Can an App change the world? Persuasive Affordance Design in "Mindful Meerkats" E-Book

Jonas Wolterstorff

• Herausgeber: Studylab
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 215

Beschreibung

Sustainable Development is in desperate need of understanding human behaviour. Most issues that are considered vital require being tackled from the ground up. However, other fields have to be pulled in to make sense of behavioural patterns. These are Persuasive Technology, Human-Computer-Interaction, Design and Motivational Psychology. Grounding the argumentation on these schools of thought, this book argues that a smartphone game provides a wide range of capacities that can inspire individuals to make changes in their lives that multiply and become behavioural patterns that in turn have considerable impacts with regards to many of Sustainable Development’s core issues such as Climate Change, economic, ecological and financial crises. With an approach that focuses on personal wellbeing, playfulness and intrinsic motivation, individuals shall be excited for an in-game narrative that incentivises them to fulfil real-life challenges that will kick off positive, beneficial feedback. From the text: - Persuasive Technology; - Motivational Psychology; - Creating Critical Mass; - Mindful Meerkats; - Virtual Agents

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“Watch your thoughts,

they become words;

Watch your words,

they become actions;

Watch your actions,

they become habits;

Watch your habits,

they become character;

Watch your character,

for it becomes your destiny.”

Abstract

Sustainable Development is in desperate need of understanding human behaviour. Most issues that are considered vital require being tackled from the ground up. However, other fields have to be pulled in to make sense of behavioural patterns. These are Persuasive Technology, Human-Computer-Interaction, Design and Motivational Psychology.

Grounding the argumentation on these schools of thought, this work argues that a smartphone game provides a wide range of capacities that can inspire individuals to make changes in their lives that multiply and become behavioural patterns that in turn have considerable impacts with regards to many of Sustainable Development’s core issues such as Climate Change, economic, ecological and financial crises.

With an approach that focuses on personal wellbeing, playfulness and intrinsic motivation, individuals shall be excited for an in-game narrative that incentivises them to fulfil real-life challenges that will kick off positive, beneficial feedback.

