Exploring the Persuasiveness of “Just-in-time” Motivational Messages for Obesity Management

1. Exploring the Persuasiveness of “Just-in-time”Motivational Messages for Obesity Management Persuasive 2008, Oulu, Finland. Megha Maheshwari Samir Chatterjee David Drew Claremont Graduate University.

2. Agenda • Introduction • Research Methodology • Results • Discussion • Conclusion

3. Introduction • The healthcare industry in the United States is going through major challenges in terms of financial and human resources. • Aging Baby-boomer population. • Increasing obesity among adults and children. Cover of Economist December 13, 2003

4. Introduction • Prevention is the best care. • Healthy lifestyle by health behavior change: advances in pervasive and persuasive technologies provide promising opportunity. • “just-in-time” motivational messages to help people make right health related decision is an emerging field of research. • It is essential that the “just-in-time” messages are persuasive to the recipients in order to persuade them to take a healthy action. • This study explored persuasiveness of such messages by considering two of the five elements (Source, channel, message, receiver, and destination) of a communication process with a focus on obesity management.

5. Healthy Lifestyle Context-Aware System

6. Introduction - Communication Process • Source Credibility • If a message originates from a source that is an expert and trustworthy, it is likely to influence the recipient • Are messages from an information system credible? • Message • Message language : very important factor • Several ways to add appeal in the content of a message • Explored how different message categories appealed the recipients: • a) messages with negative enforcement, • b) messages asking for activities that require substantial effort, • c) messages asking for simple activities, and • d) messages suggesting equivalent healthy alternatives.

7. Research Methodology • A survey was conducted • Participants: the students at the university • Survey Instrument: a questionnaire • Thirty one messages • Source credibility • Group 1: the participants were asked to assume that they received the messages through their cell phones • Group 2: the participants were asked to assume that they received the messages from health care experts such as a doctor, a nurse and a dietitian • Four message categories

8. Data Analysis • Descriptive statistics – means, stdev • Two-tailed independent samples t-test to measure the source credibility • Comparison of the means to investigate how the response to the message categories differed

9. Results • Ninety nine students took part in the survey. • Scale: 1 to 5 representing very unlikely to very likely respectively. • Males: 57.6% , Female: 42.4% • The two-tailed independent sample t-tests for the thirty one messages • Out of thirty one, seven significant mean differences ( p < 0.05) between the two groups and three marginally significant mean differences ( p close to 0.05) between the two groups. • Comparison of the message categories • Cronbach’s alpha was employed in order to measure the reliability of the categories. • Alphas > 0.80. • Fourteen out of the top fifteen means belonged to the messages that fall in the two categories: • Messages asking for simple activities, and • Messages suggesting equivalent healthy alternatives Result tables available at: http://wfs.cgu.edu/chatters/home/persuasive2008.htm

10. Results Independent Sample T-test: Comparing Source Credibility Response to the Messages Result tables available at: http://wfs.cgu.edu/chatters/home/persuasive2008.htm

11. Discussion • Source Credibility • Only seven out of the thirty-one independent sample t-tests resulted into significant difference in the responses from the two groups. • Overstatement: The participants found the messages received on their cell phones as credible as the ones from a healthcare expert. • Out of the thirty-one messages twenty-nine messages had higher means for experts and two messages had higher means for SMS. • Comparison of Message Categories • Content of “just-in-time” motivational messages should not include negative enforcement and complex activity suggestions. • The users prefer tasks that are simple and does not require substantial effort. Poses a challenge as physical activities often require substantial effort.

12. Conclusion and Limitations • Investigated the persuasiveness of the messages that can be delivered through an interactive media. • The participants did not consider the messages on cell phones as credible as the phone calls from healthcare experts. • The participants preferred the messages asking for simple activities and suggesting equivalent healthy alternatives over the messages that ask the users to take actions requiring significant effort, and the messages that negatively enforce the users to take any actions. • Some limitations of this study: • Assumption: the participants were asked to assume the location and time of the event for responding to the message. • The study sample omitted people with low literacy skills. • The numbers of African Americans and Native Americans were not significant in the study.