Using Persuasive Technology to promote
sustainable behavior
Cees Midden
Human Technology Interaction
Eindhoven University of Technology
Netherlands
c.j.h.midden@tue.nl
Changing behavior by changing
behavioral environment:
Persuasive technology intervenes in user-system
interactions
•
Technological environments shape
human behavior
•
Most energy consumption decisions are
made in user -system interactions.
What is Persuasive Technology?
Any interactive intelligent system designed to change
people's attitudes and/or behaviors (Fogg, 2003).
- intentional
- non-coercive
> user in the loop
- interactive
> responsive to user choices
- adaptive
> to needs, type of use, context
- easy
> low cognitive effort
Persuasive tools, experiences and social actors
Supportive tools
Ambient Persuasive Technology
T Nakajima etal,
Ambient Persuasive Technology
T. Nakajima etal,
Design : Har Hollands
Color intensity color meaning and color
presence of ambient light feedback
Action motivating experiences:
experiencing virtual flooding risks
Ps walked through virtual polder
observed dike failures
observed dike breach
water with localized sound
flooding of own house (3 mt)
(Zaalberg & Midden, 2012)
Agents capable of social
interaction
Feedback on energy use
•
•
•
•
Researched since late 70’s
Weekly or monthly messages about
household consumption
Ambivalent results: issues with actionfeedback links and feedback-goal links
(3-10%)
Late 90’s: Interactive feedback
(McCalley & Midden, 2002, 2003)
Interactive feedback
(McCalley & Midden, 2002)
•
•
User and action specific
Immediate and interactive
smb://tmprint.campus.tue.nl/1<hier1printer
naam>
Persuasive social agents:
Can feedback systems change
behavior by exerting social
influence?
Hypothesis:
Social feedback from artificial persuasive
agent promotes behavioral change.
•
Interactive feedback
•
Interactive social feedback
Social feedback saves
energy
47% lower energy consumption!
Factualfeedback
Social
feedback
Factual feedback
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
Energy consumption
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
Energy consumption
Social feedback
2. Factual vs Evaluative vs social
feedback
•
•
Social
feedback
evaluative feedback refers to factual
standard> enhances information value
and ease of processing
social feedback refers to social
standard > enhances ‘socialness’
Evaluative
feedback
Result: Social source makes the
difference with factual feedback
Social feedback
Social feedback
Evaluative
Factual
feedback
feedback
Evaluative feedback
Energy consumption (kWh)
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
Feedback
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
Energy
consumption
type
(kWh)
Feedback type
Factual feedback
Smart systems as Persuasive social
agents
•
•
What happens in human-agent
interactions to create the illusion of social
interaction?
Social realism may enhance social responses
to artificial agents (through social verification;
a.o. Blascovitch, 2002). Results mixed
•
Social agency needed for meaningful
interaction (Guadagno etal., 2007; Kraemer, 2008). Results
mixed
•
CASA: Simple social cues may evoke social
attributions to source: e.g. language (Reeves & Nass,
1996 a.o.). Similarity effect, gratitude effect, in/outgroup effect
3. Single vs multiple social cues
Is a single feature triggering an automatic
process or will multiple social features make an
agent more social realistic?
Joint effect of two social cues:
embodiment and speech
Color
Speech
Computer
iCat
non-social/social
Embodiment
non-soc
social
"very
bad"
"very
bad"
social cues on energy use: both work, one suffices: suggests
automatic triggering of script
suggests that one cues triggers a social script; social realism does
no add
Energy Use
100.00
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
0.00
Speech Use
colored
0.00
20.00
40.00
60.00
80.00
100.00
Energy
light
Speech
colored light
interaction:
F(1,76)'='11.802,'p
<'0.01
Social agent vs watching
eyes?
What makes the robot’s social cues
persuasive?
•
Social realism or a basic social
cue?Automatic association eyes-human presence?
Feeling of being watched. (Bateson etal, 2006)
Sze Ho Wan, Midden & Ham,
2010
Control
social agent
eyes only
‘you’r being watched!’
Level of Energy consumption
80
60
40
20
0
control
‘eyes’
social
2
0
20
40
60
80
0
social cue
realistic
agent
control
‘eyes’ social cue
social realistic agent
Do people control for limitations of
non-human agents?
1. test effect of different levels of agency on behavior
through social feedback
2. test whether agency effect is mediated by
awareness of agency
3. test effect of feedback by social realistic agent vs
non-social agent
Agent
Avatar+ human (high agency)
Random: No agency
Factual evaluative feedback (no
social realism)
Agency judgments!
Agency judgments!
7!
6!
5!
4!
3!
2!
1!
0!
Avatar!
Agent!
Random!
Energy consumption!
Energy
consumption!
0,09!
0,08!
0,07!
0,06!
0,05!
0,04!
0,03!
0,02!
0,01!
0!
Avatar!
Agent!
Random!
Factual!