IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i20p13406-d944983.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Research on the Impact of Pro-Environment Game and Guilt on Environmentally Sustainable Behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Jiaxing Chen

    (School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430074, China)

  • Guangling Zhang

    (School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430074, China)

  • Qinfang Hu

    (School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China)

Abstract

Game strategies are widely used by companies to attract users and increase their stickiness. At the same time, the protection of the ecological environment is also an important expression of corporate social responsibility. This paper explores the integration of social responsibility with gaming strategies from the psychological perspective of game withdrawal, and explores the incorporation of social responsibility as an element in gamification design to reduce user withdrawal behaviour, thereby increasing individual’s environmentally sustainable behaviour. We evidenced our hypothesis through two studies. Study one proved our hypothesis by recruiting 106 university undergraduates (from Wuhan University, mean age 20, of whom 47 were female and 59 were male) to prove our hypothesis by recalling previous experiences with different types of games. Study two further tested our hypothesis by manipulating participants’ guilt through randomly recruiting 196 participants (mean age 35, of whom 88 were female and 108 were male, 35 of them were students, 107 were office workers and 54 were from other sectors) from different industries through the questionnaire research website Credamo. The findings show that incorporating social responsibility elements into the design of games can make users engage in pro-social behaviour while playing the game, and the guilt that users feel because of the game will be compensated by pro-social behaviour, thus reducing the game frequency and duration and improving the intent of pro-social behaviour. At the same time, players’ self-control moderates the effect of guilt on game play volume under a socially responsible gamification design.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13406-:d:944983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13406/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13406/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hammedi, Wafa & Leclercq, Thomas & Poncin, Ingrid & Alkire (Née Nasr), Linda, 2021. "Uncovering the dark side of gamification at work: Impacts on engagement and well-being," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 256-269.
    2. Mulcahy, Rory & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah & Iacobucci, Dawn, 2020. "Designing gamified apps for sustainable consumption: A field study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 377-387.
    3. Sreejesh, S. & Ghosh, Tathagata & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2021. "Moving beyond the content: The role of contextual cues in the effectiveness of gamification of advertising," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 88-101.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:3:p:304-315 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Xiaolun Wang & Xinlin Yao, 2020. "Fueling Pro-Environmental Behaviors with Gamification Design: Identifying Key Elements in Ant Forest with the Kano Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-17, March.
    6. Zhang, Yufei & Chen, Jiayin & Han, Yi & Qian, Mengxi & Guo, Xiaona & Chen, Ruishan & Xu, Di & Chen, Yi, 2021. "The contribution of Fintech to sustainable development in the digital age: Ant forest and land restoration in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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. Behl, Abhishek & Jayawardena, Nirma & Pereira, Vijay & Islam, Nazrul & Giudice, Manlio Del & Choudrie, Jyoti, 2022. "Gamification and e-learning for young learners: A systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis, and future research agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Qin, Xiaodi & Wu, Haitao & Li, Rongrong, 2022. "Digital finance and household carbon emissions in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Bitrián, Paula & Buil, Isabel & Catalán, Sara, 2021. "Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 170-185.
    5. Jiaxing Chen & Yuze Bao & Guangling Zhang & Xiaoqi Huang, 2022. "A Study of the Impact of Social Responsibility Cues on the Long-Term Effectiveness of Gamification Strategies: Insights from the Adverse Effects of Game Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-18, November.
    6. Lubart, Allan & Capelli, Sonia, 2024. "Gamification of the point of sale using hybrid-reality games: Non-players' negative influence on players' service experience," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    7. Juan Li & Xunzhou Chunyu & Feng Huang, 2022. "Land Use Pattern Changes and the Driving Forces in the Shiyang River Basin from 2000 to 2018," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-27, December.
    8. Wang, Guoqiang & Tan, Garry Wei-Han & Yuan, Yunpeng & Ooi, Keng-Boon & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2022. "Revisiting TAM2 in behavioral targeting advertising: A deep learning-based dual-stage SEM-ANN analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    9. Hatice Doğan-Südaş & Ali Kara & Emre Karaca, 2023. "Effects of Gamified Mobile Apps on Purchase Intentions and Word-of-Mouth Engagement: Implications for Sustainability Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-17, July.
    10. Elena Bakhanova & Jaime A. Garcia & William L. Raffe & Alexey Voinov, 2023. "Gamification Framework for Participatory Modeling: A Proposal," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1167-1182, October.
    11. Pilar Martín-Hernández & Marta Gil-Lacruz & Ana I. Gil-Lacruz & Juan Luis Azkue-Beteta & Eva M. Lira & Luis Cantarero, 2021. "Fostering University Students’ Engagement in Teamwork and Innovation Behaviors through Game-Based Learning (GBL)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Soren, Anup Anurag & Chakraborty, Shibashish, 2023. "The formation of habit and word-of-mouth intention of over-the-top platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Georgina Guillen & Juho Hamari, 2024. "Live and Let Die - Battle Stories of Gamified Sustainable Consumption App Creators," Simulation & Gaming, , vol. 55(3), pages 366-390, June.
    14. Zhou, Fei & Lin, Youhai & Mou, Jian & Cohen, Jason & Chen, Sihua, 2023. "Understanding the dark side of gamified interactions on short-form video platforms: Through a lens of expectations violations theory," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PB).
    15. 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.
    16. Sharma, Wamika & Lim, Weng Marc & Kumar, Satish & Verma, Aastha & Kumra, Rajeev, 2024. "Game on! A state-of-the-art overview of doing business with gamification," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    17. Marikyan, Davit & Papagiannidis, Savvas & Rana, Omer F. & Ranjan, Rajiv & Morgan, Graham, 2022. "“Alexa, let’s talk about my productivity”: The impact of digital assistants on work productivity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 572-584.
    18. Haiyang Qiu & Xin Li & Long Zhang, 2023. "Influential Effect and Mechanism of Digital Finance on Urban Land Use Efficiency in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-21, October.
    19. Marta Gangolells & Miquel Casals & Marcel Macarulla & Núria Forcada, 2021. "Exploring the Potential of a Gamified Approach to Reduce Energy Use and Carbon Emissions in the Household Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, March.
    20. 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.

    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:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13406-:d:944983. 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.