Personalization/Computer-Tailoring in Persuasive Technology: Tailoring Ingredients Target Psychological Processes

Personalization or computer-tailoring refers to the adaptation of the output of a persuasive technological system to the individual. To be able to produce the tailored persuasive output, individual characteristics must be known to the computer system, for example, through sensors, data-bases, or self-report questionnaires. This information is used to compose a personalized output on the basis of decision rules that determine what pieces of possible output in the message library are needed to compose a complete personalized output. To compose messages for individuals that are effective, it is essential that in this procedure psychological processes are targeted. This is done using tailoring ingredients. At this moment 5 classes of tailoring ingredients are distinguished: Personalization, feedback, content matching, source matching, and exposure matching. Each of these classes contains 2 or 3 tailoring ingredients that will be explained and illustrated in this article.