Influencing Behaviour by Modelling User Values: Energy Consumption

A variety of social and digital media technologies are being used to influence a change in an individual’s or group’s behaviour. A major challenge is in understanding what leads to or prevents different forms of influence from having an effect, what those effects are, how long they take to come about and for how long they last. This research is concerned with the problem domain of climate change and with using social and digital media technologies to influence users to change their energy consumption behaviour. The objective is to understand how user information may be utilised within the development of persuasive technologies and behaviour change support systems. This paper contributes fundamental and applied research on how user values, lifestyle aspects and energy consumption behaviours may be modelled to support systems in delivering relevant and personalised information and knowledge that can influence behaviour change.