In this paper, we develop and validate a scale to measure the perceived persuasiveness of messages to be used in digital behavior interventions. A literature review is conducted to inspire the initial scale items. The scale is developed using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the data from a study with 249 ratings of healthy eating messages. The construct validity of the scale is established using ratings of 573 email security messages. Using the data from the two studies, we also show the usefulness of the scale by analyzing the perceived persuasiveness of different message types on the developed scale factors in both the healthy eating and email security domains. The results of our studies also show that the persuasiveness of message types is domain dependent and that when studying the persuasiveness of message types, the finer-grained argumentation schemes need to be considered and not just Cialdini's principles.The reviewer KS declared a past collaboration with one of the authors JM to the handling editor.
This paper describes an investigation into the effectiveness of ArguMessage, a system that uses argumentation schemes and limited user input to semi-automatically generate persuasive messages encouraging behaviour change that follow specific argumentation patterns. We conducted user studies in the domains of healthy eating and email security to investigate its effectiveness. Our results show that ArguMessage in general supported users in generating messages based on the argumentation schemes. However, there were some issues in particular with copying the example messages, and some system improvements need to be made. Participants were generally satisfied with the messages produced, with the exception of those produced by two schemes ('Argument from memory with goal' and 'Argument from values with goal') which were removed after the first study.
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