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Hidden power of affective products and environments
Abstract
Background:
Designs that evoke fun and surprise have been successful in driving uncommon positive behavior. Affective design (AD) is based on the premise that products and services can elicit strong affective responses that can be harnessed for specific purposes such as increasing consumption.
Objective:
This paper aims to discuss the theoretical foundations and applications of AD to address contemporary consumption, recycling, and healthcare issues.
Methods:
Current applications of AD to address environmental and health issues were analyzed in terms of effectiveness in changing user behavior. Relevant concepts were used to provide future research directions in this field.
Results:
Early applications of AD focused on designing products to increase customer satisfaction and stimulate consumption. The method, however, is auspicious in solving relevant societal and global problems. To pave the way for successful integration of AD, one research direction is the need to identify the right emotion to elicit in a certain context. There is a dearth of literature to promote sustainable consumption, such as using less energy, minimizing carbon footprint, or just taking care of the environment using AD.
Conclusion:
The integration of AD is a strategy that can be used to prompt behavior beneficial to society and the environment. Literature on AD suggests that a deliberate effort to manipulate design factors can work to elicit strong affective responses.
... Two insightful papers are presented by keynote authors: one focusing on the hidden power of affective products and environments [4] and the other reflecting on the machine as a partner to humans [5]. ...
Background:
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may cause significant anxiety among healthcare professionals (HCPs). COVID-19-related psychological impacts on HCPs in Western countries have received relatively little attention.
Objective:
This study aims to assess the levels of anxiety in HCPs working in the province of Quebec (Canada) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and identify factors associated with changes in anxiety scores.
Methods:
An exploratory online cross-sectional survey was conducted among Quebec HCPs from April to July 2020. The Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to measure state anxiety among HCPs. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were performed.
Results:
A total of 426 HCPs completed the survey. Anxiety scores ranged from 20 to 75 points, with 80 being the highest possible value on the STAI scale. Being a female HCP [B = 5.89, 95%confidence interval (CI): 2.49-9.3] and declaring having the intention to avoid caring for patients with COVID-19 (B = 3.75, 95%CI: 1.29-6.22) were associated with increased anxiety scores. Having more years of experience was associated with decreased anxiety scores [B = -0.2, 95%CI: -0.32-(-0.08)].
Conclusion:
Organizational strategies aimed at preventing and relieving anxiety should target junior female HCPs who express the intention to avoid caring for patients with COVID-19. Seniority could become an important criterion in selecting frontline HCPs during pandemics. Further studies are needed to comprehensively examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian HCPs and identify evidence-based coping strategies.
Trust is an important aspect for policy makers in recommending the implementation of Industry 4.0 in food and beverage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs’ trust in the implementation of Industry 4.0 is defined as the level of belief in applying appropriate technology for Industry 4.0 based on their knowledge, familiarity, agreement and preference. Trust is a complex construct involving several Kansei words, or human mentality parameters. Artificial neural network modeling was utilized to model SMEs’ trust in implementation of Industry 4.0. The research objectives were: 1) to analyze the trust of SMEs in the implementation of Industry 4.0 using Kansei Engineering; 2) to model the trust of SMEs in the implementation of Industry 4.0 using an artificial neural network (ANN). A questionnaire was developed using Kansei words that were generated from adjectives to represent human mentality parameters, which were stimulated by visual samples of Industry 4.0 technology. The questionnaires were distributed among 190 respondents from the three large islands of Indonesia. The data were recapitulated for training, validating and testing the ANN model based on the backpropagation supervised learning method. The output was classification of trust as ‘distrust’, ‘trust’ or ‘overtrust’. The research results indicated that the SMEs’ trust was influenced by education, knowledge, familiarity, benefit, preference ranking and verbal components.
Office-based workplaces are an important but understudied context for infectious disease transmission. We examined the feasibility of two different sensors (Opos and Bluetooth beacons) for collecting person-to-person contacts and hand hygiene in office-based workplaces. Opo is an interaction sensor that captures sensor-to-sensor interactions through ultrasonic frequencies, which correspond to face-to-face contacts between study participants. Opos were additionally used to measure hand hygiene events by affixing sensors to soap and alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispensers. Bluetooth beacons were used in conjunction with a smartphone application and recorded proximity contacts between study participants. Participants in two office sites were followed for one-week in their workplace in March 2018. Contact patterns varied by time of day and day of the week. Face-to-face contacts were of shorter mean duration than proximity contacts. Supervisors had fewer proximity contacts but more face-to-face contacts than non-supervisors. Self-reported hand hygiene was substantively higher than sensor-collected hand hygiene events and duration of hand washing events was short (median: 9 seconds, range: 2.5–33 seconds). Given that office settings are key environments in which working age populations spend a large proportion of their time and interactions, a better characterization of empirical social networks and hand hygiene behaviors for workplace interactions are needed to mitigate outbreaks and prepare for pandemics. Our study demonstrates that implementing sensor technologies for tracking interactions and behaviors in offices is feasible and can provide new insights into real-world social networks and hygiene practices. We identified key social interactions, variability in hand hygiene, and differences in interactions by workplace roles. High-resolution network data will be essential for identifying the most effective ways to mitigate infectious disease transmission and develop pandemic preparedness plans for the workplace setting.
