Centre for Business and Emerging Technologies

This paper studies how and to what extent social influence design principles can persuade people to participate in sharing their feedback. For this reason, a Twitter-based system was designed with persuasive software features of social influence at its core. The effects of recognition and competition features were tested in a pilot study in two computer rooms simultaneously. Their effects on the behavior of simulated airline travelers were compared. The main result of this study provides evidence of several positive effects, especially regarding the persuasive powers of recognition in a system’s design.

The development of networked digital economy keeps opening up new ways for social interactions and interpersonal influences. Drawing upon social sciences theories and the Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model, this paper explores the effects of social influence design principles on altering user behavior toward engagement in feedback sharing. A theory-driven research framework is composed to underpin the designing of a Twitter-based information system with persuasive social influence features, such as cooperation, competition, recognition, social learning, and social facilitation at its core. Based on a pilot experimental study involving 37 users of the system, the findings indicated several positive effects of the aforementioned persuasive software features. First, cooperation was more salient for active tweeters and users who perceive Twitter as an influential tool. Second, social learning indicated an impact on users with shorter Twitter experience, and together with cooperation, they both demonstrated stronger effects on user behavior when combined with recognition rather than competition. Third, social facilitation presented more significant effects on users who tweet more frequently. Fourth, the results of this pilot study demonstrated considerable persuasive powers of recognition in the design of systems targeted to feedback sharing. This initial pilot study provides valuable input for further research related to social influence on user behavior, and it highlights several useful aspects for designers of persuasive systems.

Digitalization enables the development of existing social activities and the invention of new forms of social activities online. Social networks and microblogging are some of the most frequently used online social interaction services, and Twitter combines them. These channels handle intensive communication embodying persuasion in one way or the other. This paper studies the nature of Twitter to uncover inherent persuasion patterns that change users’ behavior, or attitude, or both. An online survey of Twitter users in Latvia was carried out between July 19 and July 28, 2010, receiving 403 valid responses for further statistical data analysis. Recent frameworks for designing persuasive systems and measuring the success of persuasive technology applications were applied during an evaluation of the results. The main results from this study relate to incremental behavior and attitude change among Twitter users. Other results extend understanding of habits and behaviors of Twitter users in general, and therefore may be used for further studies of the persuasiveness of Twitter.

Contemporary socio-technical environments hold a great potential to drive a positive influence on the behaviors and attitudes of individuals. Drawing upon social cognitive theory (SCT) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this paper explores how and to what extent persuasive social influence features (namely, social learning (SL), social comparison (SC), and normative influence (NI)) alter customer behavior toward engagement in feedback sharing. A theory-driven research model was composed and then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Based on a pilot experimental study involving 69 Twitter users, the authors indicate that behavioral intention (BI) to engage in feedback sharing is partially explained by the perceived persuasiveness (PP) of a system, which is partly explained by means of NI, which in turn is partly explained by means of SC. On top of that, SL plays an important role in explaining and influencing all of the abovementioned constructs.

Behavior Change Support Systems (BCSSs) have emerged as a promising research area to study behavior change, directing interest into the software artifact. This research paper aims to provide practical examples of mobile and social applications using the Outcome/Change (O/C) Design Matrix in developing and evaluating BCSSs and conducting systematic research on BCSSs.

The Persuasive Technology Conference Series is for academics,  practitioners, and policy makers with an interest in research, theory, technologies, design, and applications related to understanding  and predicting persuasion processes and outcomes. Our interest is in how information and communications technologies might be used to help individuals and organizations better understand what people think, feel, and do. We are especially interested in how such technologies have been or are being  used to enhance global human welfare.  We are also interested in how the technologies might be used in the future.

A combination of high tech environments and social influence concepts holds great potential to positively effect behaviors and attitudes of individuals. Drawing upon socio-psychological theories, this study explores how social influence design principles change customer engagement in sharing feedback. For that purpose, an information system consisting of social influence design principles was implemented on situated displays and examined with 77 Twitter users. The results reveal interplay between the design principles and their capacity to explain 52% of the variance in perceived persuasiveness of the system, which can further predict 40% of the variance in behavioral intention of participants to provide feedback through the system in the future. The findings could be instrumental in progress towards a richer understanding of how to further harness social influence for customer engagement through socio-technical environments and how it effects the development of novel persuasive systems.

