Why Are Persuasive Strategies Effective? Exploring the Strengths and Weaknesses of Socially-Oriented Persuasive Strategies

Abstract

Socially-oriented persuasive strategies (competition, social comparison, and cooperation) which leverage the power of social influence have been widely employed in Persuasive Technologies (PTs) designs. However, there have been mixed findings regarding their effectiveness. There is still a dearth of knowledge on the mechanism through which these strategies could motivate or demotivate behaviors. To advance research in this area, we conduct a large-scale qualitative and quantitative study of 1768 participants to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies and their comparative effectiveness at motivating healthy behaviors. Our results reveal important strengths and weaknesses of individual strategies that could facilitate or hinder their effectiveness such as their tendency to simplify a behavior and make it fun, challenge people and make them accountable and their tendency to jeopardize individual’s privacy and relationships, creates unnecessary tension, and reduce self-confidence, respectively. The results, also show that there are significant differences between the strategies with respect to their persuasiveness overall with the social comparison being the most persuasive of the strategies. We contribute to the PT community by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of individual strategies that should be taken into account by designers when employing each of the strategies. Furthermore, we offer design guidelines for operationalizing the strategies to amplify their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.