The aim of this paper is to explore the generation of consumers' responses to sustainability design strategies by considering the principles of affective design. A conceptual model of consumers' response, in which a distinction is made between subjective impressions and behavioral responses, is defined and validated by conducting an experiment. Six wardrobes, representing sustainability design strategies (refurbishment, adaptability, durability, personalization, maintenance and flexibility) were selected. Eighty-seven participants assessed 14 impressions of the wardrobes including long-life, functional, aesthetic, emotional and environmental aspects as well as behavioral responses (product attachment and willingness to keep). Long-life impressions are more related to willingness to keep, while aesthetic ones are more closely linked to attachment. Practical and emotional impressions are associated with both behavioral responses. Design strategies and personal concerns have an influence on consumer response. These results are expected to help managers and designers promote a sustainable behavior by selecting the most suitable design strategies.
Rationale
Maintaining social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic can save lives. We therefore set out to test communication strategies to promote social distancing.
Objective
We aimed to test two novel public health messages against a control message. The first was designed to exploit the “identifiable victim” effect by highlighting the risk of transmission to identifiable vulnerable persons. The second sought to counteract intuitive underestimation of exponential transmission.
Method
In total, 500 Irish adults undertook a pre-registered, online experiment. They were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two treatment groups. The control group viewed a current poster that encouraged a 2-m separation between people. The two treatment groups saw posters of similar design, but with narrative messages describing how an individual had infected a specific vulnerable person or multiple other people. Later questions measured intentions to undertake three specific types of social interaction over the coming days and the stated acceptability of three other types of social interaction. Pilot work had identified these six behaviors as “marginal” – people were unsure whether they were advisable.
Results
Participants in the treatment conditions were more cautious about undertaking the behaviors and less accepting of them. This positive effect occurred despite participants rating the treatment posters as likely to be less effective and memorable than the control poster.
Conclusions
Messages that invoke thoughts of infecting vulnerable people or large numbers of people can motivate social distancing and, hence, help to limit the spread of COVID-19. Stated public evaluations (obtained via focus groups or surveys) may underestimate the actual effectiveness of such emotional messages.
Consumers tend to prefer brands whose image is congruent with their actual or their ideal self. Despite the critical importance of self-brand congruence, the literature currently exclusively relies on self-reported self-brand congruence, and lacks a measure that sheds light on its determinants. In the current research we propose and test a new determinant of self-brand congruence: brand affective congruence (BAC). BAC is based on how people intuitively assess affective meaning of different cultural concepts on the three dimensions of evaluation, potency and activity. Using an empirical study, we find that BAC is an effective determinant of self-brand congruence and has positive downstream effects on brand-self connection, brand trust, purchase intentions, and willingness to pay a higher price.
Introduction:
Health education is a process of acquiring knowledge and skills in order to improve the health of the individual and the community. It is considered the most effective, most economical and most rational aspect of health care and health culture.
Aim:
To provide data on the effectiveness of printed health-educational materials.
Methods:
This is a quantitative, applied, descriptive-analytical study. According to the type of research, it presents a public health evaluation manipulative study with triple testing. The research was conducted in elementary schools in the Zenica-Doboj Canton. The total number of students participating in the research is divided into groups: examined, control group. The research consisted of four phases. The research tool is a modified questionnaire The Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) with 38 questions, 8 modules.
Results:
The total number of respondents was 120. The method of distribution of health-educational posters shows a lower but still present statistical significance (p<0.05) in relation to the acquired knowledge and a change in attitudes between the conducted surveys at different time points. There is no statistically significant change (p>0.05) in the level of knowledge and attitudes using leaflets between conducted surveys at three different times. In the control group without education, there was a low statistical significance (p<0.05) in terms of changing the level of knowledge and attitudes.
Conclusion:
The distribution of health-educational posters is recommended in situations where it is necessary to reach a wide audience for a long period of time, if the site of the poster is protected. According to this study, there is no evidence that the leaflet distribution method should be used when it comes to the promotion of healthy lifestyles among healthy children. Alternative methods and ways of health education need to be identified.
Background:
Most research on hand hygiene compliance in community settings indicates that compliance is poor. It is not conclusive as to whether poster interventions are effective at improving compliance.
Methods:
An independent, self-designed poster intervention was installed in one set of male and female public restrooms in a university campus in the UK. The hand hygiene practice and compliance of the university population was measured via indirect observation over a 60 day period.
Results:
During the pre-intervention observation period, 51.09% of the university population practiced basic hand hygiene compliance (washed hands with water, soap and dried afterwards), and 7.88% practiced adequate hand hygiene compliance (washed hands with water and soap for 20 s or more and dried afterwards for 20 s or more). During the post-intervention observation period, 55.39% of the university population were observed practicing basic hand hygiene compliance, and 7.97% practicing adequate hand hygiene compliance. Gender differences revealed that more females practiced basic hand hygiene in the post-intervention observation period (62.81%) than during the pre-intervention period (49.23%) and this was statistically significant (χ2 = 13.49, p = < 0.01).
Discussion:
The poster intervention had a limited effect on improving the basic and adequate hand hygiene compliance of the general population when using public restrooms. The use of independent, self-designed posters to improve hand hygiene practice and compliance is largely ineffective in the short term and should be used with caution in future intervention strategies.
