=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2629/10_poster_nkwo.pdf
|storemode=property
|title=Socially-oriented Persuasive Strategies and Sustainable Behavior Change: Implications for Designing for Environmental Sustainability
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/10_poster_nkwo.pdf
|volume=Vol-2629
|authors=Makuochi Nkwo,Banuchitra Suruliraj,Rita Orji,John Ugah
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/persuasive/NkwoSOU20
}}
==Socially-oriented Persuasive Strategies and Sustainable Behavior Change: Implications for Designing for Environmental Sustainability==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/10_poster_nkwo.pdf
Socially-oriented Persuasive Strategies and Sustainable
Behavior Change: Implications for Designing for
Environmental Sustainability
Makuochi Nkwo1* Banuchitra Suruliraj2, Rita Orji2 and John Ugah1
1 Department of Computer Science, Ebonyi State University Abakaliki, Nigeria
2 Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax NS, Canada
makuonkwo@gamil.com
Abstract. This research evaluates 148 mobile apps for sustainable waste management with a
view to identifying all the socially-oriented persuasive strategies used and how they are imple-
mented to promote sustainable environmental behaviors. The results show that the apps em-
ployed a total of 71social support strategies, distributed as follows: social learning (4), social
comparison (8), normative influence (6), social facilitation (40), cooperation (9) and recogni-
tion (4). In addition, waste collection, sorting, recycling, awareness creation, and general waste
management were some of the focus behaviors that the sustainable mobile apps supported.
Contribution Statement. This paper contributes to research on ways of tailoring socially-
oriented persuasive strategies in sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) to promote
a clean and sustainable environment. It also contributes to research on improving the effective-
ness of persuasive systems for sustainability in encouraging users to perform target behaviors.
Keywords: Social Influence, Sustainability, Behavior Change, Persuasive Technology,
Waste Management, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Mobile App
1 Introduction
Studies shows that persuasive apps for behavior change encourage individual and communal
actions in various sustainability domains like water, energy, mobility, and waste mgt [2, 6, 9,
10, 16, 17]. The findings from recent studies suggests that amongst these sustainability applica-
tion domains, persuasive technology (PT) interventions to improve sustainable waste manage-
ment behaviors are gaining traction [4, 8]. However, research into tailoring socially-oriented PT
strategies for sustainable waste management in particular and environmental sustainability in
general, is just getting underway. Berkovsky et al. [3] opines that tailoring persuasive strategies
has a “huge untapped potential to maximize the impact of persuasive applications”.
Therefore this paper examines how persuasive technologies for sustainability otherwise re-
ferred to as sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) can be tailored to improve their
effectiveness in encouraging users to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. We achieve this by
evaluating 148 mobile apps (in the sustainable waste management domain) to identify the so-
cially-oriented persuasive strategies (Fogg [5] and Oinas-Kukkonen [13]) employed in the
design and how they are implemented to promote a clean and healthy environment. The results
from our study show that cumulatively, 71strategies were employed. Specifically, social learn-
ing, social comparison, normative influence, social facilitation, cooperation and recognition
were the socially-oriented persuasive strategies implemented in the mobile apps. In addition,
waste disposal, collection, sorting, recycling, and general waste management were some of the
Persuasive 2020, Adjunct proceedings of the 15th International conference on Persuasive
Technology. Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
2
focus behaviors that the sustainable apps supported. We also discussed the implications for
operationalizing socially-oriented persuasive strategies in developing PT for sustainability.
2 Method
This study addresses the following research questions: 1) what social support strategies were
implemented in mobile apps for waste management? 2) How can we adapt and implement these
strategies in future SBCIs for environmental sustainability to improve their effectiveness.
To answer our questions, we searched and downloaded apps on the Apps Store and Google
Play that align with our research objectives using various criteria such as purpose, language,
availability of demo, etc. Apps that appeared in both places were counted as one (See Fig. 1).
Also, we coded the apps to uncover the socially-oriented strategies employed and how they
were implemented based on the Persuasive System Design (PSD) framework described by
research [13]. We chose this framework because it is a widely used model for deconstructing
persuasive systems to identify strategies that are effective at abetting users to accomplish de-
sired tasks and target behaviors.
Total number of apps retrieved n=244 Duplicates removed n=17
iOS App store n=81 Same app in iOS App store
Google Play store n=163 and Google play store
After duplicates removed
Total number of apps retrieved n=227
iOS App store n=64
Google Play store n=163
Apps excluded with reasons n=79
App not functioning n=17
Cannot login n=28
App description assessed for eligibility Target behavior not inline n=14
App not in English n=2
Removed from store n=18
Review: Apps included in review n=148
Fig.1. Flow diagram illustrating exclusion criteria in various stages
We agreed on initial codes and ensured a mutual understanding of the coding decisions. We
organized and analyzed our data as follows:
1. Categorized mobile apps based on their purpose and target behaviors.
2. Conducted descriptive analysis on the collected data to get the actual socially-
oriented persuasive strategies implemented in the interventions.
Table 1 is a summary of the apps or sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) we
evaluated.
