An experimental study on promotion of pro-environmental behavior focusing on “vanity” for interactive agent

Abstract

Although one of the solutions for environmental issues is to promote our pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) which is one of prosocial behaviors, it has not been done enough. This study focuses on “Vanity” for interactive agents as motivation for PEB. The purpose of this study is to confirm three hypotheses as follows; (1) One have “Vanity” for an interactive agent who is an observer. (2) Pro-social behavior is promoted by “Vanity” for interactive agents. (3) (1) can be also realized even when the prosocial behavior is PEB that are not supposed to be shared as one of our norms. In order to confirm these hypotheses, a comparison experiment employing an interactive agent and non-interactive agent was conducted. In the experiment, participants were asked to communicate with one agent for five minutes. After the communication, they were asked to wash dishes and to donate some money by the agent. Then, they were also asked to communicate with another agent, and they were asked to wash dishes and to donate by the agent as well. The amount of water use and the amount of donation were evaluated as indicators of PEB and prosocial behavior, respectively. Furthermore, the “Vanity” for the agent was measured by a questionnaire. As the result, there was a significant difference in the degree of “Vanity”, however there was no significant difference in the amount of water use and donation amount. The interactivity of the agent affected participants’ subjective feelings.