How can we develop products that consumers want to use for longer? The lifetime of electrical products is an ongoing concern in discussions about the circular economy. It is an issue that begins at an industry level, but that directly influences the way in which consumers use and discard products. Through a series of workshops and knowledge exchange sessions with Philips Lighting, this paper identifies which design factors influence a consumer’s tendency to retain their products for longer. These were distilled into a guiding framework for new product developers—The Emotional Durability Design Nine—consisting of nine themes: relationships, narratives, identity, imagination, conversations, consciousness, integrity, materiality, and evolvability. These nine themes are complemented by 38 strategies that help in the development of more emotionally engaging product experiences. We propose that the framework can be applied at multiple points during the new product development process to increase the likelihood that ‘emotion building’ features are integrated into an end product.
Construction waste management and recycling is widely discussed. However, at present there is still a significant amount of waste generated during the construction process. Considering this fact, this research aims to analyse the recycling attitudes and behaviours in the Australian construction industry. This paper investigates attitudes and behaviour towards recycling habits in construction; understands how recycling is viewed and carried out by practitioners in the industry; explains the causes of these states of mind; and formulates techniques that could be utilized to improve waste management and recycling acceptance within the industry and improve its effectiveness. Initially, the required data was collected through a questionnaire survey. Afterwards, a statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS software. It was found that the practitioners’ attitude towards recycling habits are positive; however, their behaviour is not as strong as it should be. This means that the industry is aware and concerned about recycling in construction and willing to improve the environment by developing recycling habits. Recommendations to improve attitudes and behaviour towards recycling habits are also suggested, such as legislation and market driven developments, improvements of waste management methods, provisions in work method statements, sharing research and applications in sub-industries and developing communication.
This study focused on determining the barriers to effective municipal solid waste
management (MSWM) in a rapidly urbanizing area in Thailand. The Tha Khon Yang Subdistrict
Municipality is a representative example of many local governments in Thailand that have been
facing MSWM issues. In-depth interviews with individuals and focus groups were conducted with
key informants including the municipality staff, residents, and external organizations. The major
influences affecting waste management were categorized into six areas: social-cultural, technical,
financial, organizational, and legal-political barriers and population growth. SWOT analysis shows
both internal and external factors are playing a role in MSWM: There is good policy and a reasonably
sufficient budget. However, there is insufficient infrastructure, weak strategic planning, registration,
staff capacity, information systems, engagement with programs; and unorganized waste
management and fee collection systems. The location of flood prone areas has impacted on location
and operation of landfill sites. There is also poor communication between the municipality and
residents and a lack of participation in waste separation programs. However, external support from
government and the nearby university could provide opportunities to improve the situation. These
findings will help inform municipal decision makers, leading to better municipal solid waste
management in newly urbanized areas.
Positive health behaviours such as physical activity can prevent or reverse many chronic conditions, yet a majority of people fall short of leading a healthy lifestyle. Recent discoveries in affective science point to promising approaches to circumvent barriers to lifestyle change. Here, we present a new theoretical framework that integrates scientific knowledge about positive affect with that on implicit processes. The upward spiral theory of lifestyle change explains how positive affect can facilitate long-term adherence to positive health behaviours. The inner loop of this spiral model identifies nonconscious motives as a central mechanism of behavioural maintenance. Positive affect experienced during health behaviours increases incentive salience for cues associated with those behaviours, which in turn, implicitly guides attention and the everyday decisions to repeat those behaviours. The outer loop represents the evidence-backed claim, based on Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory, that positive affect builds a suite of endogenous resources, which may in turn amplify the positive affect experienced during positive health behaviours and strengthen the nonconscious motives. We offer published and preliminary evidence in favour of the theory, contrast it to other dominant theories of health behaviour change, and highlight attendant implications for interventions that merit testing.
Objective:
Here, we develop an integrative account of the roles of emotion in decision-making. In Part I, we illustrate how emotional inputs into decisions may rely on physiological signals from emotions experienced while making the decision, and we review evidence suggesting that the failure to represent the emotional meaning of options can often reduce decision quality. We propose that health-related decrements in the ability to generate emotional reactions lead people to inaccurately represent emotional responses and compromise decisions, particularly about risk. Part II explores complex decisions in which choice options involve trade-offs between positive and negative attributes. We first review evidence showing that difficult trade-off decisions generate negative affect and physiological arousal. Next, we propose that medical decision-making will be linked to short- and long-term stress and health outcomes.
Conclusion:
In sum, this article proposes and reviews initial evidence supporting the effective use and management of emotional inputs as important to both clinical and non-clinical populations. Our approach will contribute to the understanding of patient-centred emotional decision-making and will inform medical decision aids.
In recent years, there has been a rise in environmental consciousness and community awareness of waste disposal issues. However, discrepancies remain between people's attitude and their behavior regarding waste disposal and recycling; commonly known as the "attitude behavior gap". This study was designed to aid in bridging this gap by exploring how signage, incorporating psychological principles and effective sign design, can encourage people to correctly dispose of their unwanted materials. The utilization of festivals, mass gatherings and events as spaces to test the impact of pro-environmental messaging on behavior is an emerging field of research. This study investigated the role of signage in aiding attendees of the world music festival WOMADelaide to correctly dispose of their unwanted materials. To complement and support the three-bin system utilized by the waste contractors for the event, four signs were developed and tested in the catering area. These signs included a baseline sign, as well as three motivational signs containing graphics and messages, based on different theoretical positions or psychological principles. The results gained from analyzing the concealed camera footage indicated that the bins under the three motivational signs elicited a greater number of deposits. However, the waste was no better sorted than those located under the baseline sign. The findings of this study support previous research into the "attitude behavior gap" and highlight areas for future research into signage in a festival setting.
