BJ Fogg

Stanford University | SU · Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR)

Background: Few weight loss interventions are evaluated for longer than a year, and even fewer employ social and mobile technologies commonly used among young adults. We assessed the efficacy of a 2 year, theory-based, weight loss intervention that was remotely and adaptively delivered via integrated user experiences with Facebook, mobile apps, te...

Advances in information technology and near ubiquity of the Internet have spawned novel modes of communication and unprecedented insights into human behavior via the digital footprint. Health behavior randomized controlled trials (RCTs), especially technology-based, can leverage these advances to improve the overall clinical trials management proce...

To describe the theoretical rationale, intervention design, and clinical trial of a two-year weight control intervention for young adults deployed via social and mobile media. A total of 404 overweight or obese college students from three Southern California universities (Mage=22(+4) years; MBMI=29(+2.8); 70% female) were randomized to participate...

A system which includes a cell phone or other mobile device which uses RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation) to present text information. The mobile device software receives the textual material to be displayed in a mark-up language, preferably XML. The markup language is used to provide information about the actual content being displayed to ind...

We examine the role of self-shaping and commitment devices in persuasive systems. Self-shaping refers to the practice of taking purposeful action in modifying one's environment in order to shape or influence one's own future behavior. We present results from a survey of 23 users that assessed the role self-shaping plays in their use of persuasive t...

This chapter describes the role of computing products as persuasive social actors. These products persuade by giving a variety of social cues that elicit social responses from their human users. The chapter proposes five primary types of social cues cause people to make inferences about social presence in a computing product—physical, psychological...

We present a method for matching target behaviors with solutions for achieving those behaviors. Called the Behavior Wizard, this method first classifies behavior change targets into one of 15 types. Later stages focus on triggers for the target behaviors and on relevant theories and techniques. This new approach to persuasive design, as well as the...

This paper reports on a direct test of social responses to communication technologies theory (SRCT) with mobile messaging. SRCT predicts that people will mindlessly respond to computers in social ways that mirror their responses to humans. A field experiment (N=71) using participants' own mobile phones compared three influence strategies (direct re...

Most people use text messaging to stay in touch with friends. But the options for texting go beyond individual communication. In this paper we present 10 ways for texting to improve health behavior. Our hope is that health professionals can see new ways that texting can help achieve their health care goals.

This paper presents a new model for understanding human behavior. In this model (FBM), behavior is a product of three factors: motivation, ability, and triggers, each of which has subcomponents. The FBM asserts that for a person to perform a target behavior, he or she must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) have the ability to perform the behavior,...

This paper presents a new way of categorizing behavior change in a framework called the Behavior Grid. This preliminary work shows 35 types of behavior along two categorical dimensions. To demonstrate the analytical potential for the Behavior Grid, this paper maps behavior goals from Facebook onto the framework, revealing potential patterns of inte...

This paper outlines eight steps to follow as best practices in the early stages of persuasive technology design. The eight-step process, drawn from demonstrated successes in industry practice, begins with defining the persuasion goal to match a target audience with an appropriate technology channel. Subsequent steps include imitating successful exa...

I will share three possible paths that persuasive technologies might take in the coming years: MixMasters, Swishers, and MegaMonkeys. These speculative futures may help us reevaluate our methods for research and design. Even if my three scenarios never happen, what seems certain is that our current practices, in both industry and academics, will in...

In this case study, we describe the design and execution of a video marketing campaign on Facebook. We present concrete recommendations for effective video persuasion design, focusing on a new kind of video player presentation, as well as one specific environment in which video content can be placed, seeded, and distributed. We present a number of...

In 2007 a new form of persuasion emerged: mass interpersonal persuasion (MIP). The advances in online social networks now allow individuals to change attitudes and behaviors on a mass scale. MIP has six components: persuasive experience, automated structure, social distribution, rapid cycle, huge social graph, and measured impact. Before the launch...

Social networking sites persuade millions of users each day to adopt specific behaviors. To understand this phenomenon in the context of persuasive technology, we analyzed how persuasion takes place in leading social networking sites from two different countries: Facebook in the U.S. and Mixi in Japan. We compared the two services on four persuasio...

Social psychology research has shown that persuasion happens in predictable ways. To identify patterns of persuasion in online social networks, we studied Facebook as a persuasive technology. Using a Grounded Theory approach, we found and named six persuasion patterns. Four patterns that led to large-scale viral adoption—Provoke and Retaliate, Reve...

