Sean A. Munson

Assignments

• Readings. Nudges and persuasive systems have their roots in or can often be described by theory, whether or not the designer knows it. By knowing theories of social influence, and some example implementations in sociotechnical systems, you will be better able to design and evaluate your own systems and to understand how systems you and others build intentionally and unintentionally influence.

• Reactions to readings. Each class, with class 2, you will submit a short reaction to the week's readings. It should consist of at least two parts (possibly divided over two due dates): a brief summary of main themes that stood out to you in the readings as well as remaining questions you have, and then a description of one or more research project ideas that follow from the readings (e.g., replication in other contexts, extensions, instantiations of ideas in theory, or complete tangents). You get some opt-outs (2), since we're all busy.

• Research proposal sketch (3x): Three times during the quarter, you should write a short research project proposal that includes a brief introduction, connections to related work, study design (including planned analysis), and expected outcomes. Due dates are flexible, but you must have a new one by each peer review date and a total of three by the end of the quarter.

• Peer review (2x): Twice during the quarter you will review a classmate's research sketch. These are scheduled to correspond with days that we do not have class but you may complete it at any time within that week. Review it as though you are reviewng an informal grant proposal: would you fund/support doing this research.

• Final presentaton: On the last day of class, you will present either your mock paper (rough is okay), your third research sketch, or something related to the research sketches about which you hope to get feedback.

• Mock paper (final assignment): Take one of your research project sketches (or a variant) and develop it into a mock paper for a conference or journal appropriate for your field. It should include the intro, related work, study design, discussion, and conclusion sections. You do not need to have results (since that would require actually running the study), but if you do not have results, your discussion and conclusion should be written for different possible outcomes.

Grading

• Participation (30%), including in class and online.
• Research proposal sketches (30%). 10% each, but this changes if you collaborate with others on one or more (talk with me).
• Peer review (15%).
• Final presentaton (5%).
• Mock paper (25%)

Schedule

1. Tuesday, 8 January: Introduction: What is social influence? What is persuasive technology? (Canvas discussion)

   HW: A short description of your experience with persuasion or influence in a technical or non technical system, posted to course website.

   Readings:

   • Thaler & Sunstein. Nudge. Intro.
   • Cialdini, Influence. Ch 1.

2. Thursday, 10 January: Introduction 2 (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • Fogg, Persuasive Technology. Introduction — Chapter 3.
   • Khaled, R; Barr, P; Noble, J; Biddle, R. (2006). “Investigating Social Software as Persuasive Technology,” Persuasive 2006.
   • Purpura, S; Schwanda, V; Williams, K; Stubler, W; Sengers, P. (2011). “Fit4life: the design of a persuasive technology promoting healthy behavior and ideal weight.” CHI 2011: 423-432

3. Tuesday, 15 January — Social Software (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • Ellison, N; Steinfield, C; & Lampe, C. (2007). “The benefits of Facebook 'friends:' Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12 (4).
   • Wellman, B & Wortley, S. (1990). “Different strokes from different folks: Community ties and social support. American Journal of Sociology,” 96(3), 558-588.
   • Burke, M; Marlow, C; Lento, Thomas. (2009). “Feed Me: Motivating Newcomer Contribution in Social Network Sites,” CHI 2009.

4. Thursday, 17 January — Individual Differences & Tailoring (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • Halko, S. & Kientz, JA. “Personality and Persuasive Technology: An Exploratory Study on Health-Promoting Mobile Applications” Persuasive 2010. Copenhagen, Denmark. 150-161.
   • Hawkins, RP; Kreuter, M; Resnicow, K; Fishbein, M; Dijkstra, A. “Understanding Tailoring in Communicating about Health,” Health Education Research 23(3): 454-466.

Social Information
5. Tuesday, 21 January — Social Proof (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • (optional) Influence, Ch 4. - on Canvas
   • Deutsch & Gerard. 1955. “A study of normative and information social influences upon individual judgment.” Journal of abnormal and social psychology 51: 629-36.
   • Salganik & Watts. Leading the Herd Astray: An Experimental Study of Self-fulfilling Prophecies in an Artificial Cultural Market. Social Psychology Quarterly (2008) 71(4): 338-355
   • Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, Welch. 1998. “Learning from the behavior of others: Conformity, Fads, and Information Cascades.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12(3): 151-170.
   • Hullman, J; Adar, E; Shah P. 2011. “The Impact of Social Information on Visual Judgments,” CHI 2011.

6. Thursday, 24 January — Social Norms (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • Cialdini, R. B., & Trost, M. R. (1998). Social influence: Social norms, conformity, and compliance. In D. Gilbert (Ed.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Oxford University Press.
   • Kallgren, Carl A., & Reno, Raymond R., & Cialdini, Robert B. (2000). A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct: When Norms Do and Do Not Affect Behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26.

7. Tuesday, 28 January — Social Comparison I (Canvas discussion)

   Readings:

   • Festinger, L. (1954). “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes,” Human Relations 7(2).
   • Wood, JV. (1989). Theory and Research Concerning Social Comparisons of Personal Attributes. Psychological Bulletin 106: 2
   • Suls, J; Martin, R; & Wheeler, L. (2002). “Social Comparison: Why, With Whom, and With What Effect?,” Current Directions in Psychological Science.