Affective design and the determination of engineering specifications are commonly conducted separately in early product design stage. Generally, designers and engineers are required to determine the settings of design attributes (for affective design) and engineering requirements (for engineering design), respectively, for new products. Some design attributes and some engineering requirements could be common. However, the settings of the design attributes and engineering requirements could be different because of the separation of the two processes. In previous studies, a methodology that considers the determination of the settings of the design attributes and engineering requirements simultaneously was not found. To bridge this gap, a methodology for considering affective design and the determination of engineering specifications of a new product simultaneously is proposed. The proposed methodology mainly involves generation of customer satisfaction models, formulation of a multi-objective optimisation model and its solving using a chaos-based NSGA-II. To illustrate and validate the proposed methodology, a case study of mobile phone design was conducted. A validation test was conducted and the test results showed that the customer satisfaction values obtained based on the proposed methodology were higher than those obtained based on the combined standalone quality function deployment and standalone affective design approach.
The study of user emotions is hindered by the absence of a clear overview of what positive emotions can be experienced in human-product interactions. Existing typologies are either too concise or too comprehensive, including less than five or hundreds of positive emotions, respectively. To overcome this hindrance, this paper introduces a basic set of 25 positive emotion types that represent the general repertoire of positive human emotions. The set was developed with a componential analysis of 150 positive emotion words. A questionnaire study that explored how and when each of the 25 emotions are experienced in human-product interactions resulted in a collection of 729 example cases. On the basis of these cases, six main sources of positive emotions in human-product interactions are proposed. By providing a fine-grained yet concise vocabulary of positive emotions that people can experience in response to product design, the typology aims to facilitate both research and design activities. The implications and limitations of the set are discussed, and some future research steps are proposed.
Fear appeals are frequently used in anti-smoking advertising. The evidence on the effectiveness of fear appeals is mixed and in some studies strong fear appeals have been found to reinforce the undesirable behaviour. Individual self-efficacy may play a role in moderating the effects of fear appeals. In advertising contexts where the intention was to encourage socially desirable behaviours it has been shown that greater self-efficacy is associated with a more positive response to fear appeals. Similarly, in such contexts the perceived ethicality of a fear-appeal advertisement appears to be positively related to self-efficacy. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between self-efficacy, perceived ethicality and the impact of advertising on behavioural intentions in a context where the aim is to discourage undesirable behaviour, namely, anti-smoking advertising. Questionnaire data were gathered from 434 respondents in London, England. Respondents with higher reported self-efficacy were found to have more favourable views of the ethicality of fear-appeal advertising, more positive attitudes towards the advertising, and stronger intentions to quit smoking. It is recommended that when using fear appeals in advertising to discourage undesirable behaviour, advertisers should incorporate messages designed to enhance self-efficacy.
The design of intelligent socio-technical systems calls for careful examination of relevant social and organizational concepts. We present a method for supporting this design process, placing emphasis on different levels of formal characterization, with equal attention to both the analysis of concepts in a formal calculus independent of computational concerns, and the representation of concepts in a machine-processable form, fully cognizant of implementation issues—a step in the method we refer to as principled operationalization. There are many tools (i.e. formal languages) that can be used to support the design method; we define and discuss criteria for evaluating such tools. We believe that, were the method proposed to be adopted, it would enhance the state-of-the-art in the systematic design and engineering of socio-technical systems, respecting the fundamentally interdisciplinary nature of those tasks, in both their theoretical and practical dimensions.
Due to differences in the attachment consumers experience towards the durable products they own, they hang on to certain products whereas they easily dispose of others. From the viewpoint of sustainability, it may be worthwhile to lengthen the life span of many durable consumer products. Hence, there is a challenge for designers to strengthen the bond between consumers and their products through the product design process. In the present study, we develop a scale to measure consumer-product attachment, and we identify and measure seven possible determinants of attachment: enjoyment, memories to persons, places, and events, support of self-identity, life vision,
utility, reliability, and market value. Only memories and enjoyment contribute positively to the degree of attachment. The highest levels of attachment are registered for recently acquired products (
Hedonomics takes ergonomics one step forward from its initial prevention of pain to its contemporary promotion of pleasure in human-technology interaction. We provide a philosophical framework, contribute a model of a design priority hierarchy, and offer potential areas of future research for hedonomics, which we define as the promotion of pleasurable human-machine interaction. Individuation and experience goals should be incorporated into fundamental design priorities in order to optimize user experience and improve the quality of life for all affected by advancing technology. © Copyright 2005 by Human Factors and Ergonamics Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
Background:
Workplaces are prone to the current outbreak- of COVID-19. Despite the production of the COVID-19 vaccine, due to some challenges in vaccinating all people worldwide, adherence to health protocols is still one of the ways to prevent infection.
