Mobile applications and self-tracking devices help us to maintain health and support our goals in changing our behaviors. Most of the tools aim to increase our self-knowledge by providing information upon which to reflect. However, merely spending time reflecting does not always lead to insightful outcomes. In this study surveying users of mobile health and fitness applications (N=147), we have used structural equation modeling to explore the need for and roles of reflection and insight in the persuasive systems design (PSD) model. The findings suggest that both dialogue support and primary task support features influence the need for reflection, paving the way to personal insight. The perceived credibility of the system played different roles for females and males and seemed to originate from different sources. Additionally, we found significant roles for the attitude and unobtrusiveness of the system. This paper contributes to positioning reflective capabilities of a system in the design framework of persuasive systems and makes preliminary suggestions on how to transform the need for reflection into insights. It also exemplifies how to evaluate behavior change technologies by also assessing the psychological outcomes of the intervention.

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Cialdini's six principles of influence are commercially used but less common to encourage healthy behaviors. This study examines how these influence strategies relate to the persuasive systems design (PSD) model constructs implemented in commercial mobile fitness applications. Our research questions address whether susceptibility to influence strategies strengthen the relationships between persuasive constructs and, if so, which strategies and software features are promising to leverage the persuasive effects of systems designed to change health behaviors. This study presents results from a survey of system users (N=147) and their selfreported susceptibility to the six principles. All PSD model constructs showed significantly unequal distribution for some influence strategy, indicating that susceptibility to these strategies affects how users evaluate systems. The commitment principle correlated positively with all persuasive constructs, while reciprocation, scarcity and liking all significantly affected system evaluations. Susceptibility to influence strategies also moderated the relationships between PSD model constructs, but the moderation was often negative with small effect sizes. Our preliminary results indicate that practitioners could benefit from utilizing these influence strategies, especially susceptibility to commitment and reciprocation, which are stable and often high. However, the interaction between these strategies and persuasive systems is not straightforward and would benefit from further research.

Background Need for cognition (NFC) is among the most studied personality traits in psychology. Despite its apparent relevance for engaging with technology and the use of information, it has not been studied in the context of self-monitoring systems and wearables for health. This study is the first to explore the relationship between NFC and commercial self-monitoring systems among healthy users. Objective This study aims to explore the effect of NFC levels on the selection of self-monitoring systems and evaluation of system features of self-monitoring and feedback, as well as perceived credibility and perceived persuasiveness. We also assessed perceived behavior change in the form of self-reported activity after adopting the system. Methods Survey data were collected in October 2019 among university students and personnel. The invitation to respond to the questionnaire was addressed to those who had used a digital system to monitor their physical activity for at least two months. The web-based questionnaire comprised the following 3 parts: details of system use, partially randomly ordered theoretical measurement items, and user demographics. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The effect of NFC was assessed both as 3 groups (low, moderate, and high) and as a continuous moderator variable. Results In all, 238 valid responses to the questionnaire were obtained. Individuals with high NFC reported all tested system features with statistically significantly higher scores. The NFC also had some effect on system selection. Hypothesized relationships with perceived credibility gained support in a different way for individuals with low and high NFC; for those with low NFC, credibility increased the persuasiveness of the system, but this effect was absent among individuals with high NFC. For users with high NFC, credibility was related to feedback and self-monitoring and perhaps continuously evaluated during prolonged use instead of being a static system property. Furthermore, the relationship between perceived persuasiveness and self-reported activity after adopting the system had a large effect size (Cohen f2=0.355) for individuals with high NFC, a small effect size for individuals with moderate NFC (Cohen f2=0.107), and a nonsignificant path (P=.16) for those with low NFC. We also detected a moderating effect of NFC in two paths on perceived persuasiveness but only among women. Our research model explained 59.2%, 63.9%, and 47.3% of the variance in perceived persuasiveness of the system among individuals with low, moderate, and high NFC, respectively. Conclusions The system choices of individuals seem to reflect their intrinsic motivations to engage with rich data, and commercial systems might themselves be a tailoring strategy. Important characteristics of the system, such as perceived credibility, have different roles depending on the NFC levels. Our data demonstrate that NFC as a trait that differentiates information processing has several implications for the selection, design, and tailoring of self-monitoring systems.