How Does Technology Persuade?: Theoretical Mechanisms for Persuasive Technologies

How Does Interactivity Persuade? An Experimental Test of Interactivity on Cognitive Absorption, Elaboration, and Attitudes

“…Similar tools, like zoom function and 3‐D carousel, which serve to make static images appear more vivid and dynamic, are likely to be similarly persuasive. As Sundar et al () note, constructing alternative realities by providing enhanced vividness of content can persuade users. The vivid rendition of images on a slider depicting over‐time deterioration of one's face, lungs, and brain in this study served to increase the “representational richness” of the portrayal of the long‐term effects of smoking on one's health and enhance its realism, affording a better imagination of the consequences of smoking.…”

“…Interactive media have introduced yet another factor: interactivity. There is a growing realization that the persuasive effects of messages may be conditioned by how users interact with media (Sundar, Oh, Kang, & Sreenivasan, ), but the literature does not provide a coherent understanding of the role played by interactivity in the persuasion process.…”

A Three-Decade Retrospective on the Hostile Media Effect

“…The Internet and social media differ from conventional media in their interactivity, helping to transform formerly-passive receivers of political information into full-fledged political Facebook posters, empowered sources of persuasive messages, and sometimes raging digital partisans (e.g., Sundar, Oh, Kang, & Sreenivasan, 2013). On the one hand, the experience of technology and the "gee whiz" aura of digital devices (Casetti & Sampietro, 2012) suggests that contemporary media will continue to invite receivers to focus outward on effects on others, a focus that encourages the invocation of media effects schemas, persuasive press inferences, and presumed media influence.…”

Virtual prognostication: When virtual alcohol choices predict change in alcohol consumption over 6-months

“…A third implicit assumption is that during the virtual behavior itself, the client’s/participant’s behavior is changing, and therefore the virtual behavior itself is potentially diagnostic of future behavior change. Indeed, rapid advancements in using virtual agents to communicate with and to guide behavioral changes suggest that interactivity is not just a special feature on the media interface (Sundar et al, 2013): It may mean much more. Game-based interventions that utilize interactive narratives that are similar to real-life behavioral risk cues and challenges (Miller et al, 2018), and then contextualize virtual interventions within those risk contexts, can take advantage of virtual game characters to access participants’ virtual reactions to those virtual contextualized interventions.…”

“…Extending theories of learning (Vygotsky, 1987) and interactivity (Green & Jenkins, 2014; Sundar et al, 2013), this study evaluates the possibility of using virtual interactions as prognostic tools to predict real-life behavior changes in an intervention. We assessed the virtual interactions involving alcohol or water consumption during virtual dating scenarios within SOLVE (Socially Optimized Learning in Virtual Environments, Miller et al, 2017; Christensen et al, 2013), a 3D interactive game-based intervention that was designed for reducing risky behaviors (e.g., sexual, alcohol-use) among younger men who has sex with men (YMSM).…”