Objective:
This study was conducted with the purpose of investigating the compliance of COVID-19 protocols in the workplaces of Ardabil, Iran.
Methods:
This was a cross-sectional research conducted on the workplaces affiliated to Ardabil University of Medical Sciences between August and September, 2020. A researcher-designed checklist was completed once in early August and once at the end of September for the workplaces. Accordingly, these workplaces were inspected for any compliance with the COVID-19 prevention protocols by health centers during August and September. In addition, the number of patients with COVID-19 was determined for each one of the workplaces.
Results:
The results showed that the highest increase was related to screening (57.8%) and the lowest change was related to personal hygiene (1.3%). The rates of increase in performance for small workshops, offices and industries were 35.4%, 33.1%and 12.4%, respectively. Moreover, a linear and inverse relationship was found between the incidence of COVID-19 and the level of observance of the OVID-19 prevention protocols.
Conclusions:
Based on the results of this study, the inspection made by legal authorities led to the increased commitment of workplace managers to implement prevention programs, thereby increasing the observation level of these protocols in the workplace and reducing the incidence of COVID-19.
Recently, many companies have increasingly emphasized product appearance aesthetics and emotional preference-based design to enhance the competitiveness and popularity of their products. Identifying the interaction between product appearance and customer preferences and mining design information from the interacting context play essential roles in affect-related design approaches. However, due to the complexity of the aesthetic and emotional perception process, obtaining such design information from the interacting context is challenging. This paper proposes an affective design approach based on the Kansei engineering (KE) method and a deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN) following the research trend of merging KE with computer science techniques in recent years. A case study of the social robot design is conducted to verify the effectiveness of this approach. Appearance aesthetic and emotional preference evaluations are adopted by the KE method first to identify the crucial features in two categories: (1) The physical features of the outer shape, head and color for aesthetics; (2) The emotional features of intelligent, interesting and pleasant for preference perceptions. Based on a manually created social robot image dataset, the DCGAN model is trained to automatically generate novel design images. Then several professional designers are involved to fine-tune the generated images in detail. The experimental results show that the newly designed social robots tend to obtain positive aesthetic and preference evaluations. Practically, such an affective design approach can help industrial design companies identify customers’ psychological requirements and support designers in creating new products innovatively and efficiently.
Consumer awareness on the negative implications of single-use plastic bags shifted the focus of consumers on using eco bags. However, it is hypothesized that due to poor emotional attachment of the user to the eco bag, its use is intermittent. This study aims to identify if color, form, and material, which are design attributes targeting emotions, can influence product attachment. A total of 98 middle-aged women participated in a masked experiment, where the eco bags were given to the participants as an incentive. A post-experiment interview was done after two weeks to know if the bag was disposed, kept or used. Using Kruskal-Wallis test, it was determined that color and material influence consumer-product attachment. With regards to consumption activities, people who disposed the eco bag had no attachment to the product, while those who just kept it preferred their own eco bags because of the design. Lastly, participants who used the product liked the appearance of the bag. The results give guidance on how eco bags should be designed so that it will not only be stored but be used for the purpose it was conceptualized.
In this research, we examined whether psychological entitlement predicted noncompliance with the health guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic. People higher in psychological entitlement typically try to avoid behaviors that might cause themselves harm, but their high expectations, lack of concern about others, and distrust of authority figures could affect their perceptions of the threat of the coronavirus and their views on the benefits of following the health guidelines. Across three studies (N = 1004, online samples from the United States), people higher in psychological entitlement reported less compliance with the health guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic than people lower in psychological entitlement. Moreover, people higher in psychological entitlement believed that the threat of the virus was overblown and were less concerned about harming others, views that may partly explain their noncompliance. People higher in psychological entitlement were also more likely to report that they had contracted COVID-19, and thus their refusal to follow the health guidelines may have had negative consequences for them. An appeal to self-image concerns did not lead individuals higher in entitlement to be more likely to comply with the health guidelines.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), AI anxiety has emerged and is receiving widespread attention, but research on this topic is not comprehensive. Therefore, we investigated the dimensions of AI anxiety using the theoretical model of integrated fear acquisition and a questionnaire survey. A total of 494 valid questionnaires were recovered. Through a first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a factor model of AI anxiety was constructed, and eight factors of AI anxiety were verified. Then, a second-order CFA was applied to verify the adaptation of the factor structure of AI anxiety to fear acquisition. We identified four dimensions of AI anxiety and proposed a theory of AI anxiety acquisition that illustrates four pathways of AI anxiety acquisition. Each pathway includes two factors that cause AI anxiety. We conclude by analyzing the limitations of current AI anxiety research and proposing a broader research agenda for AI anxiety.