Table of Contents

Abstract

1 Introduction

1.1 The need for change

1.2 Problem Definition

1.3 Aim

1.4 Research Question

1.5 Procedure

2 Methodology

2.1 Literature Research

2.1.1 Relevant Disciplines

2.1.2 Conceptual Linkage of Literature

2.1.3 Literature bodies

2.2 Writing conduct: The Scientific Iteration Method

2.3 Mental Model – Assumed

3 Concepts &Theories

3.1 Persuasive Technology & Motivational Psychology:  How does Behavioural Change occur?

3.1.1 Action/Behaviour/Habit

3.1.2 Motivation and other Psychological States

3.2 Conceptual Synthesis: An extended Behavioural Chain

3.2.1 Motivational Needs

3.2.2 Motivational Affordances

3.2.3 Psychological Outcomes

3.3 Persuasive Affordance

3.4 Creating Critical Mass – The Positive Feedback Loop Assumption

3.5 Research Framework

4 Where are we now? - Mindful Meerkats as a Work in Progress

4.1 Essential Mindful Meerkats Design Principles

4.2 Justifying the Name? Why Meerkats? Why Mindful?

4.3 Description of Motivational Affordances in Mindful Meerkats

4.3.1 Meeka as Virtual Agent

4.3.2 Mindful Meerkats as Hybrid of Social Network&Online Community

4.3.3 Data Collection and Feedback towards Mindfulness

4.3.4 Lookout Master Board and Best Burrow Board

4.3.5 Other Motivational Affordances in Mindful Meerkats to examine in Further Research

5 Motivational Affordances: Compiling Lessons from Case Studies

5.1 Virtual Agents – Finding Research to Scrutinise Meeka as Motivational Affordance

5.1.1 Analysis: Virtual Agent

5.1.2 Effectiveness for Behavioural Change: Studies of Cases of Virtual Agents

5.1.3 Applying Lessons from Psychology and Human-Computer-Interaction to Decipher Virtual Agents

5.2 An Online Society – Finding Research to Scrutinise Meekas & Meecats in Online Clans as Motivational Affordance

5.2.1 Analysis: Online Communities

5.2.2 Effectiveness for Behavioural Change

5.2.3 Applying Lessons from Psychology and Human-Computer-Interaction to Decipher Online Networks &Communities

5.3 Diary Elements and Personal Tracking – Finding Research to Scrutinise Feedback as Motivational Affordance

5.3.1 Analysis: Quantified Self & Big Data

5.3.2 Effectiveness for Behavioural Change: Quantified Self Case Studies

5.4 Visualised Ranking –Finding Research to Scrutinise Lookout Master Board &Best Burrow Board as Motivational Affordance

5.4.1 Analysis: Leaderboards

5.4.2 Effectiveness for Behavioural Change: An exemplary Leaderboard Case Study

5.4.3 Leaderboards As Persuasive Affordance

5.5 Persuasive Affordances as Culmination of Behavioural Insights

6 Design &Application– Applying Lessons

6.1 Insights for Mindful Meerkats from Motivational Affordances

6.1.1 Meeka as Virtual Agent

6.1.2 Mindful Meerkats as Online Community & Network

6.1.3 Quantified Self for Mindfulness

6.1.4 Lookout Master and Best Burrow as Leaderboards

6.2 Persuasive Affordances in Mindful Meerkats

7 Conclusion

7.1 Design Insights

7.2 Justification, Falsification, Deduction – Assumptions meet Research

7.3 Linearity vs. Complexity

8 Discussion

8.1 Novelty and Innovation

8.2 Further possible Research with and about Mindful Meerkats

8.3 Boundaries and Limitations

9 Bibliography

10 Annex

1 Introduction

1.1 The need for change

Sustainable Development is one of the most pressing issues of our time. The current trend of development of the socio-ecological system, that is our planet, is threatening the future of humankind. Admittedly, the planet will be capable of recovering after the human species would have been wiped from the face of the earth, but that can and should not be seen as a truly resilient solution to the economic and ecological (others would probably include social and financial as well) crises that the planet and its inhabitants are facing. Being the greatest contributor to its deterioration, whilst being – q.e.d. – the most intelligent creatures on the globe, humankind and leaders of it should feel a certain intrinsic motivation and accountability to find solutions. Aren’t we part of the global ecosystem after all?

In this introduction, I firstly want to provide a short analysis of the state of affairs to then secondly, suggest an explanation for the fact that it seems that we are stuck as humankind. The third section shall interpret the results to outline in what place this paper falls when accepting the conclusions.

The state of disaster, to put it demagogically and bluntly, in which we currently roam, is most impressively summarised by the Stockholm Resilience Center and their account for planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2009). In their account, which can be seen as a direct continuation of controversial pieces like Brundtland’s Our Common Future (WCED 1987)and Meadows’ Limits to Growth (2005), they identify nine global priorities to halt biophysical processes and phenomena which are risking the human future in the current trajectory. Out of the nine boundaries, four are already vastly surpassed. In an updated article, they provide scientific evidence for the transgression of the climate change -, loss of biosphere integrity -, land-system change integrity - and altered biochemical cycles boundaries. This could “drive the Earth System into a much less hospitable state, damaging efforts to reduce poverty and leading to a deterioration of human wellbeing in many parts of the world”(“Four of Nine Planetary Boundaries Now Crossed – University of Copenhagen” 2015).

Even though the scientific community with a great majority is in consensus about the anthropogenic cause of climate change(Oreskes 2004; Tol 2003) and depletion of fossil fuels, other actors like politics, in the form of decision-makers and governing structures, or free economic players like cooperations and conglomerates, are not diverting from the current behaviour. But these players are equally locked in into a metasystem of checks and balances, so that an easy way out is not possible.