8. Thursday, 31 January — Social Comparison II (Canvas Discussion)

   Readings:

   • Croson, R & Shang J. 2009. “Field experiments in Charitable Contributions: The Impact of Social Influence on the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods.” The Economic Journal 119: 1422-1439. (Working paper version)
   • Chen, Y; Harper, M, Konstan, J; & Xin Li, S. (2008). “Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens.” Persuasive 2007. (Working paper version)

Other tactics and overall interaction effects
9. Tuesday, 5 February — No class (Sean away)

   Peer review day.

10. Thursday, 7 February — Reciprocity & Reputation (Canvas Discussion)

    Readings:

    • Fogg, BJ, & Nass, C. (1997). How users reciprocate to computers: an experiment that demonstrates behavior change. CHI 1997 (pp. 331 - 332). ACM.
    • Benabou & Tirole. 2006. Incentives and Prosocial Behavior. American Economic Review 96(5): 1652-78.
    • Resnick, P; Kuwabara, K; Zeckhauser, R; & Friedman, E. (2000). Reputation systems. Communications of the ACM 43 (12): 45-48.
    • Resnick, P; Zeckhauser, R; Swanson, J; & Lockwood, K. (2006). The value of reputation on eBay: A controlled experiment. Experimental Economics 9(2): 79-101

11. Tuesday, 12 February — Social Facilitation (Canvas Discussion)

    Readings

    • Cottrell, NB; Sekerak, GJ; Wack, DL & Rittle, RH. (1968). Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 9(3): 245-250.
    • Falk, A & Ichinio, A. (2006). Clean Evidence on Peer Pressure. Journal of Labor Economics 24(1): 39-57.
    • Bradner, E & Mark, G. (2001). Social presence with video and application sharing. Conference on Supporting Group Work 2001: 154-161. ACM.

12. Thursday, 14 February — Commitment & Consistency (Canvas discussion)

    Readings:

    • Influence, ch 3. (On Canvas)
    • Sherman, SJ. (1980). On the self-erasing nature of errors of prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(2): 211-221. (UW Library Link)
    • Optional: Schelling, T. (1984). Self Command in Practice, Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Choice. The American Economic Review 74(2): 1-11. (on Canvas)
    • Also think back to Deutsch & Gerard.

13. Tuesday, 19 February — Goals & Targets (Canvas Discussion)

    Readings

    • Locke, EA & Latham, GP. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey, American Psychologist 57(9): 705-717.
    • Gollwitzer, PM; Sheeran, P; Michalski, V; Seifert, AE. (2009). When Intentions Go Public Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap? Psychological Science 20(5): 612-618.
    • Consolvo, S; Klasnja, P; McDonald, DW; & Landay, JA. (2009). Goal-Setting Considerations for Persuasive Technologies that Encourage Physical Activity, Persuasive 2009.

14. Thursday, 21 February — Self-efficacy (Canvas discussion)

    Readings:

    • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change. Psychological Review 84(2): 191-215.
    • Lin, JL; Mamykina, L; Lindtner, S; Delajoux, G; & Stub, HB. (2006). Fish'n'Steps: Encouraging Physical Activity with an Interactive Computer Game, Ubicomp 2006: 261-278. Springer-Verlag.

15. Tuesday, 26 February — No class (CSCW)

    Peer review day.

16. Thursday, 28 February — Similarity & Liking (Canvas discussion)

    Readings:

    • Influence, Ch 5. (on Canvas)
    • Gino, F; Shang, J; & Croson, R. (2009). The impact of information from similar or different advisors on judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 108(2): 287-302.
    • Tractinsky, N. (1997). Aesthetics and apparent usability: empirically assessing cultural and methodological issues, CHI 1997: 115-122. ACM.

17. Tuesday, 5 March — Groups & Group membership (Canvas Discussion)

    Readings:

    • Terry, DJ & Hogg, MA. (1996). Group Norms and the Attitude-Behavior Relationship: A Role for Group Identification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22(8): 776-793.
    • Charness, G; Rigotti, L; Rustichini, A. 2007. Individual Behavior and Group Membership. American Economic Review 97(4): 1340-52.

18. Thursday, 7 March — Games & Gamification

    Readings:

    • Rigby S, Ryan R. The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS) Model.
    • Malone T. 1981. Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction, Cognitive Science 4: 333-369.
    • Bogost I. 2011. Gamification is Bullshit.

19. Tuesday, 12 March — Affordances & Limits of Technology

    Readings:

    • Persuasive Technology. Ch 4 & skim the parts that seem interesting to you.
    • Nass, C & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers. Journal of Social Issues, 81-103.
    • Oinas-Kukkonen H & Harjumaa, M. (2008). A Systematic Framework for Designing and Evaluating Persuasive Systems. Persuasive 2008 (pp. 164-176). Springer-Verlag.
    (UW Library Link)
    • Weiksner, GM; Fogg, BJ; & Liu, X. (2008). Six Patterns for Persuasion in Online Social Networks. Persuasive 2008 (pp. 151-163). Springer-Verlag.

20. Thursday, 14 March — Presentations

    15 minute presentation of your final research sketch (or full writeup) plus Q&A. You will also be assigned to be the discussant for a peer's presentation.

21. Final writeup: Due 20 March

    Take one of your research project sketches (or a variant) and develop it into a mock paper for a conference or journal appropriate for your field. It should include the intro, related work, study design, discussion, and conclusion sections. You do not need to have results (since that would require actually running the study), but if you do not have results, your discussion and conclusion should be written for different possible outcomes.

Thanks to

Erin Krupka and Paul Resnick.