Eco-MAME: ecology activity promotion system based on human psychological characteristics

This study addresses constructing an activity promotion system called "Eco-MAME: Ecological platform for Motivating Activities with Mutual Effect" to let people start to carry out or continue environmentally conscious activities in local communities. We use a major psychological model for explaining the factors of intention for ecological behaviors and focus on people who already have intentions for goals but don't have intentions for execution, namely, people who cannot carry out activities even though they understand their importance. The Eco-MAME system visualizes one's own and others' activities to activate factors of intention. We emphasize showing activities of others to activate factors related to social norms or responsibility. We implemented the proposed system as a web site to conduct a local experiment, and the result showed that the more the user viewed the page the more he/she reduced the usage of the energy, namely, carry out more activities.