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If you wish to develop a computer application that influences people or leads them to an attitude or behaviour change then you will want to read the following information in order to maximize your impact with your desired audience. Whether your objective is to persuade people to maintain a healthy lifestyle by exercising more or smoking less, or to persuade people to purchase your goods or services then the following pages will be of benefit. Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the information.
 * How Can Captology (Computers As Persuasive Technologies) Be Used To Design Applications?**

This wiki will explore the emerging field of Captology as first defined by BJ Fogg in 1997 which detailed how computers could be used to persuade people to change their attitudes and behaviours. He and his team at Stanford University identified a sub-set of technologies (Fig 1) which has the capability to influence people's behaviours. They named this new field "Captology" - Computers As Persuasive Technologies. media type="custom" key="12521380"

While Captology investigates the influences that computers and their applications can have on people, it is important to first understand and to define what persuasion is and how people are influenced. We will have a look at one of the most accepted models of persuasion which is Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model. This model details the two possible routes that lead to successful attitude and / or behaviour change. We will also have a brief look at the social or peripheral cues as defined by Cialdini which can be used as part of a persuasive message.

Having examined the two ways in which persuasion can be employed and how that persuasion can be used by technologies, we will then look at how Applied Captology is successful using technologies to influence and change behaviours.

Computers never forget, they don’t need to sleep, and they can be programmed to never stop trying. For better or worse, computers provide us with a new avenue for changing how people think and act. So it is important to look at the ethics involved in captology.

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Next: What is the ELM?