Installation Theory
The Societal Construction and Regulation of Behaviour

Installation Theory provides researchers and practitioners with a simple and powerful framework to analyse and change behaviour.

Saadi Lahlou (Author)

9781107137592, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 February 2018

520 pages
23.5 x 16.8 x 2.7 cm, 0.96 kg

'Lahlou presents a bold and innovative theory of social stability and change. At the centre is a multi-level model analysing the opportunities and constraints on behaviour of the physical, institutional and psychological environments. The many implications for, and examples of, behaviour change remind me of Kurt Lewin's dictum 'there is nothing so practical as good theory'.' George Gaskell, London School of Economics and Political Science

Installation Theory: The Societal Construction and Regulation of Behaviour provides researchers and practitioners with a simple and powerful framework to analyse and change behaviour. Informed by a wide range of empirical evidence, it includes an accessible synthesis of former theories (ecological psychology, activity theory, situated action, distributed cognition, social constructionism, actor-network theory and social representations). 'Installations' are the familiar, socially constructed, apparatuses which elicit, enable, scaffold and control - and make predictable most of our 'normal' behaviour; from shower-cabins or airport check-ins to family dinners, classes or hospitals. The book describes their threefold structure with a new model enabling systematic and practical analysis of their components. It details the mechanisms of their construction, resilience and evolution, illustrated with dozens of examples, from restaurants to nuclear plant operation. The book also provides a detailed analysis of the processes of creation and selection of innovations, proposing a model for the maintenance and evolution of social systems.

1. Installation: a synthetic theory to explain how humans construct systems that support and format individual behaviour
2. The problem of human action and the problem of social regulation: two sides of the same coin
3. Theoretical frameworks grounding installation theory
4. The structure of installations
5. Endurance of installations: the reconstructive cycle of practice
6. Selection mechanisms in societal evolution: two cases, science and industry
7. The evolution of installations
8. Redesigning installations to change behaviour
9. Conclusion
10. References cited.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology [JM]