Whether someone needs to stop smoking, start an exercise routine, or get their kids to brush their teeth, BU professor and psychologist Belinda Borrelli helps motivate change
Belinda Borrelli, a BU Goldman School of Dental Medicine professor of health policy and health services research, is an expert on motivating the unmotivated, whether to help them quit smoking or improve their dietary health.
Behavior Change
Whether someone needs to stop smoking, start an exercise routine, or get their kids to brush their teeth, BU professor and psychologist Belinda Borrelli helps motivate change
Some people just aren’t motivated to change. For every seven smokers who desperately wish they could kick the habit, there are three more who have no interest in stubbing it out—maybe they dismiss the health problems, believe the damage has already been done, or perhaps they simply enjoy it too much.
If you’ve ever watched a New Year’s resolution—hit the gym more, cut back on the cookies, have an alcohol-free January—founder before February, you’ll know that quitting a bad habit or forming a good one is hard enough when you want to do it. So, how do you help someone who has no interest in changing?
“It’s a challenge for me: how do you motivate the unmotivated?” says Belinda Borrelli, director of the Center for Behavioral Science Research at Boston University’s Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. She’s studied how to help people quit smoking, improve their oral and dietary health, and stick with medication and treatment plans—whether they want to or not. “How do you create an engaging treatment for people who aren’t motivated to change—or change isn’t even on their radar?”
Borrelli says telling people what they should be doing only alienates them. Instead, you have to “match your approach to where they’re at.”
Her work draws on cognitive and behavioral psychology, looking for ways to boost people’s motivation and confidence to help them believe change is possible, then pairing treatment plans to their readiness to act. There’s no point, she says, alienating people by repeatedly telling them what they should do—like handing out nicotine patches to those with no interest in quitting.
“It’s a mismatch,” says Borrelli, an SDM professor of health policy and health services research. Instead, she encourages clinicians to “enhance the person’s motivation to change and match your approach to where they’re at.”
In a series of new research projects, Borrelli is examining if technology can help provide a spark for the unmotivated. In two clinical trials, she’s testing the potential of virtual reality (VR)—during dental cleanings to spur smokers to …….