The success of many online services today depends on the company’s ability to persuade users to take specific actions, such as registering or inviting friends. We examined over 50 popular Web services of this kind to understand the influence processes and strategies used. We found that successful online services share a pattern of target behaviors...

Persuasive technology is the general class of technologies that purposefully apply psychological principles of persuasion – principles of credibility, trust, reciprocity, authority and the like – in interactive media, in the service of changing their users’ attitudes and behavior. Only one year ago, in 2006, the first international conference in th...

This pilot investigation used portable electronic diaries to assess the physical activity and other health behaviors of 20 adults age 50+ (mean age = 61 years). Study aims were to examine whether computerized cognitive-behavioral strategies could increase adherence to the assessments, the acceptability of electronic diaries to assess everyday healt...

For thousands of years humans have used about 60 persuasion strategies to influence others. Six of these strategies are especially powerful when designed into computing products—from websites to mobile phones applications. We gain insights into the potentials and pitfalls of persuasive technology through examples of the six persuasion strategies i...

This chapter proposes three categories of simulation that are relevant to persuasive technologies—simulated cause-and-effect scenarios, simulated environments, and simulated objects. Simulations can persuade people to change their attitudes or behaviors by enabling them to observe immediately the link between cause and effect. Environment simulatio...

This chapter provides an overview of Captology, which is the study of computers as persuasive technology. Captology focuses on human-computer interaction (HCI), not on computer-mediated communication (CMC). Specifically, captology investigates how people are motivated or persuaded when interacting with computing products rather than through them. C...

This chapter focuses on Web credibility—credibility is a key factor in a Web site's ability to persuade. Without credibility, sites are not likely to persuade users to change their attitudes or behaviors—to embrace the site's cause, register personal information, make purchases, click on ads, complete surveys, or bookmark the site for return visits...

This chapter discusses the five trends that outline the next stages of captology. Persuasive technology systems will become numerous and eventually becoming part of everyday lives, at home and at work. Computer-based influence strategies will not only appear in typical desktop and Web applications, but they will be designed into everyday consumer p...

Four years of research has led to a theory that describes how people assess the credibility of Web sites. This theory proposes that users notice and interpret various Web site elements to arrive at an overall credibility assessment. Although preliminary, this theory explains previous research results and suggests directions for future studies.

In this study 2,684 people evaluated the credibility of two live Web sites on a similar topic (such as health sites). We gathered the comments people wrote about each siteís credibility and analyzed the comments to find out what features of a Web site get noticed when people evaluate credibility. We found that the ìdesign lookî of the site was ment...

Four years of research has led to a theory that describes how people assess the credibility of Web sites. This theory proposes that users notice and interpret various Web site elements to arrive at an overall credibility assessment. Although preliminary, this theory explains previous research results and suggests directions for future studies.

This chapter deals with the ethics of persuasive technology. Ethical issues are especially prominent when computer technology uses novelty as a distraction to increase persuasion. When dealing with a novel experience, people not only lack expertise but they are distracted by the experience, which impedes their ability to focus on the content presen...

Can computers change what you think and do? Can they motivate you to stop smoking, persuade you to buy insurance, or convince you to join the Army? "Yes, they can," says Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase "Captology"(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capt...

Designing interactive computer systems to be efficient and easy to use is important so that people in our society may realize the potential benefits of computer-based tools .... Although modern cognitive psychology contains a wealth of knowledge of human ...

The credibility of web sites is becoming an increasingly important area to understand. To expand knowledge in this domain, we conducted an online study that investigated how different elements of Web sites affect people's perception of credibility. Over 1400 people participated in this study, both from the U.S. and Europe, evaluating 51 different W...

Through iterative design and testing, we developed a procedure for conducting online experiments. Using this research method, we conducted two recent studies on Web credibility. The data from the first study suggest that Web banner ads reduce the perceived credibility of a Web page's content. The data from t he second study show that attribution el...

Through iterative design and testing, we developed a procedure for conducting online experiments. Using this research method, we conducted two recent studies on Web credibility. The data from the first study suggest that Web banner ads reduce the perceived credibility of a Web page's content. The data from the second study show that attribution ele...

CommuterNews is a prototype of an in-car persuasive entertainment system developed by the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab in collaboration with DaimlerChrysler. The system presents daily news stories in the form of multiple-choice questions and short relevant sound clips selected from a standard broadcast story. By asking questions about the con...

