Can Message-Tailoring Based on Regulatory Fit Theory Improve the Efficacy of Persuasive Physical Activity Systems?

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Background: Many behaviour-change technologies have been designed to help people with a sedentary lifestyle to become more physically active. However, challenges exist in designing systems that work effectively. One of the key challenges is that many of those technologies do not account for differences in individuals’ psychological characteristics. To address that problem, tailoring the communication between a system and its users has been proposed and examined. Although in the research related to public health education, message tailoring has been studied extensively as a technique to communicate health information and to educate people, its use in the design of behaviour-change technologies has not been adequately investigated. Objective: The goal of this study was to explore the impact of message tailoring, when tailoring was grounded in Higgins’ Regulatory Fit Theory, and messages were constructed to promote physical activity. Method: An email intervention was designed and developed that sent participants daily health messages for 14 consecutive days. There were three categories of messages: reminders, promotion-, and prevention-messages. The effect of the messages on behaviour was compared between those who received messages that fitted their self-regulatory orientation, versus those who received non-fitted messages. Results: Participants who received promotion- or prevention-messages walked for longer periods of time, compared to those who received reminders in the control group. When comparing the first two groups, promotion-message-recipients on average walked more than those who received prevention-messages. In other words, promotion messages acted more persuasively than prevention-messages and reminders. Contrary to our hypothesis, those individuals who received messages that fitted their self-regulatory orientation did not walk more than those who received non-fitted messages. Conclusions: The efficacy of Higgins’ Regulatory Fit Theory in the design of tailored health messages was examined. This study did not find support for the use of that theory in guiding the design of persuasive health messages that promote physical activity. Therefore, more research is necessary to investigate the effectiveness of tailoring strategies.This research was funded by NSERC Discovery, grant number 132995

The role of dispositional factors in moderating message framing effects

Objective: Health messages can be framed in terms of the benefits of adopting a recommendation (gain frame) or the costs of not adopting a recommendation (loss frame). In recent years, research has demonstrated that the relative persuasiveness of gain and loss frames can depend on a variety of dispositional factors. This article synthesizes this growing literature to develop our understanding of the moderators of framing. Method: A systematic review of published literature on gain and loss framing was conducted. Articles were retrieved that tested the interaction between framing and moderators representing individual differences in how people are predisposed to think, feel, and behave. The significance and direction of framing main effects and interactions were noted and effect size data extracted where available. Results: Forty-seven reports published between January 1990 and January 2012 were retrieved that reported on 50 unique experiments testing 23 different moderators. Significant interactions with typically small to medium simple main effect sizes were found in 37 of the 50 studies. Consistent interactions were found for factors such as ambivalence, approach–avoidance motivation, regulatory focus, need for cognition, and self-efficacy beliefs. Less consistent effects were found for perceived riskiness of activity, issue involvement, and perceived susceptibility/severity. Conclusion: The relative effectiveness of gain- or loss-framed messages can depend on the disposition of the message recipient. Tailoring the frame to the individual therefore has the potential to maximize message persuasiveness

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Self “Sensor”Ship: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Persuasiveness, Social Implications, and Ethical Design of Self-Sensoring Prescriptive Applications

This dissertation research investigates the social implications of computing artifacts that make use of sensor driven self-quantification to implicitly or explicitly direct user behaviors. These technologies are referred to here as self-sensoring prescriptive applications (SSPA’s). This genre of technological application has a strong presence in healthcare as a means to monitor health, modify behavior, improve health outcomes, and reduce medical costs. However, the commercial sector is quickly adopting SSPA’s as a means to monitor and/or modify consumer behaviors as well (Swan, 2013). These wearable devices typically monitor factors such as movement, heartrate, and respiration; ostensibly to guide the users to better or more informed choices about their physical fitness (Lee & Drake, 2013; Swan, 2012b). However, applications that claim to use biosensor data to assist in mood maintenance and control are entering the market (Bolluyt, 2015), and applications to aid in decision making about consumer products are on the horizon as well (Swan, 2012b). Interestingly, there is little existing research that investigates the direct impact biosensor data have on decision making, nor on the risks, benefits, or regulation of such technologies. The research presented here is inspired by a number of separate but related gaps in existing literature about the social implications of SSPA’s. First, how SSPA’s impact individual and group decision making and attitude formation within non-medicalcare domains (e.g. will a message about what product to buy be more persuasive if it claims to have based the recommendation on your biometric information?). Second, how the design and designers of SSPA’s shape social behaviors and third, how these factors are or are not being considered in future design and public policy decisions

