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Switching to Green Lifestyles: Behavior Change of Ant Forest Users

Author

Listed:
  • Zhaojun Yang

    (School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, Xi’an 710126, China)

  • Xiangchun Kong

    (School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, Xi’an 710126, China)

  • Jun Sun

    (College of Business and Entrepreneurship, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA)

  • Yali Zhang

    (School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China)

Abstract

Ant Forest is an emerging mobile application platform that engages people in environment-friendly behavior with fragmented time and helps them cultivate ecological awareness and habit. Users grow virtual trees on the platform with the energy saved from daily low-carbon activities, and Ant Forest plants real saplings in desertified areas when the “trees” become big enough. Facilitating the public’s participation in such green welfare, Ant Forest is a new-generation persuasive system with functions like social media and gamification. In addition to perceived persuasiveness in the existing literature, this study includes sense of achievement and perceived entertainment as extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, respectively, to explain people’s continuous use of such a system and consequent behavior change. The results of a survey suggest that primary task support, perceived credibility, and perceived social support associated with Ant Forest positively affect the user’s continuance intention through the mediation of perceived persuasiveness, sense of achievement, and perceiving entertaining. Furthermore, perceived persuasiveness and continuance intention lead to ultimate behavior change. The findings suggest the importance of both persuasive and motivational considerations in the implementation of new-generation persuasive systems to make them effective in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhaojun Yang & Xiangchun Kong & Jun Sun & Yali Zhang, 2018. "Switching to Green Lifestyles: Behavior Change of Ant Forest Users," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-14, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:9:p:1819-:d:165310
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Miao Huang & Mohamad Saifudin Mohamad Saleh & Izzal Asnira Zolkepli, 2023. "The Moderating Effect of Green Advertising on the Relationship between Gamification and Sustainable Consumption Behavior: A Case Study of the Ant Forest Social Media App," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Jiaxing Chen & Guangling Zhang & Qinfang Hu, 2022. "Research on the Impact of Pro-Environment Game and Guilt on Environmentally Sustainable Behaviour," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Yali Zhang & Haixin Zhang & Zhaojun Yang & Jun Sun & Chrissie Diane Tan, 2019. "Snowball Effect of User Participation in Online Environmental Communities: Elaboration Likelihood under Social Influence," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-15, September.
    4. Huo, Da & Zhang, Xiaotao & Hu, Chao & Tang, Aidi & Chen, Yongchuan & Chen, Fang & Chen, Zhanming & Xu, Weiyin, 2023. "Spatial externality of journalism on carbon efficiency: A quasi-natural experiment based on interplay of journalism-based professionally generated content and digital economy," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1326-1336.
    5. Qin, Xiaodi & Wu, Haitao & Li, Rongrong, 2022. "Digital finance and household carbon emissions in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Yongbo Sun & Jiayuan Xing, 2022. "The Impact of Gamification Motivation on Green Consumption Behavior—An Empirical Study Based on Ant Forest," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.

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