We conducted an online survey about Web credibility, which included over 1400 participants. People reported that Web site credibility increases when the site conveys a real-world presence, is easy to use, and is updated often. People reported that a Web site loses credibility when it has errors, technical problems, or distracting advertisements. Ou...

We conducted an online survey about Web credibility, which included over 1400 participants. People reported that Web site credibility increases when the site conveys a real-world presence, is easy to use, and is updated often. People reported that a Web site loses credibility when it has errors, technical problems, or distracting advertisements. Ou...

CommuterNews is a prototype of an in-car persuasive entertainment system developed by the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab in collaboration with DaimlerChrysler. The system presents daily news stories in the form of multiple-choice questions and short relevant sound clips selected from a standard broadcast story. By asking questions about the con...

The article focuses on the fact that like many aspects of people's lives computers seem to be facing a credibility crisis. For most of the computing's brief history, people have held computers in high regard. A quick review of the popular culture from the past few decades reflects people's general confidence in computing systems. In cinema and lite...

An abstract is not available.

The study reported in this paper explores the validity of the hypothesis that Human-Computer interaction displays the same dynamics as HumanHuman interaction. The study also addresses the issue of universality and cultural dependency of social responses in Human-Computer interactions. A series of psychological experiments are conducted both with Am...

. Human-Computer interaction may be correlated with social interaction and cultural norms. We examined how Japanese and American people respond to a computer as a social entity and how cultural differences between Japanese and American behavioral norms in reciprocal social interaction play a role in this response. Reciprocity is the most powerful a...

Given the importance of credibility in computing products, the research on computer credibility is relatively small. To enhance knowledge about computers and credibility, we define key terms relating to computer credibility, synthesize the literature in this domain, and propose three new conceptual frameworks for better understanding the elements o...

Interactive plush toys, such as ActiMates Barney, raise new ethical concerns that we as HCI professionals need to address and understand. This panel is designed to bring those concerns to the forefront and allow panelists and audience members to debate key issues. The panel includes people with expertise in creating interactive plush toys, creating...

Interactive plush toys, such as ActiMates Barney, raise new ethical concerns that we as HCI professionals need to address and understand. This panel is designed to bring those concerns to the forefront and allow panelists and audience members to debate key issues. The panel includes people with expertise in creating interactive plush toys, creating...

The study of computers as persuasive technologies (called "captology") was introduced at CHI 97 as a new area of inquiry. This paper proposes definitions, perspectives, and research directions for further investigation of this field A persuasive computer is an interactive technology that attempts to change attitudes or behaviors in some way. Perspe...

The paper describes how we designed and prototyped HandJive, a haptic device for interpersonal entertainment. Handlive is notable because it relies entirely on haptic input and output. The design process included typical steps such as analyzing user needs and performing iterative prototyping 2nd testing. However, developing a haptic interface like...

A laboratory experiment examines the claims that (1) humans are susceptible to flattery from computers and (2) the effects of flattery from computers are the same as the effects of flattery from humans. In a cooperative task with a computer, subjects (N=41) received one of three types of feedback from a computer: “sincere praise”, “flattery” (insin...

"Captology" is a newly coined word that describes the study of Computers As Persuasive Technologies (see Figure 1).

We conducted an experiment to investigate if computers could motivate users to change their behavior. By leveraging a social dynamic called the "rule of reciprocity," this experiment demonstrated that users provided more helping behavior to a computer that had helped them previously than to a different computer. Users also worked longer, performed...

This study investigated the claim that humans will readily form team relationships with computers. Drawing from the group dynamic literature in human-human interactions, a laboratory experiment (n=56) manipulated identity and interdependence to create team affiliation in a human-computer interaction. The data show that subjects who are told they ar...

The claim that computer personalities can be human personalities was tested by demonstrating that (1) computer personalities can be easily created using a minimal set of cues, and (2) that people will respond to these personalities in the same way they would respond to similar human personalities. The present study focused on the "similarity-attrac...

The present study demonstrates that (1) computer personalities can be easily created using a minimal set of cues, and (2) that people will respond to these personalities in the same way they would respond to similar human personalities. The present study focuses on the “simikirityattraction hypothesis,” which predicts that people will prefer to int...

Social responses to communication technologies theory (SRCT) says that people tend to treat computers as social actors by applying social rules. Little work has evaluated SRCT in ubiquitous computing. This work tests SRCT for the first time in the context of self-disclosure via messaging on mobile phones. A field experiment (n=71) compared three in...

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-105).