Social influence concepts have great potential to positively affect the behaviors and attitudes of individuals. Drawing on socio-psychological theories, this study explores how social influence design principles alter user engagement in collaborative interaction during public events. Based on a theory- driven research model, a persuasive information system comprising social influence design principles of cooperation, social learning, and social facilitation was implemented and examined with a sample of 101 participants. The results reveal interactions between the design principles and their capacity to explain the persuasiveness of the system, which further substantially predicts the actual engagement of participants in collaborative interaction and their intention to use such systems in the future. Both cooperation and social learning are significantly correlated to perceived persuasiveness, and the cooperation also noticeably moderates the effect of social facilitation on social learning. These findings are potentially instrumental in achieving a richer understanding of how best to further harness social influence for enhanced user engagement through novel socio-technical environments and for the future development of persuasive systems.

Organizations continuously strive to engage customers in the services development process. The social web facilitates this process by enabling novel channels for voluntary feedback-sharing and collaborative interaction through social media and technologically advanced environments. The component parts of these environments are information systems that are linked with social media and designed for large displays to support interactivity.
The work performed during this research involved the design and assessment of operational software features for encouraging user engagement through publicly displayed information systems. Drawing upon socio-psychological theories and interconnecting them to social influence design principles this dissertation examines the role of persuasive software features in altering human behavior with respect to engagement in feedback-sharing and collaborative interaction.
The results of these studies reveal interplay between the design principles and indicate that they have the capacity to improve the persuasiveness of information systems and predict the behavioral intentions of users to engage with such systems in the future. Based on these findings, a framework for studying socially influencing systems (SIS) is proposed. This framework is potentially instrumental in achieving a richer understanding of how to effectively harness social influence for enhanced user engagement through socio-technical environments and for the future development of persuasive information systems.

The Social Web enables novel channels for voluntary feedback sharing through social media and technologically advanced environments. This chapter explores how social influence design principles can enhance the effectiveness of socio-technical systems designed to alter human behavior with respect to sharing feedback. Drawing upon social science theories, this chapter develops a research framework that identifies social influence design principles pertinent to persuasive systems that facilitate user engagement in feedback sharing. The design principles are then implemented in an information system and their effects on feedback sharing are explored in an experimental setting. The main findings of this chapter contribute to research related to social influences on user behavior and to the practice of designing Socially Influencing Systems (SIS).

This paper outlines the second phase of an ongoing longitudinal research initiative aimed at exploring and describing why people use Twitter the way they do and what factors change their behaviors and attitudes over time. In a repeated online survey, 501 valid responses were collected from Twitter users. A comparative analysis of findings from both surveys verified persistent online persuasion patterns influencing both user behavior related to content generation and tweeting frequency, as well as user attitudes about Twitter being an influential tool to use in calling for action outside the virtual world. A comprehensive analysis of responses from 49 individuals who had participated in both surveys revealed underlying factors that had prompted changes in what they thought about Twitter, as well as their use behaviors. Further findings emphasized the role of social influence design principles and their capacity to explain changes that Twitter users had experienced over the period of two years.

People continuously experience various types of engagement through social media, mobile interaction, location-based applications, and other technologically advanced environments. Often, integral parts of such socio-technical contexts often are information systems designed to change behaviors and attitudes of their users by leveraging powers of social influence, further defined as socially influencing systems (SIS). Drawing upon socio-psychological theories, this paper initially reviews and presents a typology of relevant social influence aspects. Following that, it analyzes four partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) based empirical studies to examine the interconnectedness of their social influence aspects. As a result, the analysis provides grounds for seminal steps towards the development and advancement of a framework for designing and evaluating socially influencing systems. The main findings can also deepen understanding of how to effectively harness social influence for enhanced user engagement in socio-technical environments and guide persuasive engineering of future socially influencing systems.

Persuasive technologies are commonly engineered to change behavior and attitudes of users through persuasion and social influence without using coercion and deception. While earlier research has been extensively focused on exploring the concept of persuasion, the present theory-refining study aims to explain the role of social influence and its distinctive characteristics in the field of persuasive technology. Based on a list of notable differences, this study outlines how both persuasion and social influence can be best supported through computing systems and introduces a notion of computer-moderated influence, thus extending the influence typology. The novel type of influence tends to be more salient for socially influencing systems, which informs designers to be mindful when engineering such technologies. The study provides sharper conceptual representation of key terms in persuasive engineering, drafts a structured approach for better understanding of the influence typology, and presents how computers can be moderators of social influence.