The premise that informed this work is the understanding that Behavioural Change is difficult and that deep-seated values and worldviews prevent individuals from diverging from their usual course of action. Given that for a majority of issues, an elite will not be sufficient to make a leap forward into a next era of human-planet co-existence as opposed to a source-and-sink-relationship, we have to get greater masses of people convinced. Allowing oneself to buy into what the most prevalent political system, that is currently existing on this planet, is postulating, public opinion will eventually affect more influential actors of the wider system such as decision-makers or global corporations. Therefore, it has to be one of the major concerns how we can actually address the complex problem of behavioural change and inspire key figures to be part of the change. Even key organisations and actors are ultimately composed of individuals, so that a successful intervention that tackles individuals can have spill-over effects into the respective overarching structures.

The issue of Climate Change does not bring a buy-in from majority societies. There needs to be a more appealing narrative and flag to excite wider ranges of people beyond convicted ecological thinkers. Not only is Climate Change unpopular, the same lack of regard can be witnessed for the more marketable and anthropocentric notion of The Good Life. Many individuals do not see the implication of their actions for the system and neither how the system affects them. With a general notion of paralysis and incapacity to make a change at all, we are facing a difficult situation.

But how can a situation like this, sometimes referred to as A Perfect Storm(Flavin and Engelman 2009) or a Crisis of Crises(Harding 2015), of multiple dead-locks and great complexities, be resolved? How can the necessary critical mass be assembled to create enough momentum to change the trajectory from doomed humanity to a prosperous and happy future? The author is convinced that a great source of the problem is the fundamental divide between decision-makers and the ones affected of the decisions. But how can these complex issues be relayed to such a diverse global audience of individuals? And how can we frame it from a scientific perspective to gain ground?

The interdisciplinarity within Sustainable Development in comparison with other disciplines is notably high and diverse. And yet, the bouquet of potential insights does not include human behaviour and behavioural change. Therefore, this work sets out to draw in insights from Affordance Theory in Design, Persuasive Technology in Human-Computer-Interaction and Motivation and Self-Determination from Psychology. How does a human change his behaviour and why? What makes him happy to an extent that a behavioural transition ensues? Symptoms are treated without thinking about causes. Humans are treated without thinking about intrinsic motivations.

Games, as most holistic pieces of art and seduction, joy and entertainment, provide a useful blank page and scrap books to start an alternative process. Playfulness is inherent in human beings, but gets lost over the seriousness of modernity. Whether this is a necessity or the preferred trajectory, will not be addressed in this paper, but rather if a new sense of playfulness and ease can be instilled in daily life of humans. It is in play where all beings feel the greatest sense of ease, being captivated in flow and peace, experimenting with and testing real world dangers, opportunities and options. Isn’t there a chance to apply this ease to life to bring out the intrinsic choice that individuals have, that can bring more joy to them?

This was the starting point for the work on the project that led to the research. How can we inspire individuals to make behavioural changes that will be better for their physical environment as much as for them with a game-like, mobile system? Creating a virtual representation, often referred to as Avatar that monitors personal real-life development and comments on it visually, was the first attempt to bridge short-term behaviour and long-term real world impacts in a humorous, non-resentful way. Alluding to the shape of the representation, the project was developed under the name Mindful Meerkats and shall be the sign post for this work. Can that work? Can individuals be consciously inspired or subconsciously persuaded to change their lifestyle with a mobile technology?

This then follows a trend of more and more specific mobile services that gives advice for specific domains. Health, both physical and mental, have certain apps, there is apps to measure footprint and food behaviours, personal finances and spending behaviour. Some of them have game elements, but they do not provide a full picture of opportunities. By alluding to options and choices in the given daily routine, we will attempt to open the blinkers and create awareness for new behavioural patterns under the promise of an increase of joy and purpose.

1.2 Problem Definition

Aligning to different mental programming, there are different reasons for which people do not embrace big societal change, remain passive and lead unsustainable lifestyles. This wide array of different attitudes, values and behaviours demands an integrated tool capable to activate[2] a heterogeneous sets of people within diverse societies. The transition that is envisioned shifts from an unconscious, unaware life on autopilot to a life of conscious choices and constant curious reflection.

