Managing framing effects in persuasive design for sustainability

Abstract

For decades, the framing effect has been a popular research topic in social psychology. A persuasive system could act in shaping the user behaviour towards sustainability, and thereby play a key role in social change. In this respect, understanding different framing effects in persuasive design is crucial, since individual framing and cognition on sustainability plays a major role in the success of persuasion. For dealing with a complex issue, such as achieving sustainability through behavioural change, persuasive design needs to reflect on the potentials of framing effects. In this paper, we have proposed a model of framing effects from which the principles of managing different framing effects of persuasive sustainability design were formulated. The principles were then shown in relations with different dimensions of sustainability and were also used to generate a design space for persuasive sustainability. The proposed model and principles are significant for realizing the effectiveness of different framing effects for the success of a persuasive sustainability.