This study examined the associations between personality traits and psychological and behavioural responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. Personality was assessed in January/February 2020 when the public was not aware of the spread of coronavirus in the USA. Participants were reassessed in late March 2020 with four sets of questions about the pandemic: concerns, precautions, preparatory behaviours, and duration estimates. The sample consisted of N = 2066 participants (mean age = 51.42; range = 18–98; 48.5% women). Regression models were used to analyse the data with age, gender, education, race, and ethnicity as covariates. Consistent with the preregistered hypotheses, higher neuroticism was related to more concerns and longer duration estimates related to COVID‐19, higher extraversion was related to shorter duration estimates, and higher conscientiousness was associated with more precautions. In contrast to the preregistered hypotheses, higher neuroticism was associated with fewer precautions and unrelated to preparatory behaviours. Age moderated several trait–response associations, suggesting that some of the responses were associated more strongly in older adults, a group at risk for complications of COVID‐19. For example, older adults high in conscientiousness prepared more. The present findings provide insights into how personality predicts concerns and behaviours related to the COVID‐19 pandemic. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology
To perfect a service, service providers must understand the fundamental emotional effects that a service may invoke. Kansei Engineering (KE) has been recently adapted to service industries to realize the relationships between service design elements and customer emotional perceptions. However, effective service design based on KE is still seriously challenged by the uncertainty and behavioral biases of customers’ emotions. This article tries to propose an uncertain KE methodology for behavioral service design. To do so, an integrative framework is first proposed by linking design attributes, emotional needs, and overall satisfaction, so as to design services best satisfying customers’ emotional needs. Second, multinomial logistic regression is used to build the uncertain relationships between design attributes and emotional attributes. Third, a quantitative Kano model is proposed to model the asymmetric and nonlinear satisfaction functions reflecting the “gains and losses” effect of positive emotions and negative emotions. Next, the Prospect Theory is used to derive customer overall satisfaction by distinguishing the “gains and losses”. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to a case study of the campus express delivery service in China. An independent tracking study shows that the results are consistent with service acceptance and provide valuable insights.
Developing nursing students' knowledge and practice of infection prevention and control (IPC) is fundamental to safe healthcare. A two-phase descriptive, mixed-method study conducted within a Bachelor of Nursing program at an Australian university aimed to explore: (i) theoretical knowledge of IPC, highlighting hand hygiene, of nursing students and; (ii) nursing students' and clinical facilitators' perceptions of factors influencing these practices during clinical placement. Phase One utilised an anonymous validated questionnaire assessing students' knowledge; identifying variables influencing students' IPC practices, subjected to descriptive and inferential analysis. Phase Two were semi-structured interviews exploring clinical facilitators' experiences/perceptions of students during clinical placement, analysed thematically. Students' demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of IPC in their second and third year, but clinical facilitators perceived that. students lacked awareness of the importance of these practices. Five themes arose from the interviews: (i) understanding workplace culture; (ii) students' modelling local behaviour; (iii) enhancing and consolidating knowledge for practice; (iv) adjusting to practice reality and; (v) accessing additional hand hygiene resources. Factors specific to workplace setting and culture were perceived to influence nursing students' socialisation. Future practice/education strategies could address these factors by ensuring students receive adequate supervision during clinical placement, and having strong advocates/role models present in the workplace.
Our environment is an essential factor in designing a user-preference-based place. This study investigates the effects of the environment on users in determining their preferences for schools. The school environment/surroundings affect students in terms of their behaviour and achievements. It can be an advantage if students’ take a liking to their school building, as this emotion can motivate them to attend the school eagerly. Consequently, since a child’s view of a space is different from an adult’s view, a school space should be built according to the requirements and factors that are specific to the children and important for them in this environment. In this study, female elementary schools located in District 1 of Tehran, Iran have been investigated qualitatively using card sorting techniques followed by semi-structured interviews in order to determine their preferences regarding their school buildings’ attributes. The results were analyzed using content analysis. It was revealed that students preferred having playgrounds, colourful buildings, big interior spaces, wide windows, curvy shaped facades, articulated facades, and stairs in school buildings; they did not express a preference for tall buildings and being near streets. The results reveal that having these spaces could influence the student’s evaluation of the school.
Despite the ubiquity of waste disposal in urban environments, there is little standardization of receptacle or signage design within and across jurisdictions. In three experiments, we explored the impact of waste disposal signage design on disposal behavior. Specifically, we were interested in two primary questions in signage design: 1) what type of waste disposal information should be presented; and 2) how the information should be presented. We found that signs containing either icons or pictures of permitted items improved sorting performance compared to signs containing only words of the items; consistent positioning of the signs improved sorting performance compared to random positions for both pictures and icons; and presenting both permitted and prohibited items can interfere with performance when the signs are icons. The current study provides experimental evidence to demonstrate that the design of waste disposal signage can impact waste sorting performance in meaningful ways and highlights the need for graphical signage and bin standardization.
In the perspective of psychology, emotion is the heart of personality. In this view, products are expected to satisfy people’s emotional needs providing users with pleasant aesthetic experience. With the coming of “experiencing economy” era, “emotional” has become one of design trends for current products. At present, designers should pay more attention to make products be closer to people and trigger changes in human’s emotion, rather than being addicted to cool visual effects, thus enhancing user viscosity. This paper intends to provide designers with a full understanding of the concept of “people-oriented” products, showing how they can deeply explore user needs and eliminate cognitive misconception, so that they can produce products able to better satisfy user’s physical and mental needs.
Background:
Hand hygiene is paramount to prevent healthcare-associated infections, but improving compliance is challenging. When healthcare workers seldom encounter healthcare-associated infections, they will consider the odds of causing infections through poor hand hygiene negligible. Cognitive biases, such as these, can induce non-compliance. Nudging, 'a friendly push to encourage desired behaviour', could provide an easily implemented, inexpensive measure to address cognitive biases and thus support hand hygiene interventions.
