Association for Behavior Analysis International

While games have been a part of human culture for many years, gamification, or the application of game elements to another activity, is an under-utilized tool within the experimental analysis of behavior and within applied methodologies for promoting behavior change. A brief history of games and features of games are discussed, along with a behavior-analytic perspective of game elements; the future implications of gamification for basic and applied research are described. Current research adopting gamification in a behavioral intervention to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in school-aged children, as well as within a contingency management program for smoking cessation are reviewed. Novel developments in the experimental analysis of behavior using gaming environments are described, which allow us to explore behavior within complex environments where contingencies are constantly changing. These methods thus far support the utility of gamification as an engaging, sustainable approach to behavioral interventions, and as an effective, time-efficient mode of assessing dynamic reinforcement contingencies in humans.

School-based interventions designed to increase fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption can be effective, but the most effective ones require that schools allocate time, effort, and financial resources to program implementation. The present project used a behaviorally based gamification approach to develop an intervention designed to increase FV consumption while minimizing the school's labor/material costs. During the intervention, the school (N=180 students in grades K-8) played a cooperative game in which school-level goals were met by consuming either fruit or vegetables. School-level consumption was quantified using a weight-based waste measure in the cafeteria. Results of Study 1 showed that over a period of 18 school days, fruit consumption increased by 67% and vegetable consumption by 43% above baseline levels. Use of an alternating-treatment time-series design with differentiated levels of FV consumption on days when fruit or vegetable was targeted for improvement supported the role of the intervention in these overall consumption increases. These findings suggest that gamification principles may prove practically useful in addressing concerns about poor dietary decision making by children in schools. In Study 2, we further explore the gamification approach by examining the effects of (a) a longer-term intervention and (b) individual-level (in addition to group-level) consumption.

We developed an Internet-based Contingency Management (CM) intervention, where participants earn monetary incentives contingent on web-camera verified evidence of healthy behavior, such as smoking abstinence and diabetes management. Not only has our Internet-based CM intervention been effective at initiating smoking abstinence and diabetes regimen adherence (e.g., in a current clinical trial, 43% of videos submitted indicate smoking abstinence, compared with only 14% of videos submitted by a control group), participants have also rated the intervention favorably on a number of dimensions. To overcome barriers to Internet-based CM, such as the cost of incentives and long-term sustainability, we are currently developing a videogame-based CM intervention for smoking abstinence. Smokers will be able to earn game-based resources, or access to special features in the game, in place of monetary incentives. Videogame-based CM will promote widespread access to an innovative, fun, sustainable intervention at a relatively low cost (the game will be available to play for free), thereby offering the potential to have a substantial public health impact.