Table 1: Information on Accepted Mobile Apps
Mobile Platforms iOS (23%), Android (77%)
User ratings 5(5.4%), 4-4.9 (57.4%), 3-3.9(8%), 2-2.9(2.6%),1-1.9(0.6),0 or No rating
(26%)
Waste Management Productivity(21.6%), Education(15%), Business(15%), Lifestyle(13.5%),
Activity Category Food and Drink (9%), Social(4%), Other 15 categories (22%)
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3 Results, discussion and design implications
The findings from our study uncover that amongst the 148 mobile apps evaluated, a total of
seventy-one (71) socially-oriented strategies from the social support category of the persuasive
System Design (PSD) framework [13] were implemented (see figure 2 below). They are dis-
tributed as follows: social learning (4), social comparison (8), normative influence (6), social
facilitation (40), cooperation (9) and recognition (4). In addition, waste collection, sorting,
recycling, awareness creation, and general waste management were some of the focus behav-
iors that the sustainable mobile apps supported (see figure 3 below).
Social support strategies in apps
50 40
Number of apps
40
30
20 10 8 6 4 4
10
0
Social Cooperation Social Normative Social Recognition
facilitation comparison influence learning
Social Support strategies
Fig.2. Socially-oriented persuasive strategies and number of occurrences
Social Support strategy and focus
Cloth WM
Plastic WM
Focus/categories
Data collection
Waste collection
Biomedical WM
DIY Projects
Game
Regional waste disposal
Food WM
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Number of occurences
Fig.3. Socially-oriented persuasive strategies and focus
Our findings show that in general, socially-oriented strategies are effective at promoting sus-
tainable and pro-environmental behaviors. In contrast to passive participation, they are purpose-
ly designed to stimulate active participation of users to achieve communal objectives [15].
These findings and many other related results are discussed in detail in separate papers [7][16].
Specifically, the Social Facilitation strategy provide means to detect other users who are
performing target behaviors[11, 13]. It is implemented through chat features, forums and event
suggestions on regional waste management apps (see Fig 3), in which every user could see
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what others are saying, doing or planned to do. The implication for design is that developers of
sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) for environmental sustainability should
focus on incorporating social facilitation features that allow users to recognize other users per-
forming the same behaviors. This way the app will be more engaging and persuasive.
The Social Learning strategy provides means for users to see the outcome of other user’s
behaviors. It is implemented in the form of activity posts from other users which can be liked,
shared or marked favorite; this is similar to what is obtainable in social media applications. In
addition, new users could also look up the comments from other users and get an understanding
of what to expect from a system. This is consistent with findings from Nkwo et al. (2018)
which suggests that social learning will help users to learn about a product and service from
others [12]. The implication for design is that developers of SBCIs for environmental sustaina-
bility could integrate features such as reviews and ratings which inspire social learning. Open-
ing for users to look up questions and answers posted by other users about a product or services
should be created. This way, users can learn and get motivated to perform target behaviors.
The Social Comparison strategy offer opportunity for users to compare their performances
with other users. Although according to Almutari et al. (2019), social comparison is effective
and most preferred strategy in physical activity domain [1], it was only implemented (n=8).
This is surprising, considering that many people are naturally driven to compare and compete
with one another [8, 11, 13, 14]. The apps evaluated in this study operationalized the social
comparison strategy through leaderboards in game apps, a list of participants with scores, com-
paring cities based on waste management practices and comparing personal contribution on
carbon-di-oxide emission reduction against the average of all other users. The implication for
the design of SBCIs for environmental sustainability is that incorporating the features inspires
healthy comparison among users and groups will be effective in promoting pro-environmental
behaviors. Such features include an instant messaging component that will allow users to share
and compare information related to their sustainability activities and behaviors.
The Normative Influence strategy allows users to share their issues, thoughts, emotions
with others to find support [11–13]. They were implemented via the “invite friends” feature and
social walls that encourage people to share activities with other users on the platform. Only one
app implemented it via the creation of virtual groups based on target goals. The implication for
the design of SBCIs for environmental sustainability is that providing opportunities for users
and groups to interact amongst themselves and feel norm will increase engagement and inspire
them to adopt communally beneficial and sustainable behaviors.
The Recognition strategy shows publicly available ratings for garbage service providers, a
wall of fame to display exceptional performers in reducing food waste, public leaderboard and
display names to all users when the user starts using the app. These findings are significant and
agree with research [11, 13] because by providing public recognition to exceptional performers,
other users could be motivated to perform target behaviors. The implication for the design of
SBCIs for sustainability is that integrating features which offer public recognition to users and
groups will be effective in encouraging pro-environmental behaviors amongst them. Such fea-
tures may include a public display of praised and/or awarded user/group which is published on
a conspicuous location on the app window. Success stories of individuals and groups who have
successfully performed target behaviors could also be published as a means of recognizing their
efforts and inspiring other users/groups to perform similar target behaviors.
4 Conclusion
Sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) appear to promote sustainable behaviors in
environmental domains such as waste management examined in this paper. In general, our
results show that amongst other things, social facilitation strategy emerged as the most widely
used; n=40 (significantly higher than other socially-oriented persuasive strategies), whereas
5
social comparison and recognition were the least employed; n=4. They were mostly used to
motivate, influence, and assist potential users/groups to embrace new and communally helpful
attitudes and behaviors that will benefit them and their society. This implies that tailoring rele-
vant socially-oriented persuasive strategies in sustainable behavior change interventions
(SBCIs) may be effective in encouraging users to perform target behaviors. It also suggest that
the conscious and sustained application of these strategies will potentially result to a change in
the behavior and attitudes of users and groups, which are essential to the attainment of the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it concerns environmental sustaina-
bility (such as climate change), the health and wellbeing of the people.
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