Small clicks, great effects: the immediate and delayed influence of websites containing serious games on behavior and attitude

Abstract

The number of websites containing persuasive serious games and advergames has increased over the past several years, but their immediate and delayed effects on behavior are still not well understood. The present field experiment (n = 388, varied socio-professional groups) demonstrates that interactivity linked to this type of website provokes positive effects on immediate behavior (purchases of energy-saving light bulbs, ESLBs) in a ‘real setting.’ It further affected the behavior (installation of ESLBs at home), the memorization of the website's arguments, gains in knowledge, attitude, and other judgments regarding ESLBs, when measured two weeks later. The digital signature of a commitment to perform an expected behavior via a web page also provokes positive behavioral effects. This can accumulate through the effects of interactivity. We close with a discussion of the possible psychological processes involved, theoretical and practical implications and limitations as well as new perspectives for advertising and advergames research.

Keywords:

• interactivity
• serious game
• advergame
• persuasion
• environmental communication
• website

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Marie-Pierre Fourquet-Courbet, the editor, the associate editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Thanks to the Castorama store in Aix-en-Provence (Les Milles) for allowing us to realize the first phase of the experiment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Didier Courbet

Didier Courbet holds a PhD degree in communication sciences and is professor of communication sciences at Aix-Marseille University. His research interests focus on the reception and influence of e-advertising and persuasive communication. He is the author of several books (Puissance de la Télévision, Paris, L'Harmattan, 1999; La télévision et ses Influences, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2003 (ed); Objectiver l'humain. Communication et experimentation, London, Hermes Lavoisier, 2011 (ed), and has written approximately 70 articles for scholarly journals and book chapters on communication (e.g., Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication), marketing (e.g., Journal of Advertising Research), and social psychology (e.g., Journal of Personality).

Françoise Bernard

Françoise Bernard is professor of information and communication sciences at Aix-Marseille University (France). She is Head of the Institute of Information and Communication Research (IRSIC -EA 4262), Aix-Marseille University. She was President of the Société Française des Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication from 2002 to 2006, and is currently its Honorary Chair. She has worked on communication, and change and innovation within organizations. Her most recent research focuses on ‘committing communication’ and is conducted in partnership with Robert-Vincent Joule. She examines, among other things, the relationship between communication and action in the domain of the environment.

Robert-Vincent Joule

Robert-Vincent Joule has been professor of social psychology at Aix-Marseille University (France) since 1988. He was Head of the Laboratory of Social Psychology from 2003 to 2010. His research interests lie in cognitive dissonance and social influence procedures. His most recent research concerns communication and more specifically ‘committing communication.’ He was awarded the ‘Prix de la diffusion scientifique’ at the Festival des Sciences et des Technologies in 2002. (President of the Jury: Yves Coppens) and the ‘Médaille d'Honneur’ of the Association pour la Diffusion de la Recherche Internationale en Psychologie Sociale in 2012. He was co-director of the International Review of Social Psychology from 2000 to 2006. He has published some sixty articles in national and international journals. He is the author of several books, and approximately 30 chapters in books. In addition, he has edited numerous volumes. His best-known works (written with J. L. Beauvois) are A Radical Dissonance Theory (London, Bristol: Taylor & Francis, 1996), La soumission librement consentie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), and the Petit traité de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2002), a best-seller which has sold 350,000 copies in France and has been translated into approximately 12 languages.

Severine Halimi-Falkowicz

Dr Severine Halimi-Falkowicz (associate professor of communication sciences at Aix-Marseille University, France). Her research interests are communication (more particularly, ‘committing communication’), cognitive dissonance, and social influence procedures (free will compliance).

Nicolas Guéguen

Professor Nicolas Guéguen (PhD) is currently professor of social behavior and social marketing at the University of Bretagne-Sud in France. His research interests are related with compliance-gaining techniques, marketing atmospherics and nonverbal persuasion particularly in relation with consumer behavior and helping behavior.