1.3 Aim

Every research should have a goal, an objective; a final vision that drives its executor. As it has been outlined this work is informed by the vision of the activation of passive parts of societies for sustainable practices. To achieve that goal, a smartphone game is assumed to be a useful tool to inspire lifestyle change. Smartphones have become popular devices in daily life and are thereby powerful tools for persuasion(Fogg et al. 2007). To determine which elements are most convincing in a future app, insights from science, theoretical and empirical in nature, shall guide the design.

1.4 Research Question

The research question thereby reads as follows:

RQ: Can ‘Mindful Meerkats’, a smartphone game application, be designed to be capable to induce short-term (and long-term) behavioural change?

The research question thereby reads as follows:

It can be divided into two sub-questions, which can be answered by a different body of literature. The literature foundation, which will be illuminated in 2.1, predominantly consists of Motivational Psychology, Persuasive Technology and Human-Computer-Interaction.

The first question, to be answered with the help of research grounded in Motivational Psychology, reads:

RQ 1.1: What are the elements of behavioural change, how can it be created and sustained?

Subsequently, this work looks into how said elements can be created with technology and what approaches have shown to be effective in creating behavioural change. Several case studies and real-life examples of functioning technologies will be given. Although usually looking only at the psychological states and emotional impact, and not into real-life behavioural changes, the academic foundation here will be Human-Computer-Interaction.

The second sub-question accordingly reads:

RQ 1.2: What are digital, virtual elements capable of inspiring or inducing a behavioural decision and potentially a departure from usual habits?

1.5 Procedure

The development of the app that is envisioned is at current stage mostly informed by common sense and speculations. Assumptions about how game design affects a) attitudes and values and b) behaviour. There is no clarity about whether the app will have the intended effect, nor whether there is a link between behaviour and virtual worlds. The claim hitherto only stands that through the external motivation created by virtual world and game experiences sustainable choices and activities can be incentivised without a paternalistic aftertaste. The wellbeing, created as a by-product – insofar the assumption –, will create intrinsic motivation and thereby accelerate adoption. In other words, externalising motivation for sustainable activities will build up a momentum that will induce short-term behavioural change. This short-term change will then lead to greater-well-being. The enhanced – in relation to earlier life phases – well-being will then be noticed and consequently reflected upon by the users. The realisation that the behavioural change towards sustainability induced an increase in well-being leads to an internalisation of sustainable activity and thereby long-term behavioural change. As these claims are merely assumptive, this research is aimed at substantiating, fine-tuning, adjusting or falsifying these claims with an extensive literature research.

Coming from these assumptions, a mental model has been developed that functioned as a starting point to dive into the literature. Therefore, this mental model shall be illuminated in its initial form first, to then show what the literature had to be considered to set off the exploration and verification of the mental model. The mental model, used as a point of departure, will then be adjusted with each explored body of literature, deepened and substantiated.

2 Methodology

Foundation and Sources

Although Behavioural Change has been researched in many scientific fields, the terminologies and science is not exhaustive or concise (Fogg 2011). At this point, the reflection of behavioural change should stand in the middle of my reflections. It does not matter which ideological content or abstract objective is driving a planned intervention or persuasion, the tools to create a behavioural change should be grounded on the same framework. Therefore, the quest for a toolbox for behavioural change shall be at the core of this work. Only at the second instance the objective shall be to investigate the mechanisms of an individual’s transition to a (more) conscious, mindful and sustainable lifestyle.

2.1 Literature Research

2.1.1 Relevant Disciplines

Given that Behavioural Change in itself is looked at from a wide array of perspectives, and adding sustainable lifestyle and a smartphone game to the mix, the disciplines that were brushed and partially covered, were diverse and numerous. Out of these, two main bodies stand out particularly with two respective sub-bodies.

Human-Computer Interaction

Being engaged with the relationship between humans and computers, and the impact that technology in the form of computers and other devices can have, it was a natural point of departure to explore the capacities for technology to induce behavioural change. More specifically, there are two field who specifically look into the persuasive capacities of technology:

Gamification

Gamification attempts to employ techniques from game design, game studies and the theory of fun into “non-game systems” (Deterding, Sicart, et al. 2011) to create joy for the individuals being part of that system. Often these non-game systems are businesses or customer relations.

