The Influence of Age, Gender, and Cognitive Ability on the Susceptibility to Persuasive Strategies

Aisha Muhammad Abdullahi,Abdullahi Abubakar Kawu,Rita Orji,Kiemute Oyibo

doi:10.3390/info10110352

Aisha Muhammad Abdullahi, Abdullahi Abubakar Kawu + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/info10110352

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Abstract

The fact that individuals may react differently toward persuasive strategies gave birth to a shift in persuasive technology (PT) design from the one-size-fits-all traditional approach to the individualized approach which conforms to individuals’ preferences. Given that learners’ gender, age, and cognitive level can affect their response to different learning instructions, it is given primacy of place in persuasive educational technology (PET) design. However, the effect of gender, age, and cognitive ability on learners’ susceptibility to persuasive strategies did not receive the right attention in the extant literature. To close this gap, we carried out an empirical study among 461 participants to investigate whether learners’ gender, age, and cognitive ability significantly affect learners’ susceptibility to three key persuasive strategies (social learning, reward, and trustworthiness) in PETs. The results of a repeated measure analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) revealed that people with high cognitive level are more likely to be susceptible to social learning, while people with low cognitive level are more likely to be susceptible to trustworthiness. Comparatively, our results revealed that males are more likely to be susceptible to social learning, while females are more likely to be susceptible to reward and trustworthiness. Furthermore, our results revealed that younger adults are more likely to be susceptible to social learning and reward, while older adults are more likely to be susceptible to trustworthiness. Our findings reveal potential persuasive strategies which designers can employ to personalize PTs to individual users in higher learning based on their susceptibility profile determined by age, gender, and cognitive level.

Highlights

Studies show that there is a strong connection between what we do and how we interact with technological devices [1,2]
We present the results of our analysis, which is focused on uncovering the significant differences that exist between males and females, between younger adults (16–25) and older adults, and between high cognitive learners (HCL) and low cognitive learners (LCL), with respect to their susceptibility to three persuasive strategies
We found that people with high cognitive level are more likely to be susceptible to the social learning strategy

Summary

Introduction

Studies show that there is a strong connection between what we do and how we interact with technological devices [1,2]. Information 2019, 10, 352 learning theory, which operates on the principle of stimulus response This theory posits that all behavior is caused by external stimuli and that learners adapt behavior by responding to external stimuli. The concept of PETs is based on the idea that, through technology, the attitude and/or behavior of learners can be changed through the application of various persuasive strategies in the design of learning systems. Lucero et al [11] designed a PET to promote reading habits in children between eight and 11 years of age by integrating two principles of persuasion (similarity and credibility) in their system design These persuasive strategies are based on the persuasive theories of social influence in the field of psychology. Cialdini [6] proposed six persuasive strategies, which he called principles of influence

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