Digital Nudge Stacking and Backfiring: Understanding Sustainable E-Commerce Purchase Decisions

Background: The consumption of ‘fast fashion’, which is expedited by cost-effective e-commerce systems, represents one of the major factors contributing to the acceleration of climate change. An emerging approach to steer consumers in the direction of more sustainable purchase decisions is digital nudging. This paper explores digital nudging in the context of green fashion e-commerce by testing the effectiveness of two nudging strategies on the decision to choose green fashion products (GFP) over regular fashion items. Method: This study was conducted as a between-subject online experiment (n=320) with four conditions simulating an e-commerce scenario. The participants were presented with different products: one was ecologically friendly, and another was the regular option. Depending on their randomized group allocation, the participants experienced a default nudge, a social norm nudge, a combination of both strategies, or no nudge. In addition, we conducted 10 qualitative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of consumers’ decision process. Results: Our experiment failed to demonstrate statistically significant relationships between the various nudging strategies and GFP purchase decisions. However, additional explorative analyzes confirmed a backfire effect for the combination of nudging strategies. This reveals the previously overlooked influence of participants’ identification on the effectiveness of digital nudging strategies. In addition, qualitative interviews revealed individual factors that influence sustainable e-commerce purchase decisions. Conclusion: This study contributes to information systems research by explaining the differences in the effectiveness of different nudging strategies regarding high-involvement compared to low-involvement products. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence of a backfire effect resulting from a combination of digital nudging strategies (i.e., digital nudge stacking). Finally, the study underscores the leverage that individual factors have on both GFP purchase decision and the effectiveness of nudges

How Virtuous are Virtual Influencers? – A Qualitative Analysis of Virtual Actors’ Virtues on Instagram

Recently, virtual influencers (VIs) have become a more frequent alternative to human influencers (HIs). VIs can be described as non-human agents who behave in a human-like pattern. Big enterprises such as Prada, Porsche, Samsung, or Ikea have already collaborated with VIs in the past. Even though it should be clear to users that VIs cannot practice values and virtues in the real world, VIs seem to express certain virtues. This research paper focuses on identifying virtues conveyed by VIs and the effect of expressing virtues on follower engagement by conducting a qualitative content analysis of social media posts. Furthermore, we checked on VIs being abused by companies to convey a more favorable image. Our findings suggest that conveying certain virtues seems to have a positive effect on the engagement. In addition, some VIs were used by companies for virtue signaling without being noticed by their followers

Automating Crisis Communication in Public Institutions – Towards Ethical Conversational Agents That Support Trust Management

To improve disaster relief and crisis communication, public institutions (PIs) such as administrations rely on automation and technology. As one example, the use of conversational agents (CAs) has increased. To ensure that information and advisories are taken up seriously, it is important for PIs to be perceived as a trusted source and a trustworthy point of contact. In this study, we therefore examine how CAs can be applied by PIs to, on the one hand, automate their crisis communication and, on the other hand, maintain or even increase their perceived trustworthiness. We developed two CAs – one equipped with ethical cues in order to be perceived more trustworthy and one without such cues – and started to conduct an online experiment to evaluate the effects. Our first results indicate that applying ethical principles such as fairness, transparency, security and accountability have a positive effect on the perceived trustworthiness of the CA

Identification of MiR-205 As a MicroRNA That Is Highly Expressed in Medullary Thymic Epithelial Cells

<div><p>Thymic epithelial cells (TECs) support T cell development in the thymus. Cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTECs) facilitate positive selection of developing thymocytes whereas medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) facilitate the deletion of self-reactive thymocytes in order to prevent autoimmunity. The mTEC compartment is highly dynamic with continuous maturation and turnover, but the genetic regulation of these processes remains poorly understood. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of TEC genetic programs since miRNA-deficient TECs are severely defective. However, the individual miRNAs important for TEC maintenance and function and their mechanisms of action remain unknown. Here, we demonstrate that miR-205 is highly and preferentially expressed in mTECs during both thymic ontogeny and in the postnatal thymus. This distinct expression is suggestive of functional importance for TEC biology. Genetic ablation of miR-205 in TECs, however, neither revealed a role for miR-205 in TEC function during homeostatic conditions nor during recovery from thymic stress conditions. Thus, despite its distinct expression, miR-205 on its own is largely dispensable for mTEC biology.</p></div

An integrated nano-scale approach to profile miRNAs in limited clinical samples

Profiling miRNA expression in cells that directly contribute to human disease pathogenesis is likely to aid the discovery of novel drug targets and biomarkers. However, tissue heterogeneity and the limited amount of human diseased tissue available for research purposes present fundamental difficulties that often constrain the scope and potential of such studies. We established a flow cytometry-based method for isolating pure populations of pathogenic T cells from bronchial biopsy samples of asthma patients, and optimized a high-throughput nano-scale qRT-PCR method capable of accurately measuring 96 miRNAs in as little as 100 cells. Comparison of circulating and airway T cells from healthy and asthmatic subjects revealed asthma associated and tissue-specific miRNA expression patterns. These results establish the feasibility and utility of investigating miRNA expression in small populations of cells involved in asthma pathogenesis, and set a precedent for application of our nano-scale approach in other human diseases. The microarray data from this study (Figure 7) has been submitted to the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO; http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo) under accession no. GSE31030

TEC miRNA profiling identifies miR-205 as highly expressed in mTECs.