Persuasive Technology

While Gamification has its birthplace in marketing and game design, Persuasive Technology grounds itself in Engineering and Behavioural Psychology. Accordingly, attempts to intervene in behavioural decisions are more specifically directed towards particular behaviours, called target behaviours. In contrast to Gamification where joy and fun shall be instilled in unpleasant environments, Persuasive Technology rather looks at ways to stimulate intrinsic needs.

Psychology

Motivational Psychology

As the goal is not only concerned with creating a behavioural change, but also with maintaining it and spreading it, the field of Motivational Psychology provides valuable insights. Mainly concerned with abstract concepts and notions, it allowed a deeper understanding of causal links between mental phenomena and behavioural outcome.

Social & Environmental Psychology

Given the fact that the behavioural inspiration is intended to mainly address changes in the realm of social and environmental conditions, a starting point for literature research is the body of literature that explores why individuals are so little concerned with behaviours that protect their harmony amongst each other and with the planetary ecosystem.

2.1.2 Conceptual Linkage of Literature

The research approach is not intended to follow a practical line of work being guided by empirical research. It is also not aimed to be a purely theoretical approach, guided by literature research and the illumination of philosophical insights and principles. Instead, bringing fields together in a novel way, the route of a design-led, exploratory research is taken. Ultimately, the objective is the verification of the assumptions inherent in the current vision of the game app as instigator of behavioural change. This aligns with the research questions.

Research from Psychology will help identify abstract causal relationships between value and behaviour that will be operationalised with Human-Computer-Interaction. In other words, the impact of elements of Human-Computer-Interaction on barriers and triggers of behavioural change, grounded in Psychology, will be explored. Put into an example; Motivational Psychology argues that identification can be a strong determinant of behavioural change. Human-Computer-Interaction then illuminates the link between on one hand virtual-digital, personal representations like Creatures and in-game figures and on the other hand, real-life identification. Then in a third step, these two researches will be drawn together to make a case for the app. The assumption that with the implementation of the avatar in the virtual-digital environment identification would ensue, which creates willingness to change real-life behaviour. Naturally, this is not an established causal line, yet, but it is only intended to illustrate the intended interwovenness of Motivational, Social and Environmental Psychology, Human-Computer-Interaction and Mindful Meerkats, the envisioned smartphone game.

Along these lines, a clear separation between an inductive and a deductive approach is not possible. The research will not only test hypothesis by looking into research (deductive approach) and thereby verify assumptions about value-means-behaviour links, but also derive new hypotheses from data and empirical observation (inductive approach) and thereby add new elements to the app design. With this explorative and open approach, it is hoped to expand the outcome and strength of the research and preventing a research bias. This endeavour is most prominently undertaken in section 7.2.

2.1.3 Literature bodies

Research into Social &Environmental Psychology can be started off with the comprehensive article “Mind the gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to environmental behaviour?” by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002). They provide an overview into the research on correlations between knowledge, values and behaviour. Their title is a reference to Glasser’s coinage of the term “gap” (2004; 2007) for the phenomenon of great disparity existing between “a particular society’s ideals and practical reality” [p. 39]. Hereafter, the same term shall be used on the individual level to refer to the apparent gap that exists between knowledge, values and mindset on one side and behaviour, actions and lifestyle on the other side. Social Learning as a concept will also play a major role in this work (Wals 2007).

