - and invite participation in - newly desired patterns of collaborative activity aligned to business objectives. This systems perspective recognises that persistent behaviours are grounded in how individuals skilfully engage with possibilities enabled by the surrounding socio-material environment.

By focusing on aligning social affordances, not trying to coerce individuals’ behaviour in isolation, leaders and change agents can adopt a less judgmental, more empowering means to enable workplace culture shifts. This can unlock lasting transformations not possible by expecting workers to simply implement top-down edicts at odds with workflow realities and the prevailing organisational form of life.

In summary, the concepts of (social) affordances and forms of life offer a far more powerful lens for rethinking behavioural change challenges in the workplace. I hope this piece provides a helpful introduction to these ideas and their very practical applicability. Please share any examples or insights on applying an affordances perspective in your organisational context!