<p><b>(A)</b> Thymic subsets were purified from 4–5 week old <i>NOD</i> wildtype mice for miRNA profiling by microarray analysis. The heatmap depicts the union of differentially expressed miRNAs from any comparison (FDR <0.05) with an absolute log2 fold change >1 relative to the signal intensity of CD45⁺ cells. <b>(B)</b> Plot depicts average log2 fold change (FC) between mTEC vs CD45⁺ cells on the <i>y</i>-axis and average log2 signal intensity across all samples on the <i>x</i>-axis. Red dots indicate genes that are differentially expressed in mTECs vs CD45⁺ cells with an FDR <0.05. <b>(C)</b> Thymic stromal subsets were FACS-purified from 4–6 week old <i>B6</i> wildtype mice to confirm the expression of miR-205 in mTECs by qPCR analysis. All reactions were standardized to sno202 and then normalized to CD45⁺ cells with error bars depicting mean ±SD.</p

Radiation-induced thymic stress does not reveal a role for miR-205 in TECs.

<p><b>(A)</b> 6-week old mice were exposed to sub-lethal total body irradiation and then harvested after either 15 or 30 days of recovery to enumerate total thymic cellularity. <b>(B)</b> Enumeration of total mTEC and cTEC cellularity from mice shown in <b>(A)</b>. mTECs were defined as CD45^-, EpCAM⁺, Ly51^-, MHC II⁺ events. cTECs were defined as CD45^-, EpCAM⁺, Ly51⁺, MHC II⁺ events. <b>(C)</b> Subset composition of mTECs was assessed by flow cytometry of mTECs as defined in <b>(B)</b>. <b>(D)</b> Quantification of mTEC cellularity and assessment of the proliferation marker Ki67 for the mTEC subsets shown in <b>(C)</b>. Data in <b>(A-D)</b> are shown as mean ±SEM of 10 samples per group pooled from two independent experiments. Total cellularity plotted as percent of untreated <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL mice to allow for direct comparison between the two timepoints. Blue bars indicate untreated <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL mice, gray bars indicate treated <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL mice, and red bars indicate treated <i>miR-205</i>^ΔTEC mice. * denotes p≤0.05, Student’s <i>t</i>-test.</p

miR-205 is expressed during thymic ontogeny and maintained in the adult thymus.

<p><b>(A)</b> X-gal staining was performed on transverse sections of e14.5 <i>miR-205</i>^lacZ embryos to identify patterns of miR-205 transcription. <b>(B)</b> Whole-mount X-gal staining was performed on a dissected e18.5 <i>miR-205</i>^lacZ embryo (left) and positive lacZ reporter activity was observed in the thymus (arrow). A dissected and stained <i>miR-210</i>^lacZ embryo (right) is shown as a negative control for lacZ activity in the thymus. These images have been published previously at <a href="http://rna.keck.ucsf.edu/sites/rna.keck.ucsf.edu/files/205_E18.5_051510_24.jpg" target="_blank">http://rna.keck.ucsf.edu/sites/rna.keck.ucsf.edu/files/205_E18.5_051510_24.jpg</a>. <b>(C)</b> Thymic sections from an e18.5 <i>miR-205</i>^lacZ embryo were cut and then stained with X-gal. Arrows indicate positive lacZ reporter activity in a subset of cells in the thymus. <b>(D)</b><i>in situ</i> hybridization for miR-205 was performed on frozen thymic sections from 6–8 week old B6 wildtype mice. Serial sections were hybridized using either a miR-205 probe or a scramble probe. Image pairs from two samples are shown. Scale bars = 200 μm. <b>(E-F)</b> Sorted thymic subsets from either <i>Aire</i>^+/+<b>(E)</b> or <i>Aire</i>^-/-<b>(F)</b> mice were analyzed by qPCR for miR-205 expression. Both genotypes carried the Aire-GFP (<i>Adig</i>) allele to facilitate the sorting of Aire⁺/GFP⁺ and Aire^-/GFP^- mTEC subsets. Reactions were standardized to sno202 and then normalized to CD45⁺ cells with error bars depicting mean ±SD.</p

Validation of miR-205 ablation in TECs.

<p><b>(A)</b> mTECs from 4–6 week old <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL and <i>miR-205</i>^ΔTEC mice were sorted to analyze miR-205 expression by qPCR. Reactions were normalized to sno202 and normalized to CD45⁺ cells. Values depict mean ±SD. Data is representative of two independent experiments. <b>(B)</b><i>in situ</i> hybridizations were performed using a miR-205 probe on frozen thymic sections from 4–6 week old <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL and <i>miR-205</i>^ΔTEC mice to confirm the uniform deletion of miR-205 in mTECs. Scale bars = 200 μm (top), and 100 μm (bottom).</p

miR-205 deficient TECs show comparable sensitivity and recovery potential to poly(I:C) mediated thymic involution.

<p><b>(A)</b> 4-week old mice were treated with varying doses of poly(I:C) at day (-3) and day (0) before being harvested at day 4 of their recovery for enumeration of total thymic cellularity. <b>(B)</b> Mice were treated with 250μg of poly(I:C) as conducted in <b>(A)</b> and then harvested at 12 days of recovery to enumerate total thymic cellularity. <b>(C)</b> Enumeration of total mTEC and cTEC cellularity in 4-week old mice shown in <b>(B)</b>. cTECs were defined as CD45^-, EpCAM⁺, Ly51⁺, MHC II⁺ events. mTECs were defined as CD45^-, EpCAM⁺, Ly51^-, MHC II⁺ events. <b>(D)</b> Subset composition was assessed by flow cytometry of mTECs as defined in <b>(C)</b>. Quantification of total TEC cellularity and assessment of the proliferation marker Ki67 for the mTEC subsets shown on the left. Data in <b>(B-D)</b> are shown as mean ±SEM of 7 samples per group and are representative of at least two independent experiments. Gray bars in <b>(B-E)</b> indicate untreated <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL mice, gray bars indicate poly(I:C) treated <i>miR-205</i>^CTRL mice, and red bars indicate poly(I:C) treated<i>miR-205</i>^ΔTEC mice.</p