The Effect of Reminder Message Tailoring on Cognitive Intervention Adherence

To examine the potential impact of tailored messaging on adherence and attitudes toward text message reminders, a pilot study conducted in advance of the APPT randomized controlled trial systematically manipulated the match between text message content and participants’ self-reported motivations to participate in a cognitive intervention study. Older adults (n=40) were asked to engage in cognitive training, in the form of gamified neuropsychological tests, 30 minutes a day for 10 consecutive days, and adherence was tracked remotely over time. Critically, each day text message reminders alternated between messages consistent or inconsistent with participants’ previously reported motivations for entering the study. This talk presents results, derived from multilevel modeling, that explore the effectiveness of this simple and cost-effective message tailoring approach for facilitating adherence and engendering positive attitudes toward the reminder system, and implications for programs requiring long-term adherence.

Public Attitudes towards Digital Water Meters for Households

In response to droughts, various media campaigns and water-saving instructions are released. However, these often only have temporary water conservation effects. A promising development in this regard is Digital Water Meters (DWM), which can provide near real-time water-use feedback. Despite extensive DWM experience in some water-stressed regions, a profound understanding of the initial attitude towards DWM and message-tailoring opportunities are rarely empirically explored. This study aims to obtain insights into the attitude towards the introduction of DWM and explore opportunities for message tailoring, a topic of extra relevance as we may be on the threshold of a large-scale DWM implementation in many world regions. Messages tailored to (i) normative beliefs and attitudes on drinking water, (ii) water-use activity and (iii) phase of decision-making, seem particularly compatible with DWM. Through a survey (n = 1037) in the Netherlands, we observe that 93% of respondents have no objections if their utility invests in DWM and that 78% would accept a (free) DWM because of improved leakage detection, lower costs and environmental considerations. Finally, instead of sociodemographic factors, we observe that an attitude-based customer segmentation approach is an especially useful predictor of respondent’s motivation to endorse DWM and forms a promising basis for water conservation message-tailoring strategies.

Tailor the message and change will happen? An experimental study of message tailoring as an effective communication strategy for organizational change

PurposeThis study strives to improve one’s understanding of tailored messaging as an organizational communication strategy that amplifies processes of organizational change at an individual level of personality traits.Design/methodology/approachA scientific experiment was conducted to test the effects of tailored messages on self-reported employee engagement during an organizational change process.FindingsThe results show that tailored messaging improves employee engagement for change when messages fit the specific needs of different personality types. Conversely, message tailoring can lower employee engagement when messages do not match personality types. Further, message tailoring has different impacts at different stages of a change project.Research limitations/implicationsAn employee's ability to change as a function of his professional skill set as well as the project type (e.g. digital transformation project, post-merger integration project, leadership change project) should not be neglected in an overall model that aims to explain the success factors of change management.Practical implicationsObviously, proper targeting, timing, as well as the implementation of a valid, legal and feasible method for identifying an employee's personality as well as other individual characteristics are equally important and challenging to improve change management outcomes.Originality/valueThis study adds value to the discussion on the efficacy of message tailoring as a communication strategy for organizational change.

When the Pandemic Impacts the Most Vulnerable: Analyzing Crisis and Risk Messages Aimed at Latinx Individuals about COVID-19

Guided by the IDEA model, this pilot study analyzes the perceptions about coronavirus (COVID-19) messages created to be distributed to the Latinx community in the United States. This study has been conducted to test the research questions proposed and the instruments so a second study can be executed based on Latinx populations in Florida communities. A survey was distributed among students from different ethnicities. A comparative analysis was run with the responses from the students who identified as Latinx and the students who identified as non-Latinx. The results demonstrated that components such as internalization, explanation, and action are present in the messages distributed to both groups. The results also showed that only two dimensions of the IDEA model's components demonstrated significant differences between both groups. This research suggests that message tailoring could improve message effectiveness within each area of the IDEA model.

Individual Differences in Brain Responses: New Opportunities for Tailoring Health Communication Campaigns

Prevention neuroscience investigates the brain basis of attitude and behavior change. Over the years, an increasingly structurally and functionally resolved “persuasion network” has emerged. However, current studies have only identified a small handful of neural structures that are commonly recruited during persuasive message processing, and the extent to which these (and other) structures are sensitive to numerous individual difference factors remains largely unknown. In this project we apply a multi-dimensional similarity-based individual differences analysis to explore which individual factors—including characteristics of messages and target audiences—drive patterns of brain activity to be more or less similar across individuals encountering the same anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs). We demonstrate that several ensembles of brain regions show response patterns that are driven by a variety of unique factors. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for neural models of persuasion, prevention neuroscience and message tailoring, and methodological implications for future research.

