School of Business, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410083, China.
School of Economics & Management, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, Hunan, 410114, China.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Dec 15;324:116259. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116259. Epub 2022 Sep 26.
Climate change caused by excessive carbon emission has become one of the most severe problems facing the world's ecosystems and human society. Promoting low-carbon actions is an effective means of alleviating climate problems. Gamified interactions have recently emerged as a promising and practical idea to promote low-carbon actions; however, research on the effect of gamification design on consumers' pro-environmental behavior is still at a nascent stage. This study tried to explore the impact mechanisms of two common gamified interactions, competition and cooperation, on consumers' low-carbon actions through goal-framing theory. The proposed hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model based on survey data collected from Ant Forest users on Alipay, one of the popular online payment platforms in China. The results show that while both cooperative and competitive interactions could promote users' low-carbon actions, the incentive effect of cooperation was more significant. In addition, cooperative interactions stimulated users' normative, hedonic, and gain motivations to adopt low-carbon actions, whereas competitive interactions only motivated hedonic and gain goals. The study findings provide new insights into the role of gamification in influencing low-carbon behaviors and offer practical guidance for the design of gamification for related green and low-carbon platforms.
由于过度碳排放而导致的气候变化已成为世界生态系统和人类社会面临的最严重问题之一。推广低碳行动是缓解气候问题的有效手段。游戏化互动最近作为一种促进低碳行动的有前途且实用的理念出现；然而，关于游戏化设计对消费者环保行为的影响的研究仍处于起步阶段。本研究试图通过目标框架理论探讨两种常见的游戏化互动（竞争和合作）对消费者低碳行为的影响机制。基于从中国广受欢迎的在线支付平台支付宝上的蚂蚁森林用户收集的调查数据，使用结构方程模型对提出的假设进行了检验。结果表明，虽然合作和竞争互动都可以促进用户的低碳行为，但合作的激励效应更为显著。此外，合作互动激发了用户的规范性、享乐性和收益动机，以采取低碳行为，而竞争互动仅激励了享乐性和收益目标。本研究结果为游戏化在影响低碳行为方面的作用提供了新的见解，并为相关绿色和低碳平台的游戏化设计提供了实用指导。
