This paper explores the dierence between 'persuasion' and 'manipulation', both of which are instantiated in persuasive technologies to date. We present a case study of the system we are currently developing to foster local spending behavior by a community group | with sensitive implications for the community's sense of identity | and contrast our approach with what we would understand to be a manipulative approach. Our intention is to a) respond to anticipated critique that such a system could be interpreted as manipulative, b) present our argument for how persuasive technologies can be persuasive without being manipulative, and c) explain why, for this case study, its important that our approach be persuasive

Coulton, Paul

Knowles, Bran

Lochrie, Mark

Wohl, Benjamin

English

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“Convince Us”: An Argument forthe Morality of PersuasionBran KnowlesLancaster UniversityLancaster, UKb.h.knowles@lancaster.ac.ukBenjamin WohlLancaster UniversityLancaster, UKb.wohl@lancaster.ac.ukPaul CoultonLancaster UniversityLancaster, UKp.coulton@lancaster.ac.ukMark LochrieLancaster UniversityLancaster, UKmark@barterproject.orgPaste the appropriate copyright statement here. ACM now supports threedifferent copyright statements:• ACM copyright: ACM holds the copyright on the work. This is the historicalapproach.• License: The author(s) retain copyright, but ACM receives an exclusivepublication license.• Open Access: The author(s) wish to pay for the work to be open access.The additional fee must be paid to ACM.This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statementassuming it is single spaced.AbstractThis paper explores the difference between ‘persuasion’and ‘manipulation’, both of which are instantiated inpersuasive technologies to date. We present a case studyof the system we are currently developing to foster localspending behavior by a community group — with sensitiveimplications for the community’s sense of identity — andcontrast our approach with what we would understand tobe a manipulative approach. Our intention is to a)respond to anticipated critique that such a system couldbe interpreted as manipulative, b) present our argumentfor how persuasive technologies can be persuasive withoutbeing manipulative, and c) explain why, for this casestudy, its important that our approach be persuasive.Author KeywordsPersuasion, rhetoric, interaction designACM Classification KeywordsH.5.m [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g.,HCI)]: Miscellaneous.IntroductionThe overwhelming majority of persuasive technologydescends from the tradition of B.J. Fogg [6] (cf. [3]), andattempts to leverage empirically validated psychologicaltendencies toward the completion of desired behavior.Users are expected to accept the basic premise of the‘correctness’ of the designers’ chosen end behavior; andthe designer is not expected to have to rigorously debatedthe preferability of this end behavior. This is largely abyproduct of persuasive technology researchers’ avoidanceof controversial framings of problems; but as a result, theissue of whether the techniques of so-called ‘persuasion’are indeed manipulative has escaped serious scrutinywithin the computing community.Our position in this paper is not that persuasivetechnologies of this ilk are always manipulative; nor thatbeing manipulative is inherently unethical. What weargue, instead, is that very different ethical questions areraised by technologies such as these, which inducebehavior change, compared with those that engage users’deliberative capabilities and persuade, in the original,rhetorical sense of the term [2]. In particular, we suggestthat technologies that aim to offer solutions to genuinely‘wicked’ problems that users may understand andinterpret rather differently than the designers, it isinappropriate to induce behavior change (i.e. manipulatebehavior). By way of demonstrating this, we discuss ourchosen wicked problem and plan for solving it, how thisdiffers from manipulation, and what we understand to beethical about our approach.Case StudyRecently, there has been much concern by the UK policymakers and public surrounding the ‘death’ of town centers[7]. One of the most highly publicized investigations ofthis problem [12] points to the discount prices availablefrom mega retail outlets and the convenience of onlineshopping as major factors in this decline. The problem hasbeen attributed more broadly by others to a problematic‘leaking’ [13] of money away from local communities,depleting local wealth with consequences not only to theseeconomies but also to social capital and associatedindicators of wellbeing [10] (cf. [15]). In an effort to reviveareas where the local economy is in decline, as well as tostave off potential decline in new areas, communities areincreasingly turning toward local currencies [8]. Thethinking behind these currencies is to create a wealth poolthat cannot be siphoned out of the community. Theproblem is, these often fail [4] for a range of practicalreasons — and, we suggest, because local currencies haveno inherent rhetorical potential. In other words, there isno dialectic element in the currency itself that candemonstrate to individuals who are not sold on the geniusof local spending why it will help revive