Aim:
To investigate whether behavioural nudges, displayed as posters, can increase the use of alcohol-based hand rub.
Methods:
We developed nudges based on a systematic review of previously described cognitive biases, and tested these through a cross-sectional survey among the target audience. We then conducted a controlled before-after trial on two hospital wards, to assess the effect of these nudges on the use of alcohol based hand rub, measured with electronic dispensers.
Findings:
Poisson regression analyses adjusted for workload showed that nudges displayed next to dispensers increased their overall use on one ward (poster 1: RR 1.6 (95%CI 1.2-2.2), poster 2: RR 1.7 (95%CI 1.2-2.5)) and during doctor's rounds on both wards (poster 1: ward A RR 1.7 (95%CI 1.1-2.6), ward B RR 2.2 (95%CI 1.3-3.8)). Use of dispensers without adjacent nudges did not increase.
Conclusion:
Nudges based on cognitive biases that play a role in hand hygiene, and displayed as posters, could provide an easy, inexpensive measure to increase use of alcohol-based hand rub. When applying nudges to change behaviour, it is important to identify the right nudge for the right audience.
Recently a number of well-known public figures have expressed concern about the future development of artificial intelligence (AI), by noting that AI could get out of control and affect human beings and society in disastrous ways. Many of these cautionary notes are alarmist and unrealistic, and while there has been some pushback on these concerns, the deep flaws in the thinking that leads to them have not been called out. Much of the fear and trepidation is based on misunderstanding and confusion about what AI is and can ever be. In this work we identify 3 factors that contribute to this "AI anxiety": an exclusive focus on AI programs that leaves humans out of the picture, confusion about autonomy in computational entities and in humans, and an inaccurate conception of technological development. With this analysis we argue that there are good reasons for anxiety about AI but not for the reasons typically given by AI alarmists.
Through this study we examined the effects of design factors, namely balance and originality on users’ affective responses and subsequent quality evaluations. We effectively manipulated balance and originality to see how it independently and together affects two sub dimensions of emotions i.e. arousal and valance. After this we evaluated the impact of this affective response on pragmatic and hedonic quality perceptions. Experimental results confirmed a significant impact of design factors on emotions and quality perceptions. Usability studies can have a better understanding of how design influences user decision-making. It breaks the efficiency perspective further which has heavily shadowed human computer studies and suggests that affect is equally if not more important when it comes to having desired user reactions from app design.
In China, less than 2% of waste processed in the municipal disposal system is recycled. Past research has dedicated great efforts in identifying reasons for the country's low recycling rate. However, these studies are constrained for their over-dependence on survey methodology and ignoring the potential gap between reported intention to behave and behavior. In a controlled lab experiment, this study examines waste recycling behaviors, as well as the associated psychological behavioral antecedents, with varied levels of accessibility of recycling facilities. We confirm the hypothesis that lack of effective recycling facilities constitutes one of the obstacles that keep Chinese people from sorting and reusing most recyclable wastes. The results indicate that enhanced accessibility of recycling facilities would lower behavioral costs and encourage people to take that action. While this strategy directly changes behaviors, it has little impact on those behavioral antecedents. The study also confirms the gap between behavioral intention and behavior. While all participants in all scenarios showed equally strong willingness to recycle, the percentage of people who recycled is over 25% higher in the scenario with easily accessible recycling facilities, compared to those with hardly accessible facilities. All the above findings are relevant for making recycling promotion policies and cut through the vicious mixed waste disposal and collection cycle.
The revised Waste Framework Directive requires EU Member States to recycle 50% of their household waste by 2020. This study of 48 English authorities from five regions, between 2008/09 and 2012/13, analysed whether the national 50% target was likely to be achieved by 2020 and also investigated the main barriers and possible solutions for local authorities to attain 50% recycling.
This study identified that England is unlikely to meet the EU target to reuse, recycle and compost 50% of its household waste by 2020. Key issues included central Government support and guidance, and difference in collection systems by high and low rate local authorities.
Key recommendations including structural changes to the collection service including alternate weekly collection for dry recyclate and garden waste with a separate weekly collection of food waste, are suggested. Discussion on suggested amendments to the system of measurement are also included.
This chapter is concerned with why people develop strong relationships to certain products and how designers may influence the degree of attachment through product design. An attachment is an emotion-laden target-specific bond between two persons. Product attachment is defined as the strength of the emotional bond a consumer experiences with a specific product. The object to which a person experiences attachment triggers one’s emotions. In contrast, products to which people do not experience attachment often do not elicit any emotions at all. Although people usually experience positive emotions toward the product to which they feel attached, several arguments can be given for why research on (positive) emotions is inadequate to understand the experience of attachment to a product. The occurrence of positive emotions is not sufficient to conclude that a person is attached to a product. Many products can instantaneously elicit strong positive emotions even without any direct contact with a product. Products to which one feels attached are generally considered to be special and significant to the owner. Another consequence of attachment is that it results in specific protective behaviors, because people cherish their relationship with the object and want to preserve the object. When a person feels attached to a product, he/she is more likely to handle the product with care, to repair it when it breaks down, and to postpone its replacement. Experiencing positive emotions in response to a product does not necessarily bring about these protective behaviors.