Psychographic Profiling of Adult Tobacco Users and Implications for Mediated Message Tailoring

Purpose: To investigate variations of psychographic profiles in adult tobacco users to inform message tailoring. Design: A cross-sectional design used data from the Simmons 2015 National Consumer Study. Setting: Data were voluntarily provided by US families through a mail survey on media, products, and services, brands, and attitudes. Subjects: US adult tobacco users (N = 4,609). Measures: Participants answered questions about general opinion/attitudes and provided demographic and tobacco use information. Analysis: A factor analysis was conducted to determine the “best” latent psychographic factor structure based on model fit, factor loadings, and interpretability. A structural equation model was then applied to assess the associations between demographics, tobacco product use, and latent psychographic factors. Results: We identified 9 latent psychographic factors: (1) helplessness, (2) happiness, (3) achievements, (4) religion, (5) interest in art and culture, (6) conscience, (7) conformity, (8) family indulgence, and (9) creativity. Endorsement of these factors varied by demographics and tobacco product use. E.g. low income tobacco users showed stronger endorsement for “helplessness” (Adjusted Standardized Regression Coefficient [ASRC]: 0.42; 95% CI: 0.33, 0.51) and “religion” (ASRC: 0.24; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.33). Less educated tobacco users showed stronger endorsement for “conformity” (ASRC: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.07, 0.24). Young adults had significant positive associations for “achievements” (ASRC: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.67). Conclusion: Psychographic profiles of tobacco users vary by demographics and product use. Tailored anti-tobacco media campaigns to specific disparity groups matching their psychographic profiles may improve message effectiveness and reduce tobacco use disparities.

Can Message-Tailoring Based on Regulatory Fit Theory Improve the Efficacy of Persuasive Physical Activity Systems?

Background: Many behaviour-change technologies have been designed to help people with a sedentary lifestyle to become more physically active. However, challenges exist in designing systems that work effectively. One of the key challenges is that many of those technologies do not account for differences in individuals’ psychological characteristics. To address that problem, tailoring the communication between a system and its users has been proposed and examined. Although in the research related to public health education, message tailoring has been studied extensively as a technique to communicate health information and to educate people, its use in the design of behaviour-change technologies has not been adequately investigated. Objective: The goal of this study was to explore the impact of message tailoring, when tailoring was grounded in Higgins’ Regulatory Fit Theory, and messages were constructed to promote physical activity. Method: An email intervention was designed and developed that sent participants daily health messages for 14 consecutive days. There were three categories of messages: reminders, promotion-, and prevention-messages. The effect of the messages on behaviour was compared between those who received messages that fitted their self-regulatory orientation, versus those who received non-fitted messages. Results: Participants who received promotion- or prevention-messages walked for longer periods of time, compared to those who received reminders in the control group. When comparing the first two groups, promotion-message-recipients on average walked more than those who received prevention-messages. In other words, promotion messages acted more persuasively than prevention-messages and reminders. Contrary to our hypothesis, those individuals who received messages that fitted their self-regulatory orientation did not walk more than those who received non-fitted messages. Conclusions: The efficacy of Higgins’ Regulatory Fit Theory in the design of tailored health messages was examined. This study did not find support for the use of that theory in guiding the design of persuasive health messages that promote physical activity. Therefore, more research is necessary to investigate the effectiveness of tailoring strategies.

An Experimental Study of Recommendation Algorithms for Tailored Health Communication

Recommendation algorithms are widely used in online cultural markets to provide personalized suggestions for products like books and movies. At the heart of the commercial success of recommendation algorithms is their ability to make an accurate prediction of a target person’s preferences for previously unseen items. Can these algorithms also be used to predict which health messages an individual will evaluate favorably, and thereby provide effective tailored communication to the person? Although there is evidence that message tailoring enhances persuasion, little research has examined the effectiveness of recommendation algorithms for tailored health interventions aimed at promoting behavior change. We developed a message tailoring algorithm to select smoking-related public service announcements (PSAs) for smokers, and experimentally test its effectiveness in predicting a target smoker’s evaluations of PSAs and encouraging smoking cessation. The tailoring algorithm was constructed using multiple levels of data on smokers’ PSA rating history, individual differences, content features of the PSAs, and other smokers’ PSA ratings. We conducted a longitudinal online experiment to examine its efficacy in comparison to two non-tailored methods: “best in show” (choosing messages most preferred by other smokers) and “off the shelf” (random selection from eligible ads). The results showed that the tailoring algorithm produced more accurate predictions of smokers’ message evaluations than the simple-average method used for the “best in show” approach. Smokers who viewed PSAs recommended by the tailoring algorithm were more likely than those receiving a random set to evaluate the PSAs favorably and quit smoking. There was no significant difference between the “best in show” and “off the shelf” methods in message assessment and quitting behavior.