their community.We are currently developing a system (BARTER) that isdesigned to demonstrate to people why spending locally isin the long-term interest of their community. Specifically,we are attempting to leverage mobile and ubiquitouscomputing to overcome the need for an alternativecurrency altogether. Instead, BARTER provides aninformation layer on top of existing currency (poundssterling) which shows the flow of money around and outof the community. Both customer-to-business andbusiness-to-business transactions are recorded (using NFCcards at a mobile terminal), enabling us to represent adynamic map of where money is being spent —highlighting, especially, when and where money is ‘leaking’out of the community. Using algorithms based on thelocal multiplier effect [14], we are able to represent theoverall growth in wealth attributable to local spending,and the overall reduction in wealth attributable tonon-local spending. In contrast to the problem raisedabove regarding local currencies, the system engages usersin a discussion about the relative desirability of short-termindividual savings (e.g. at mega retail outlets or onlineshops) and long-term community impacts that may result.The aim of BARTER is not (simply) to get people tospend locally. After all, we are not economists, and it ispossible that what BARTER will show is that there is nocommunity benefit to spending locally. We do not,therefore, attempt to design mechanisms that make itmore likely that individuals will spend locally(e.g. providing incentives or positive reinforcement). It isour position that doing so would be unethical: who are weto tell people what is right for them and their community?Indeed, who are we to fundamentally alter the characterof a community from the top-down, forcing a communityto adopt a certain ethos? Granted, we (the researchers)consider ourselves part of the community in question; butnonetheless, is it ethical to impose our ideology on a groupof individuals without their knowledge and approval?At the same time, we certainly do believe as the designersof this system that people should make a greater effort tospend locally. And our reason for designing this system isto convince people of our position, and in so doing, makeit more likely that people will change their behavior inaccordance with this belief. Further, we believe that, justas it is generally considered immoral to not seek to changethings in the world that one sees as harming one’s fellowhumans1, we have an obligation to try to do what we canto correct this problem. We would argue for this reasonthat no persuasive technology — manipulative orpersuasive — can be dismissed on the grounds ofattempting to engineer a more desirable result. (Allpolicies attempt to do just that.) The ethical dilemma,however, is how one attempts this engineering.1In the words of the Dalai Lama, ‘Each individual has a universalresponsibility to shape institutions to serve human needs.’Consider, for the sake of discussion, a fictional persuasivetechnology that helps people who are addicted to lifethreatening drugs to quit. There is broad consensus thatthis addiction is harming the individual, and that it wouldbe more desirable if they would stop. In this instance, itseems generally ethical to use a more manipulativeapproach that relies on psychological responses conduciveto behavior change (with the potential caveat that theuser must agree to using the system and know what it isfor). The reason this feels okay is because it is consistentwith the consensus view. This does not mean, however,that it is apolitical; rather, the ideology underpinning thisis largely invisible because it aligns with a predominantvalue set or worldview, and the solution is culturallyvetted to some extent.Compare this to BARTER, the influence of which is morenoticeable in part because it presents a counter-narrativeto the dominant faith in the utility of the free market [11],daring to suggest that the global free market may notnecessarily work toward the greatest wellbeing ofindividuals or communities. The burden of proof, if youwill, is with us to show that this alternative view ispreferable.This suggests that a fundamentally different approach topersuasion is in order — one that attempts to alterbehavior by ‘engaging users in a discourse about thebehavior itself or the logics that would recommend suchactions or beliefs’ [1, p. 60–1]. Such is the approach of‘persuasive games’, many of which work by revealing theideologies that ‘drive social, political, or cultural behavior’[ibid, p. 62] so that they can be reflected upon. Inparticular, persuasive games can show how variousstructures fail, or how seemingly intuitive behaviors workagainst one’s interest, thereby providing players withopportunities to rethink and potentially adopt alternativebehaviors. Without actually (necessarily2) developing agame, BARTER aligns with this less mainstreamcomputing approach to persuasion.Ethical issues consideredZelizer [16] has argued that people express values throughmoney — one of the reasons, potentially, for theestablishment of local currencies as an alternative,bespoke expression. While there is some debate aboutwhether this view of money is valid (cf. [5]), we are awareof the potential that an intervention like BARTER hasregarding a