Paper ID
1404
Description
Sustainable mobility behavior is increasingly relevant due to the vast environmental impact of current transportation systems. With the growing variety of transportation modes, individual decisions for or against specific mobility options become more and more important and salient beliefs regarding the environmental impact of different modes influence this decision process. While information systems have been recognized for their potential to shape individual beliefs and behavior, design-oriented studies that explore their impact, in particular on environmental beliefs, remain scarce. In this study, we contribute to closing this research gap by designing and evaluating a new type of artifact, a persuasive and human-like conversational agent, in a 2x2 experiment with 225 participants. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Response Theory, we find empirical support for the influence of persuasive design elements on individual environmental beliefs and discover that anthropomorphic design can contribute to increasing the persuasiveness of artifacts.
Recommended Citation
Diederich, Stephan; Lichtenberg, Sascha; Brendel, Alfred Benedikt; and Trang, Simon, "Promoting Sustainable Mobility Beliefs with Persuasive and Anthropomorphic Design: Insights from an Experiment with a Conversational Agent" (2019). ICIS 2019 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/sustainable_is/sustainable_is/3
Promoting Sustainable Mobility Beliefs with Persuasive and Anthropomorphic Design: Insights from an Experiment with a Conversational Agent
Sustainable mobility behavior is increasingly relevant due to the vast environmental impact of current transportation systems. With the growing variety of transportation modes, individual decisions for or against specific mobility options become more and more important and salient beliefs regarding the environmental impact of different modes influence this decision process. While information systems have been recognized for their potential to shape individual beliefs and behavior, design-oriented studies that explore their impact, in particular on environmental beliefs, remain scarce. In this study, we contribute to closing this research gap by designing and evaluating a new type of artifact, a persuasive and human-like conversational agent, in a 2x2 experiment with 225 participants. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Response Theory, we find empirical support for the influence of persuasive design elements on individual environmental beliefs and discover that anthropomorphic design can contribute to increasing the persuasiveness of artifacts.