Steg’s “Integrated Framework for Encouraging Pro-environmental Behaviour” (2014)is a valuable source for further insights. Dietz’ “Environmental values”(2005) will guide the exploration of values. Additionally, several articles by Hobson (2002; 2001; 2003) from a consumption perspective will illuminate the causal relationship further. A string of research circling around the concept of Environmental Self-Identity by Ellen van der Werf will provide additional detail on the link between self-understanding and behaviour: “It’s a moral issue” (van der Werff, Steg, and Keizer 2013a), “The value of environmental self-identity”(van der Werff, Steg, and Keizer 2013b) and “Normative, Gain and Hedonic Goal Frames Guiding Environmental Behavior“(Lindenberg and Steg 2007). Lastly, the role of society, surrounding, culture and social forces, e.g. the Broken glass hypothesis, will be investigated with the help of the following literature: “Normative Social Influence is Underdetected” (Nolan et al. 2008), “Norm, Network and Commons: The invisible hand of community” (Lejano and Fernandez de Castro 2014), “The spreading of disorder” (Keizer, Lindenberg, and Steg 2008)and “Measuring cultural values and beliefs about environment to identify their role in climate change responses”(Price, Walker, and Boschetti 2014).

As far as HCI is concerned, different strings of the stream have to be considered. Literature on Gamification would be the following: “Gamification – Using Game-Elements in non-game contexts”(Deterding, Sicart, et al. 2011), “A Real little Game – The performance of belief in pervasive play”(McGonigal 2003), “Applied Behavioural Economics: A Game Designer’s Perspective” (Butler 2015) and “Casual Social Games as Serious Games – The Psychology of Gamification in Undergraduate Education and Employee Training”(Landers and Callan 2011). The impact of virtual representations, i.e. avatars on individuals can be examined by a closer look at articles like “Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behaviour”(Rosenberg, Baughman, and Bailenson 2013), “My Avatar and me – Gender and personality predictors of Avatar-Self discrepancy” (Dunn and Guadagno 2012), “Avatar Creation and Video Game Enjoyment “ (Trepte and Reinecke 2010), “Me, myself and I: The role of interactional context on self-presentation through avatars” (Vasalou and Joinson 2009)and “How the physical similarity of teenagers can influence the learning of emotion regulation strategies in teenagers” (Wrzesien et al. 2015). Notable examples of games that try to implement and/or mimic real elements in their virtual environments are illustrated with the help of “More than just a game: Impact of the Ingress Project on the internet and security”(Kabernik 2013), “What went wrong in the Sims online”(Steen et al. 2006), “Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Changes with a Virtual Polar Bear”(Dillahunt et al. 2008) and “Achieving Sustainable Society through Micro-Level Crowdfunding” (Sakamoto and Nakajima 2013).

2.2 Writing conduct: The Scientific Iteration Method

This thesis is intentionally written in such a way that the process of finding design imperatives for the app design gets transparent. In a startup as well as in programming and IT-development, the activity of going back on presumably static products and services and adjusting and improving them, a process called Iteration, is commonplace. For science, only recently with the popularity of post-normal science, Uncertainty and self-scrutiny have fully entered the scene. But the extent of scrutiny and willingness to start over, is not very common in the scientific conduct. The scientific rationale has been mainly about finding unambiguous, law-like and mechanistic truths. Once this truth is found, a researcher has to stick to the stance as a musical group has to stick to their genre to deliver what the “brand” promises.

This stands in sharp contrast to programming and startup practices where temporary discoveries and decisions, constant adjustments and refining, are the norm. To break with that tradition, this work tries to employ the indicated iterative process. It shall be applied here to take the reader by the hand and allow an insight into the organic, simultaneous process of research and app design.

To pursue this Scientific Iteration Method every chapter within 3, the Theories Chapter will end with a mental visualisation of the integration of the theory into the logics of the thesis and how it fits into the mental model. After all the theories are introduced piece by piece, they will create a combined picture that illuminates the thesis’ results. It will be an adjustment of the first mental model that has been set up at the beginning of the research process. This initial mental model on which the iterations will build will be outlined in the next chapter.

2.3 Mental Model – Assumed

Given the fact that this thesis shall be used for two purposes, finding new answers to a prevalent question, and verifying existing answers, as mentioned earlier, it is equidistant from a purely inductive and a deductive approach of inquiry. The thesis therefore has the purpose to check assumptions that have been incorporated into the app as well as coming up with new design imperatives derived from existing literature.

To make this distinction clear, the mental model derived from the assumptions will be set-up first. It can be seen as the half of this work which is based on deductive reasoning. Later-on, this ex ante