Investigation of persuasive system design predictors of competitive behavior in fitness application: A mixed-method approach

Fitness applications aimed at behavior change are becoming increasingly popular due to the global prevalence of sedentary lifestyles and physical inactivity, causing countless non-communicable diseases. Competition is one of the most common persuasive strategies employed in such applications to motivate users to engage in physical activity in a social context. However, there is limited research on the persuasive system design predictors of users’ susceptibility to competition as a persuasive strategy for motivating behavior change in a social context. To bridge this gap, we designed storyboards illustrating four of the commonly employed persuasive strategies (reward, social learning, social comparison, and competition) in fitness applications and asked potential users to evaluate their perceived persuasiveness. The result of our path analysis showed that, overall, users’ susceptibilities to social comparison (β(T) = 0.48, p < 0.001), reward (β(T) = 0.42, p < 0.001), and social learning (β(T) = 0.29, p < 0.01) predicted their susceptibility to competition, with our model accounting for 41% of its variance. Social comparison partially mediated the relationship between reward and competition, while social learning partially mediated the relationship between social comparison and competition. Comparatively, the relationship between reward and social learning was stronger for females than for males, whereas the relationship between reward and competition was stronger for males than for females. Overall, our findings underscore the compatibility of all four persuasive strategies in a one-size-fits-all fitness application. We discuss our findings, drawing insight from the comments provided by participants.