Ethics of e-coaching: Implications of employing pervasive computing to promote healthy and sustainable lifestyles

Many people sincerely believe that it would be good to make lifestyle choices that have a positive effect on their own health, the social viability of their communities, and the longterm quality of the environment. Yet these same people often fail to act in accordance with these intentions. In this paper, we draw attention to the fact that people's failure to maintain healthy and sustainable lifestyles can often be explained in terms of self-regulation failure. We explain that pervasive “e-coaching” technologies have the potential to support individuals in attaining and maintaining healthy and sustainable lifestyles by supporting and strengthening people's self-regulatory capacities. Finally, we discuss six social and ethical concerns that e-coaching technology can raise as a first step towards an open debate about these concerns as well as the regulation issues and design choices related to them.

[1]  B. Kamphorst,et al.  Reducing Procrastination by Scaffolding the Formation of Implementation Intentions , 2012 .

[2]  K. Vohs,et al.  Self-Regulation, Ego Depletion, and Motivation , 2007 .

[3]  John Thøgersen,et al.  Monetary Incentives and Recycling: Behavioural and Psychological Reactions to a Performance-Dependent Garbage Fee , 2003 .

[4]  A. Tversky,et al.  The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. , 1981, Science.

[5]  E. Parens.  Enhancing human traits : ethical and social implications , 1998 .

[6]  A. Clark,et al.  Supersizing The Mind Embodiment Action And Cognitive Extension Andy Clark , 2016 .

[7]  D. Cassady,et al.  The availability and cost of healthier food alternatives. , 2006, American journal of preventive medicine.

[8]  Joshua Caballero,et al.  Cost effectiveness of a computer-delivered intervention to improve HIV medication adherence , 2013, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making.

[9]  Peter M. Gollwitzer,et al.  THE BENEFITS AND COSTS OF IF-THEN PLANNING , 2009 .

[10]  P. Gollwitzer.  Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. , 1999 .

[11]  Sebastian Bamberg,et al.  EFFECTS OF IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS ON THE ACTUAL PERFORMANCE OF NEW ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY BEHAVIOURS — RESULTS OF TWO FIELD EXPERIMENTS , 2002 .

[12]  B. Kamphorst.  The primacy of human autonomy : understanding agent rights through the human rights framework , 2012 .

[13]  Cees J. H. Midden,et al.  Persuasive Appliances: Goal Priming and Behavioral Response to Product-Integrated Energy Feedback , 2006, International Conference on Persuasive Technology.

[14]  W. Laney.  Sharing the responsibility. , 1996, The International journal of oral & maxillofacial implants.

[15]  Manfred Tscheligi,et al.  Cues in the environment: a design principle for ambient intelligence , 2006, CHI EA '06.

[16]  A. Lymberis,et al.  Smart wearable systems for personalised health management: current R&D and future challenges , 2003, Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37439).

[17]  P. Sheeran,et al.  Implementation intentions and repeated behaviour: augmenting the predictive validity of the theory of planned behaviour , 1999 .

[18]  Michel C. A. Klein,et al.  An Intelligent Coaching System for Therapy Adherence , 2013, IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[19]  Chrisoula Andreou,et al.  Environmental Preservation and Second‐Order Procrastination , 2007 .

[20]  Mario Schootman,et al.  The Role of Race and Poverty in Access to Foods That Enable Individuals to Adhere to Dietary Guidelines , 2006, Preventing chronic disease.

[21]  K. Vohs,et al.  The Strength Model of Self-Control , 2007, Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine.

[22]  W. Nilsen,et al.  Health behavior models in the age of mobile interventions: are our theories up to the task? , 2011, Translational behavioral medicine.

[23]  J. H. Anderson,et al.  Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays , 2009 .

[24]  Daniel Thalmann,et al.  Autonomy , 2005, SIGGRAPH Courses.

[25]  P. Gollwitzer.  Goal Achievement: The Role of Intentions , 1993 .

[26]  Boris E. R. de Ruyter,et al.  Persuasion in ambient intelligence , 2010, J. Ambient Intell. Humaniz. Comput..

[27]  Jaap Ham,et al.  Trust in Smart Systems , 2012, Hum. Factors.

[28]  B. J. Fogg,et al.  Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do , 2002, UBIQ.

[29]  A. A. Adams,et al.  The ethical challenges of ubiquitous healthcare , 2007 .

[30]  Erin P. Hennes,et al.  When planning is not enough : Fighting unhealthy snacking habits by mental contrasting with implementation intentions ( MCII ) , 2010 .

[31]  Bart Kamphorst,et al.  Why option generation matters for the design of autonomous e-coaching systems , 2014, AI & SOCIETY.

[32]  M. Hume.  Compassion without action: Examining the young consumers consumption and attitude to sustainable consumption , 2010 .

[33]  M. Perugini,et al.  Can implementation intentions and text messages promote brisk walking? A randomized trial. , 2010, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association.

[34]  Henk Aarts,et al.  Breaking and creating habits on the working floor : A field- experiment on the power of implementation intentions , 2006 .

[35]  Chris Arney.  Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness , 2015 .

[36]  A. Honneth,et al.  Autonomy, Vulnerability, Recognition, and Justice , 2005 .

[37]  Ross E. G. Upshur,et al.  Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream , 2003, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[38]  Luigi Martirano.  A smart lighting control to save energy , 2011, Proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems.

[39]  A. Bandura.  Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy.

[40]  Michael Rohs,et al.  Social, Economic, and Ethical Implications of Ambient Intelligence and Ubiquitous Computing , 2005, Ambient Intelligence.

[41]  Jrc Jaap Ham,et al.  Making it not too obvious: the effect of ambient light feedback on space heating energy consumption , 2011 .