Can you imagine a city that feels, understands, and cares about your wellbeing? Future cities will reshape human behavior in countless ways. New strategies and models are required for future urban spaces to properly respond to human activity, environmental conditions, and market dynamics. Persuasive urban systems will play an important role in making cities more livable and resource-efficient by addressing current environmental challenges and enabling healthier routines. Persuasive cities research aims at improving wellbeing across societies through applications of socio-psychological theories and their integration with conceptually new urban designs. This research presents an ecosystem of future cities, describes three generic groups of people depending on their susceptibility to persuasive technology, explains the process of defining behavior change, and provides tools for social engineering of persuasive cities. Advancing this research is important as it scaffolds scientific knowledge on how to design persuasive cities and refines guidelines for practical applications in achieving their emergence.

Wellbeing of everyone can be improved through reshaping and advancing places with seamless digital and socially influencing ubiquitous strategies, thus empowering people to succeed in achieving better lifestyles. By helping people to acquire healthier and resource-efficient everyday routines, more sustainable societies can be created. Oftentimes, engineers and technology developers are unaware of how diversely their innovations are actually going to influence lives of many people. Therefore, it is important to focus on investigating and designing ways how surrounding environments can be reengineered to facilitate societal changes at scale. Novel cyber-physical systems can be developed to facilitate the emergence of socially engaging environments to support entrepreneurship and innovation, reshape routines and behavioral patterns in communities, deploy intelligent outdoor sensing for shifting mobility modes, enhance eco-friendly behaviors through social norms, locate interactive public feedback channels to affect attitudes, involve residents through socially influencing systems, and explore methods for designing healthy neighborhoods. This approach is highly important, as it encompasses transformation of human behavior and public spaces at scale. Ultimately, this work generates refined scientific knowledge on how to digitize wellbeing and guidelines for practical approaches in achieving prosperous societies. More: transforms.me

The urban environment informs the behavior of its inhabitants and their actions in turns shape this environment. These recurrent, circular causalities make cities to be of complex, nonlinear nature reinforcing prevailing mobility practices. Thus, a city´s final characteristics are not determined by designers and planners, yet rather their citizens, who can be seen as latent designers. Acknowledging potentially decisive impacts of citizen behavior for urban transformations, this article explores a methodology of involvement and social persuasion to foster bicycling. The analysis draws on social practice theory and explores how co-creation methodologies and socially influencing systems, persuasive information systems building upon social influence, can supplement practice-oriented design interventions. Social practice theory focuses on the integration of meanings, materials and competencies into routinized everyday habits linking structure with agency. The article presents a methodological approach to alter mobility practices and maintain their new composition through identifying pivotal practice elements to be subjected to socially influencing systems.

The Theory of Transforming Wellbeing (TTW) is emerging as an inevitable response to the ever-growing imbalance in our lives across the globe. Over the decades, we have been advancing technologies to make our lives better. The fundamental question still remains: with all the evolving innovations, are we gaining decent success in achieving happier and more sustainable societies? All the crucial domains of our lives continuously provide evidence of things getting disbalanced despite us making huge progress in building increasingly capable technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and drones, just to name a few. The TTW advances scientific knowledge and its practical applications to transform lives. Due to its strong fundament that blends technological innovations with human nature, TTW is applicable in many essential life contexts, including health, education, sustainability, equality, governance, safety, emergency, ecology, and economy. Transforming wellbeing; sociotech design; socially influencing systems; persuasive technology; behavior change; health I.

The Theory of Transforming Wellbeing (TTW) is emerging as an inevitable response to the ever-growing imbalance in our lives across the globe. Over the decades, we have been advancing technologies to make our lives better. The fundamental question still remains: with all the evolving innovations, are we gaining decent success in achieving happier and more sustainable societies? All the crucial domains of our lives continuously provide evidence of things getting disbalanced despite us making huge progress in building increasingly capable technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and drones, just to name a few. The TTW advances scientific knowledge and its practical applications to transform lives. Due to its strong fundament that blends technological innovations with human nature, TTW is applicable in many essential life contexts.