Dimensions of web site credibility and their relation to active trust and behavioural impact

This paper discusses two trends that threaten to undermine the effectiveness of online social marketing interventions: growing mistrust and competition. As a solution, this paper examines the relationships between Web site credibility, target audiences’ active trust and behaviour. Using structural equation modelling to evaluate two credibility models, this study concludes that Web site credibility is best considered a three-dimensional construct composed of expertise, trustworthiness and visual appeal, and that trust plays a partial mediating role between Web site credibility and behavioural impacts. The paper examines theoretical implications of conceptualizing Web sites according to a human credibility model, and factoring trust into Internet-based behavioural change interventions. Practical guidelines suggest ways to address these findings when planning online social marketing interventions

Monitoring Twitter strategies to discover resonating topics: The case of the UNDP

Many organizations use social media to attract supporters, disseminate information and advocate change. Services like Twitter can theoretically deliver messages to a huge audience that would be difficult to reach by other means. This article introduces a method to monitor an organization’s Twitter strategy and applies it to tweets from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) accounts. The Resonating Topic Method uses automatic analyses with free software to detect successful themes within the organization’s tweets, categorizes the most successful tweets, and analyses a comparable organization to identify new successful strategies. In the case of UNDP tweets from November 2014 to March 2015, the results confirm the importance of official social media accounts as well as those of high profile individuals and general supporters. Official accounts seem to be more successful at encouraging action, which is a critical aspect of social media campaigning. An analysis of Oxfam found a successful social media approach that the UNDP had not adopted, showing the value of analyzing other organizations to find potential strategy gaps

The Dimensions of Web Site Credibility and Their Relation to Active Trust and Behavioural Impact

This paper discusses two trends that threaten to undermine the effectiveness of online social marketing interventions: growing mistrust and competition. As a solution, this paper examines the relationships between Web site credibility, target audiences’ active trust and behaviour. Using structural equation modelling to evaluate two credibility models, this study concludes that Web site credibility is best considered a three-dimensional construct composed of expertise, trustworthiness and visual appeal, and that trust plays a partial mediating role between Web site credibility and behavioural impacts. The paper examines theoretical implications of conceptualizing Web sites according to a human credibility model, and factoring trust into Internet-based behavioural change interventions. Practical guidelines suggest ways to address these findings when planning online social marketing interventions

Interactive Behavior Change Model (IBCM 8.0): Theory and Ontology

This paper presents the Interactive Behavior Change Model (IBCM 8.0), a system that integrates behavior change principles from neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science into a behavioral meta-theory. With its broad, application-agnostic nature, the IBCM provides insight into behavior change, how it operates, and offers an alternative explanation for why various behavior change models work or do not work. It has applications as a behavioral system for education, research, analysis, intervention design, and implementation in various technologies, especially self-adaptive systems run by rule-based engines or artificial intelligence (AI). Due to space limits, this paper covers the model structure and theory with a limited high-level overview of its ontology

A Concept to Improve Care for People with Dementia

AbstractDementia is one of the severe causes of mortality in elder groups of human population, and the number of dementia patients is expected to increase all over the world. Globally, the cost to take care of patients with the illness is high. Moreover, the lives for dementia patients are commonly impacted by a variety of challenges, for example, in terms of communication, emotional behaviour, confusion and wandering. Therefore, the future aim is to develop a serious games package which can help to slow down the progression of dementia, better life for the patients and their loved one and reduce the use of medications and the cost for the government sectors. In this study, a conceptual model was formed to present the problems the dementia patients and their caregivers are facing, and non-pharmacological approaches are suggested to slow down the progression of dementia-related impairments and behavioural symptoms by using well-structured serious games with personalised data.Abstract Dementia is one of the severe causes of mortality in elder groups of human population, and the number of dementia patients is expected to increase all over the world. Globally, the cost to take care of patients with the illness is high. Moreover, the lives for dementia patients are commonly impacted by a variety of challenges, for example, in terms of communication, emotional behaviour, confusion and wandering. Therefore, the future aim is to develop a serious games package which can help to slow down the progression of dementia, better life for the patients and their loved one and reduce the use of medications and the cost for the government sectors. In this study, a conceptual model was formed to present the problems the dementia patients and their caregivers are facing, and non-pharmacological approaches are suggested to slow down the progression of dementia-related impairments and behavioural symptoms by using well-structured serious games with personalised data

Communication-based influence components model

This paper discusses problems faced by planners of real-world online behavioural change interventions who must select behavioural change frameworks from a variety of competing theories and taxonomies. As a solution, this paper examines approaches that isolate the components of behavioural influence and shows how these components can be placed within an adapted communication framework to aid the design and analysis of online behavioural change interventions. Finally, using this framework, a summary of behavioural change factors are presented from an analysis of 32 online interventions

Online social marketing: website factors in behavioural change

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.A few scholars have argued that the Internet is a valuable channel for social marketing, and that practitioners need to rethink how they engage with target audiences online. However, there is little evidence that online social marketing interventions can significantly influence behaviours, while there are few evidence-based guidelines to aid online intervention design. This thesis assesses the efficacy of online interventions suitable for social marketing applications, presents a model to integrate behavioural change research, and examines psychological principles that may aid the design of online behavioural change interventions.The primary research project used meta-analytical techniques to assess the impact of interventions targeting voluntary behaviours, and examined psychological design and adherence correlations. The study found that many online interventions demonstrated the capacity to help people achieve voluntary lifestyle changes. Compared to waitlist control conditions, the interventions demonstrated advantages, while compared to print materials they offered similar impacts, but with the advantages of lower costs and broader reach. A secondary research project surveyed users across an international public mobilization campaign and used structural equation modelling to assess the relationships between website credibility, active trust, and behavioural impacts. This study found that website credibility and active trust were factors in behavioural influence, while active trust mediated the effects of website credibility on behaviour. The two research projects demonstrated that online interventions can influence an individual’s offline behaviours. Effective interventions were primarily goal-orientated: they informed people about the consequences of their behaviour, encouraged them to set goals, offered skills-building support, and tracked their progress. People who received more exposure to interventions generally achieved greater behavioural outcomes. Many of these interventions could be incorporated into social marketing campaigns, and offer individually tailored support capable of scaling to massive public audiences. Communication theory was used to harmonize influence taxonomies and techniques; this proved to be an effective way to organize a diversity of persuasion, therapy, and behavioural change research. Additionally, website credibility and users’ active trust could offer a way to mitigate the negative impacts of online risks and competition

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A thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of th