Promoting Eco-Sustainable Behavior with Gamification: An Experimental Study on the Alignment of Competing Goals

Promoting Eco-Sustainable Behavior with Gamification: An Experimental Study on the Alignment of Competing Goals

Anna-Raissa Seidler, Christopher Henkel, Marina Fiedler, Johann Kranz

Abstract

“This paper investigates how gamified information systems enable the alignment of nor-mative, hedonic, and gain goals to motivate eco-sustainable behavior (ESB). Our study is motivated by the importance of finding effective ways of increasing ESB and the relative inattention prior research has given to often competing goals which frame individuals' cognitive and motivational processes. Environmental psychology literature implies that to motivate norm-guided behaviors, gamification needs to strengthen the normative goal and align it with hedonic and gain goals. In a randomized experiment with 160 subjects we find evidence that gamified emotional or competitive stimuli keep the normative goal in the foreground and push often competing hedonic and gain goals into the background. Our study augments extant research as our results indicate gamification has persuasive potential to reduce the cognitive effort of keeping normative goals in the foreground and effectively trigger ESB, which is imperative for the future of our planet.”

Reference

Seidler, A. R., Henkel, C., Fiedler, M., Kranz, J., Ixmeier, A., & Strunk, K. S. (2020). Promoting Eco-Sustainable Behavior with Gamification: An Experimental Study on the Alignment of Competing Goals. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anne_Ixmeier2/publication/344785282_Promoting_Eco-Sustainable_Behavior_with_Gamification_An_Experimental_Study_on_the_Alignment_of_Competing_Goals/links/5f918395299bf1b53e3a8eb0/Promoting-Eco-Sustainable-Behavior-with-Gamification-An-Experimental-Study-on-the-Alignment-of-Competing-Goals.pdf

Keywords

Gamification, Goal Framing Theory, Eco-Sustainable Behavior