Personalized and Trusted Behaviour Change Technologies

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed research will advance the state of the art in the area of computer systems supporting people to change their behaviour for their own benefit and for the benefit of the community. It will develop novel personalized persuasive technologies and incentive mechanisms that are trusted by users and that involve not just them, but their social circles (friends, neighbours, family members) in supporting them to achieve their behaviour change goals. I will explore effective motivational mechanisms empirically (through user studies and observations), theoretically (by designing trust and incentive mechanisms and evaluating them through theoretical analysis and simulations) and in practice (by designing and evaluating motivational mechanisms in real systems). I will use as a starting point selected theories of motivation and cognitive bias from social psychology to guide the design of persuasive strategies and incentive mechanisms that motivate users to engage in beneficial behaviours. The application areas include online shopping, self-improvement (learning), living a healthy lifestyle, practicing safe behaviours at work and leisure, and increasing the positive social connections of isolated (elderly or impaired) individuals.