The Gap Between Words and Actions

Global issues related to energy and climate, biodiversity, and food—as well as peace and security—often require a collective change in behavior. In addition to legislation and pricing, communication also plays an important role in this regard. Public campaigns such as “Everyone Does Their Part” (Dutch Government, 2019) encourage people to make sustainable choices. But in practice, it often proves difficult to actually achieve this. The so-called attitude-behavior gap plays a persistent role in this: you think it’s important, but in the end, you don’t do anything about it.

According to the popular Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) states that the intention to take action is the most direct determinant of a person’s behavior. Stronger intentions could therefore narrow the gap between saying and doing. Games can help with this and are therefore increasingly being used to highlight the importance of a sustainable society.

Behavioral interventions that focus solely on increasing knowledge often have little effect. What makes games so appealing is their interactive nature. Players experience choices and connect with the values and attitudes that underlie the intention to take action. Games can create personal experiences, making social issues that sometimes seem overwhelming and distant become understandable and relevant. As a result, they can also be an effective tool for reaching skeptics.

In an ideal game, the message is woven into the content without any explicit attempts to persuade the player, because that can backfire. You want players, as it were, to convince themselves to do certain things differently in their daily lives after playing the game. For example, making their homes more sustainable or buying less fast fashion. But what else must a game do to actually achieve that potential behavioral impact?

In recent decades, more and more game researchers have been exploring this question. Because despite the increasing use of games to influence attitudes and behavior ( persuasive games) the results of impact studies often do not yet seem convincing. Such studies often only examine whether a game “works” as a whole. While this certainly yields interesting insights, it says little about the underlying impact of games. To learn more about this, it is important to examine the effects of specific features of games.

Motivated by the importance of collective behavioral change and inspired by the versatility of games, I used various case studies to investigate how games that promote a sustainable society can have a positive effect on players’ behavior after playing such a game. Using online questionnaires administered before and after a gaming session, we measured, among other things, the extent to which players’ attitudes, subjective norms (the perception of how most people behave), perceived control (the degree of control you feel over your behavior), and sense of responsibility had increased as a result of the game, and how this related to any minor behavioral changes. In addition, interviews were conducted to gather insights into players’ experiences during the game and to receive further feedback.

The studies varied considerably in terms of subject matter, format, player types, and setting: from a mobile game about active listening for students and a board game about veganism to a cybersecurity training program for management staff. Existing games were adapted, and new games were also developed for the study. Despite the differences among the games used and the limitations that researchers inevitably face, the study has yielded interesting results for future research. At the same time, it also aims to be useful in practice by offering concrete guidance for game designers.

If your game ultimately does what you want it to, that’s great, of course. But you just don’t know to what extent players will stick with their “new” behavior. You can assume that a seed has been planted, but it might not get enough water to keep growing. To increase the likelihood of a lasting effect, it’s therefore advisable to use games as part of larger and longer-term interventions. That way, the small steps taken might gradually become bigger and bigger.

In short, games can make a valuable contribution to behavioral interventions, provided you take a number of factors into account. I therefore hope that my research provides inspiration for successfully using games to help build a sustainable society. The key seems to be keeping things small, concrete, and realistic.

Are you a scientist or researcher interested in exploring how games can raise awareness? We invite you to collaborate with us. Together, we can translate your research through visualization and gamification to achieve greater reach and impact in society ▼