Gamification, past habits may impact future eco-friendly tendencies differently
Gamification, past habits may impact future eco-friendly tendencies differently
Gamification, past habits may impact future eco-friendly tendencies differently
March 9, 2022
By Kevin Sliman
Summary
Green consumer habits may not be impacted by gamification practices, but people who purchased environmentally friendly products in the past are likely to continue to do so, according to a team of researchers, who theorized that adding gamification techniques to a consumer's eco-friendly purchasing habits would perpetuate green consumerism.
"We found some evidence of moral consistency, that is, for participants primed of their past green efforts, they reported to be willing to take more concrete green actions." Lewen Wei, postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland According to the team, one of the challenges to maintaining green purchasing practices is moral licensing, which is "a psychological phenomenon that occurs when people perceive themselves as licensed to refrain from good behavior when they have accrued a surplus of moral currency," the authors wrote in the paper "Gamifying Green Consumerism Websites: Can Gamification Mitigate Moral Licensing and Ideological Resistance to Green Behaviors?" in a recent issue of the Journal of Communication Technology.
"We tested the effects of not only one single gaming element but also the various combinations of them - for example, featuring all three game elements at the same time in one setting - to see whether one game element was sufficiently helpful in facilitating future green consumption, or the amount of gamification mattered to a greater extent than any one element," said Wei.
Although the research team expected to find that the gamification would affect future green consumerism, they reported the data did not support that theory.
"We think gamification is still very promising in increasing people's intrinsic motivations of continuing sustainable practices and thereby facilitating green consumerism," Wei said.
Reference
Sliman, K. (2022, March 9). Gamification, past habits may impact future eco-friendly tendencies differently. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.psu.edu/news/bellisario-college-communications/story/gamification-past-habits-may-impact-future-eco-friendly/