community’s expression of values associatedwith their collective sense of identity. By getting people tocontemplate the impacts of spending behavior on otherswithin their community — and doing so within a systemthat showcases various ethical accreditations (e.g. makingvisible whether a business is fairtrade in addition to howmuch of their revenue they spend back into thecommunity) — we are clearly activating and prioritizing aset of values associated with Benevolence [9],i.e. bigger-than-self concern for people in one’s socialcircle.We do not think that taking such a position (care forothers is good) is controversial, or that designing asystem to support ostensibly desirable traits is in any wayunethical. But we are careful to involve the users of oursystem, and those potentially impacted by its use byothers, in an open discussion about the project. In ouroriginal research plan, we intended to involve the localethical small traders association in a participatory designprocess. After much deliberation, we decided that whilethis group might have been enthusiastic participants, theydid not adequately represent the wider community. We2BARTER is a work in progress.are now undertaking a service design approach, involvinginterviews with various stakeholders — not for them toactively shape the system design, but more to engage withcommunity members to discuss potential implications ofthe system. In part, this provides a useful check so thatwe avoid designing something completely disconnectedfrom a set of broadly shared community values. It alsogives us a baseline read on community values as a meansof measuring any influence our system may have oncedeployed. Having said that, we have already largelyagreed upon the design of the system, and the mostimportant insight we seek to gain through ourethnographic work is to understand the current barriers tospending locally, so that we can effectively representinformation that enables different spending behavior.It is important to make clear that BARTER is ratherunique in the sense that the persuasion is aimed at acommunity, rather than an individual. It is unfeasible toget consent of all the people in the community who maybe affected by the system. For this and other reasons, wehave made every effort to avoid manipulating people’sbehavior by making it easier or more likely to do onebehavior over another. What we can do, however, ispresent information in a way that provokes deliberation,and make a convincing argument for the desirability ofthat behavior change. What we aim to do, in fact, is notto produce a particular behavior (local spending) per se;but rather to create a new sensibility about therelationship between individual spending behavior andcommunity impacts. The only appropriate form ofpersuasion here, for what is ultimately a politicalendeavor, is rhetorical.ConclusionThe case study we have presented here makes a politicalargument for behavior change by a community. What thecommunity does with this system is up to them. We canbut make our case.AcknowledgementsThis research is made possible by EPSRC grantsEP/K012584/1 and EP/I033017/1. The project is incollaboration with Michael Hallam of the Ethical SmallTraders Association.References[1] Bogost, I. Persuasive games: The expressive powerof videogames. MIT Press, 2007.[2] Braet, A. C. Ethos, pathos and logos in aristotle’srhetoric: A re-examination. Argumentation 6, 3(1992), 307–320.[3] Brynjarsdo´ttir, H., Ha˙kansson, M., Pierce, J.,Baumer, E. P., DiSalvo, C., and Sengers, P.Sustainably unpersuaded: how persuasion narrowsour vision of sustainability. In Proc. CHI’12, ACM(2012), 947–956.[4] Collom, E. Community currency in the united states:the social environments in which it emerges andsurvives. Environment and Planning A 37, 9 (2005),1565.[5] Evans, M. S. Zelizer’s theory of money and the caseof local currencies. Environment and planning. A 41,5 (2009), 1026.[6] Fogg, B. J. Persuasive Technology: Using Computersto Change What We Think and Do. MorganKauffman, San Francisco, 2003.[7] Guardian, T. High street shops in ‘death spiral’,warns veteran retailer. [online] (2nd February 2012).[8] Helleiner, E. Think globally, transact locally: Greenpolitical economy and the local currency movement.Global society 14, 1 (2000), 35–51.[9] Holmes, T., Blackmore, E., and Hawkins, R. TheCommon Cause Handbook. Public Interest ResearchCentre Ltd, Machynlleth, Wales, 2011.[10] Hopkins, R. The power of just doing stuff. Totnes:Green Books (2013).[11] Michaels, F. Monoculture: How One Story isChanging Everything. Red Clover Press, 2011.[12] Portas, M., and Britain, G. The Portas Review: Anindependent review into the future of our highstreets. Department for Business, Innovation andSkills, 2011.[13] Ward, B., Lewis, J., Britain, G., and Unit, N. R.Plugging the Leaks: Making the most of every poundthat enters your local economy. New EconomicsFoundation London, 2002.[14] Wikipedia. Local multiplier effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_multiplier_effect.[15] Wilkinson, R. G., Pickett, K., and Chafer, C. Thespirit level. Bloomsbury Press, 2011.[16] Zelizer, V. A. R. The social meaning of money.Princeton University Press, 1997.

"Convince us'': an argument for the morality of persuasion

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