Susceptibility to Persuasive Strategies: A Comparative Analysis of Nigerians vs. Canadians

Personalizing persuasive technologies (PTs) is one of the hallmarks of a successful PT intervention. However, there is a lack of understanding of how Africans and North Americans differ or are similar in the susceptibility to persuasive strategies. To bridge this gap, we conducted a cross-cultural study among 284 subjects to investigate the moderating effect of culture on the susceptibility of users to Cialdini's principles of persuasion. Specifically, using Nigeria and Canada as a case study, we investigated how both groups vary in their levels of susceptibility to Authority, Commitment, Consensus, Liking, Reciprocity and Scarcity. The results of our analysis show that Nigerians are more susceptible to Authority and Scarcity than Canadians, while Canadians are more susceptible to Reciprocity, Liking and Consensus than Nigerians. However, both groups do not differ with respect to Commitment (the most persuasive strategy). Finally, we discussed our findings and mapped the most persuasive Cialdini's principles in each group to implementable persuasive strategies in the PT domain.

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