"Lose 30lbs in 30 days" : assigning responsibility for deceptive advertising of weight-loss products

Purpose &ndash; The aim of this paper is to outline key social marketing issues apparent in deceptive weight-loss advertising, from the perspective of government policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers. The purpose is to examine the complexity of one aspect of the obesity battle and provide a framework for coordinated and integrated social marketing initiatives from a multiple stakeholder perspective.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; The results of deceptive weight-loss advertising are framed using the harm chain model, and the paper offers recommended solutions based on a framework of marketing, education and policy changes across the network of stakeholders.Findings &ndash; This paper concludes that a resolution to the harm created by deceptive weight-loss advertising can be achieved by the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution to this important health and policy issue. This networked approach must involve all aspects of harm in a multi-stakeholder solution, including both upstream and downstream integration. Specific recommendations are made for policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers to achieve this goal.Social implications &ndash; From a marketing perspective, analyzing the issue of deceptive weight-loss advertising using the harm chain allows for the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution involving stakeholders in all aspects of harm for this important health and policy issue.Originality/value &ndash; This research examines the problem of obesity and weight-loss advertising from the unique perspective of the harm chain framework. The authors make unified recommendations for various stakeholders including industry, media, government and consumers, in order to direct integrated social marketing and consumer-oriented strategies within this industry.<br /

Understanding Personalization for Health Behavior Change Applications: A Review and Future Directions

Health behavior change (HBC) applications hold much promise for promoting healthy lifestyles, such as enhancing physical activity (PA), diet, and sleep. Incorporating personalization strategies is seen as key to designing effective HBC applications. However, researchers and application designers lack knowledge about the different kinds of personalization strategies, how to implement them, and what strategies work. Thus, we reviewed prior empirical studies on personalization for HBC applications and developed a framework to synthesize the prior studies we identified and to provide an integrative view of the personalization strategies, their inputs, and outcomes. Our findings suggest that researchers have much potential to conduct design research that employs demographic and contextual characteristics for personalization and that examines personalization strategies that target HBC applications’ interface and channels. In terms of implementation and adoption, we call for researchers to examine unaddressed issues such as low adherence and contextual barriers for these applications. We also suggest that researchers need to systematically examine the effects of specific personalization strategies on their efficacy. Other than providing an integrative view of extant studies, our study contributes by outlining key directions for future research in this area

Using Mobile Apps to Support the Implementation of Coping-relevant Behaviour Change Techniques for Self-management of Stress

Mobile apps have shown potential in early stress self-management interventions, yet they remain less beneficial than face-to-face therapies. One of the most effective ways people can cope with stress is to identify what their stressors are and take action in managing them. Coping-relevant behaviour change techniques (BCTs), such as self-monitoring, goal setting, and action planning, have the potential to support this process. Nevertheless, there is little guidance on how to incorporate such techniques into stress management apps. Drawing on mixed methods research, this thesis provides two contributions. First, it improves our understanding of how existing stress management apps support coping-relevant BCTs and suggests areas for improvements. An app functionality review and follow-up 3-week intervention using Welltory stress monitoring and Coach.me goal setting apps revealed that existing apps do not support users’ efforts with coping-relevant BCTs. Participants reported that Welltory did not yield sufficient data to gain insights into the factors affecting their stress. Relatedly, the way in which these apps implemented coping-relevant BCTs diminished peoples’ sense of autonomy and competence. Drawing on peoples’ experiences with existing apps and principles of positive computing, the second contribution of this thesis is the design and evaluation of Reffy - a chatbot prototype that integrates coping-relevant BCTs in a way that meets people’s stress management needs. Based on findings from a field evaluation study, we identify specific benefits and challenges of using a stress self-management chatbot. We find that chatbot-based reflective questioning helps people identify how factors impact their stress during early stages of self-tracking. Likewise, adding features that promote users’ sense of autonomy and competence improves Welltory’s ability to support coping strategies. This thesis advances our understanding of how behaviour change and stress coping techniques can be incorporated into mobile apps to effectively support stress self-management