Testing the Empowerment Model of Behavior Change

Persuasion as a result of persuasive technologies can be for the good of the persuadee or against their own interests. Researchers have been asking the question for quite some time of what it takes to persuade people towards a positive direction? Some researchers have proposed the empowerment model as a solution. In this paper, we performed a pilot study to test that model. We chose a digital phone-based intervention to confront the obesity problem via different types of messages. We found that recipients were more willing to follow and accept messages, which they perceived to be motivating and aligned with their long-term goals. We have also found that empowering messages differ significantly from coercive and unpersuasive messages in terms of intentions to comply with the message and receive messages of the same nature