"Crossing Contexts: How Persuasive Systems Promote Green Behaviors at Work, Home and in the Community"

Environmental problems are recognized to be direct and indirect consequences of human behaviors. Thus, persuading people to engage in environmentally responsible behaviors is an important strategy for mitigating ongoing environmental deterioration and adapting to new climatic realities. A variety of public organizations and private enterprises undertake such initiatives, using persuasive information systems targeting their citizens, customers, or employees within specific contexts. In this paper, we build on the perspective of persuasive system design, integrating the concept of spill-over effects and boundary theory to develop a model for explaining and predicting how persuasive systems can be most effective at promoting environmentally responsible behaviors across individuals’ multiple domains at home, at work and in the community. Specifically, when there is high perceived persuasiveness, high integration support, low complexity changes targeted by the system, and the individual user’s boundary strengt...