IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i9p1819-d165310.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1819/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1819/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fred D. Davis & Richard P. Bagozzi & Paul R. Warshaw, 1989. "User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two Theoretical Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(8), pages 982-1003, August.
    2. Muna M. Alhammad & Stephen R. Gulliver, 2014. "Persuasive Technology and Users Acceptance of E-commerce: Users Perceptions of Website Persuasiveness," Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO), IGI Global, vol. 12(2), pages 1-13, April.
    3. Naresh K. Malhotra & Sung S. Kim & Ashutosh Patil, 2006. "Common Method Variance in IS Research: A Comparison of Alternative Approaches and a Reanalysis of Past Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(12), pages 1865-1883, December.
    4. Muhammad Mohiuddin & Abdullah Al Mamun & Fazal Ali Syed & Muhammad Mehedi Masud & Zhan Su, 2018. "Environmental Knowledge, Awareness, and Business School Students’ Intentions to Purchase Green Vehicles in Emerging Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-18, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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. Zhongxi Yang & Lili He & Tianjing Huang, 2024. "Powering Pro-Environment Behavior: The Impact of Unlocking Reward Strategy on Pro-Environmental Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-17, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Qin, Xiaodi & Wu, Haitao & Li, Rongrong, 2022. "Digital finance and household carbon emissions in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    7. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mäntymäki, Matti & Salo, Jari, 2013. "Purchasing behavior in social virtual worlds: An examination of Habbo Hotel," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 282-290.
    2. Javad Shahreki & Jaya Ganesan & Kavitha Raman & Audrey Lim Li Chin & Tee Suan Chin, 2019. "The effect of human resource information system application on employee satisfaction and turnover intention," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 7(2), pages 1462-1479, December.
    3. Morteza Ghobakhloo & Masood Fathi, 2019. "Modeling the Success of Application-Based Mobile Banking," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-21, November.
    4. Peng Liu & Run Yang & Zhigang Xu, 2019. "Public Acceptance of Fully Automated Driving: Effects of Social Trust and Risk/Benefit Perceptions," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(2), pages 326-341, February.
    5. Hsu, Chia-Lin & Chen, Mu-Chen, 2021. "Advocating recycling and encouraging environmentally friendly habits through gamification: An empirical investigation," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Shankar, Amit & Jain, Sheetal, 2021. "Factors affecting luxury consumers’ webrooming intention: A moderated-mediation approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    7. Rossiter, John R. & Braithwaite, Bradley, 2013. "C-OAR-SE-based single-item measures for the two-stage Technology Acceptance Model," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 30-35.
    8. Suzy Jagger & Haytham Siala & Diane Sloan, 2016. "It's All in the Game: A 3D Learning Model for Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(2), pages 383-403, August.
    9. Maduku, Daniel K. & Thusi, Philile, 2023. "Understanding consumers' mobile shopping continuance intention: New perspectives from South Africa," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. Wendy Hui, 2010. "Self-generated Validity, Framing Effects, and Survey Research in IS," ICBBR Working Papers 11, International Centre for Behavioural Business Research.
    11. Wenqing Zhang & Biao Luo, 2023. "Predicting consumer intention toward eco-friendly smart home services: extending the theory of planned behavior," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3335-3352, October.
    12. Yan (Mandy) Dang & Yulei (Gavin) Zhang & Susan A. Brown & Hsinchun Chen, 2020. "Examining the impacts of mental workload and task-technology fit on user acceptance of the social media search system," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 697-718, June.
    13. Fosso Wamba, Samuel & Queiroz, Maciel M. & Trinchera, Laura, 2020. "Dynamics between blockchain adoption determinants and supply chain performance: An empirical investigation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    14. Tao Zhou, 2015. "Understanding user adoption of location-based services from a dual perspective of enablers and inhibitors," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 413-422, April.
    15. Chen, Shang-Yu, 2016. "Green helpfulness or fun? Influences of green perceived value on the green loyalty of users and non-users of public bikes," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 149-159.
    16. Sun, Jonghak & Teng, James T.C., 2017. "The construct of information systems use benefits: Theoretical explication of its underlying dimensions and the development of a measurement scale," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 400-416.
    17. James Agyei & Shaorong Sun & Eugene Abrokwah & Emmanuel Kofi Penney & Richmond Ofori-Boafo, 2020. "Mobile Banking Adoption: Examining the Role of Personality Traits," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    18. Chakraborty, Debarun & Singu, Hari Babu & Patre, Smruti, 2022. "Fitness Apps's purchase behaviour: Amalgamation of Stimulus-Organism-Behaviour-Consequence framework (S–O–B–C) and the innovation resistance theory (IRT)," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. Chen, Shang-Yu, 2016. "Using the sustainable modified TAM and TPB to analyze the effects of perceived green value on loyalty to a public bike system," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 58-72.
    20. Schill, Marie & Godefroit-Winkel, Delphine & Diallo, Mbaye Fall & Barbarossa, Camilla, 2019. "Consumers’ intentions to purchase smart home objects: Do environmental issues matter?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 176-185.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:9:p:1819-:d:165310. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.