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Need for Cognition Among Users of Self-Monitoring Systems for Physical Activity: Survey Study
Kirsi Halttu1, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen1
1Oulu Advanced Research on Service and Information Systems Research Unit, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
JMIR Formative Research
|October 14, 2021
Summary
Need for cognition (NFC) influences how individuals select and perceive health self-monitoring systems. High NFC users value system features more, while credibility
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Need for cognition (NFC) is a key personality trait relevant to technology engagement.
- NFC's role in health self-monitoring systems and wearables remains unexplored.
- This study pioneers the investigation of NFC in commercial health self-monitoring systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how NFC levels affect the choice of self-monitoring systems.
- To analyze the impact of NFC on the evaluation of system features, credibility, and persuasiveness.
- To assess NFC's influence on self-reported behavior change after system adoption.
Main Methods:
- Survey data collected from 238 university students and personnel using physical activity monitoring systems for at least two months.
- Structural equation modeling used to analyze the data.
- NFC assessed as both categorical groups (low, moderate, high) and a continuous moderator.
Main Results:
- High NFC users reported significantly higher satisfaction with all system features.
- Credibility's impact on persuasiveness differed: it enhanced persuasiveness for low NFC users but not high NFC users.
- Perceived persuasiveness strongly predicted self-reported activity in high NFC users (large effect size).
- NFC moderated perceived persuasiveness in women.
- The model explained substantial variance in perceived persuasiveness across NFC levels (47.3%–63.9%).
Conclusions:
- System selection may reflect intrinsic motivation for data engagement; commercial systems could offer tailored strategies.
- Perceived credibility's role in self-monitoring systems varies significantly with NFC levels.
- NFC is a crucial differentiator for information processing, impacting the design and tailoring of self-monitoring systems.
Keywords:
mHealthmobile phoneneed for cognitionpersuasive designphysical activity trackingself-monitoringtailoringuser researchwearablesMore Related Videos
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