Paper Info
Title
Social influence of a persuasive agent: the role of agent embodiment and evaluative feedback
Abstract
Feedback can serve as an intervention aimed at reducing household energy consumption. The present study focused on the effects of agent embodiment on behavioral change through feedback. The effects of agent embodiment were studied for female vs. male users. Also factual feedback was compared to evaluative feedback. An experiment was conducted in which 76 participants used a virtual washing machine to clean laundry. They received interactive feedback about their energy consumption, from an embodied agent or from a computer. This feedback indicated the consumption level (factual feedback) or good or bad performance (evaluative feedback). The results showed that evaluative feedback, especially when it was negative, was more effective than factual feedback in reducing energy consumption, independent of the source of the feedback. Overall, for men it did not matter whether the feedback was given by a computer or by an embodied agent, but for women it did: women who interacted with the embodied agent used less energy than women who interacted with the computer.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1145/1541948.1542007
PERSUASIVE
Keywords
Field
DocType
social influence,evaluative feedback,household energy consumption,energy consumption,behavioral change,interactive feedback,consumption level,factual feedback,persuasive agent,male user,bad performance,agent embodiment,energy conservation,embodied agent,behavior change
Social psychology,Persuasion,Embodied agent,Psychology,Laundry,Social influence,Energy consumption,Interactive feedback
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
13
1.27
4
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Suzanne Vossen1192.02
Jaap Ham228424.10
Cees Midden324722.74