As concerns about pollution and climate change become more mainstream, the belief that shopping with reusable grocery bags is an important environmental and socially conscious choice has gained prevalence. In parallel, firms have joined policy makers in using a variety of initiatives to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags. However, little is known about how these initiatives might alter other elements of consumers' in-store behavior. Using scanner panel data from a single California location of a major grocery chain, and controlling for consumer heterogeneity, the authors demonstrate that bringing one's own bags increases purchases of not only environmentally friendly organic foods but also indulgent foods. They use experimental methods to further explore the expression of these effects and to consider the effects of potential moderators, including competing goals and store policies. The findings have implications for decisions related to product pricing, placement and assortment, store layout, and the choice of strategies employed to increase the use of reusable bags.
Despite widespread support for environmentalism, few people consistently engage in proenvironmental behavior. The present research investigates the potential of eco-guilt to increase engagement in proenvironmental behavior. Eco-guilt is guilt that arises when people think about times they have not met personal or societal standards for environmental behavior. Highlighting instances when people fail to meet standards for environmental protection should create guilt which should then motivate eco-friendly behavior. Study 1 (n=277) shows that eco-guilt predicts eco-friendly behavioral intentions above and beyond individual differences in trait guilt and proenvironmental attitudes. Study 2 (n=96) shows that eco-guilt mediates the relation between perceptions regarding personal standards about environmentally harmful behavior and both public and private efforts to protect the environment. When college students bring to mind their standards for environmental behavior, ranging from recycling to buying a fuel-efficient car, doing so creates eco-guilt, which motivates efforts to protect the environment.
Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether rational and emotional appeals are more effective for small boutique hotel websites in Australia. Specifically, it assesses how attitudes towards websites, service expectations and attitudes towards boutique hotels will influence purchase intention under the two different types of appeals. Design/methodology/approach ‐ Using a systematic intercept approach, a total of 249 useable data was collected in a large suburb of Western Australia. Results were analysed using t-test and a series of multiple regressions. Findings ‐ The results show boutique hotel websites that used emotional appeals performed differently to those that used rational appeals. Further analysis shows that emotional appeals evoked more favourable attitudes towards the website and attitudes towards the boutique hotel. In addition, websites that utilised emotional appeals were a stronger predictor of purchase intention. Research limitations/implications ‐ The research focuses only on homepages of the boutique hotels. Further, the study was limited to two rational (price and service accolades) and two emotional appeals (warmth and serenity). Originality/value ‐ The study is the first to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of website appeals. It broadens the scope of the service communication literature by exploring rational and emotional appeals in an interactive medium.
Many studies have shown the ability of interior design elements (e.g., artwork, nature, home elements) to elicit positive emotions on hospital users thereby enhancing the healing process. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such elements can affect users’ emotional responses during a VR experience. In this study we explored the influence of interior design elements (i.e., landscape poster, painting, plant and home chair), on the participants’ emotional responses after being exposed to 3D virtual hospital rooms. We used a short version of Zipers scales, developed by Zuckerman, to explore participants’ emotional responses regarding 28 rooms, resulting from all the possible combinations of the identified elements plus a neutral and a negative room. Our sample included 30 university students. The results show that the more elements present in the hospital room the more positive the emotional response. The landscape and artwork elements emitted positive responses, whereas the home chair did not.
The study employed a between-subject post-test only experimental design to examine whether guilt appeal levels affected green advertising effectiveness measured by consumers’ attitude towards the advertisement and the brand. Furthermore, guilt-aroused feelings were examined for their effects.
The study was conducted among 121 students in a large public university in the southwest of the United States (US). Empirical results supported the effects of guilt appeal on green advertising effectiveness. Participants were found to have more favourable attitudes towards the green advertisement and advertised brand when exposed to a low guilt advertisement than to a high guilt advertisement. Among three guilt-induced feelings, angry–irritated emotion and self-conscious emotion were found to moderate consumers’ attitudes towards the green advertisement and the advertised brand.
Purpose
This paper seeks to deal with affective design of waiting areas (servicescapes) and has twofold aims. The first, is to explore affective values for waiting areas. The second, is to identify interactions between physical design attributes and affective values.
Design/methodology/approach
This study included a free association method for data collection, applying Kansei engineering methodology to extract design solutions relating to specific feelings. The study was undertaken at six primary health centres in Östergötland County, Sweden. In total, 88 participants (60 patients and 28 staff) were interviewed.
Findings
The selected waiting areas show significant differences for their perceived affective qualities. The most desired feeling for creating affective values is found to be “calm”. The core design attributes contributing to this feeling are privacy, colours, child play‐areas and green plants. Good design of lighting, seating arrangements and a low sound level are also important design attributes to give a more complete design solution.
Research limitations/implications
The study provides useful insights for understanding affective needs in servicescapes, and it provides design suggestions. The results have not been analysed separately for gender or different age groups.
Practical implications
The paper proposes a framework model to be applied when dealing with affective values in servicescapes.
Originality/value
This paper makes an original contribution to understand affective values towards the physical environment in servicescape design. It offers a methodology to study complex environments with many alternative design solutions using limited resources. Moreover, this study uses a combination of a free association method and Rough Sets theory in affective design.