Intentional Forgetting of Everyday Work Behavior - Assessment, Formalization, and Integration into Interactive Systems

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Sabine Sonnentag; Professor Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; Security and Dependability, Operating-, Communication- and Distributed Systems
• Term: from 2016 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 318151256

This project focuses on forgetting of unwanted habits in the job context. We shall examine the circumstances that help employees to actually abandon habits that they regard as dysfunctional and they wish to get rid of, and if persuasive systems can support this process. In the second project phase we shall develop design guidelines for the design and development of persuasive systems that support the forgetting of dysfunctional habits. We shall develop a prototype for such a persuasive system and shall subsequently examine a generalization, both from a conceptual and an empirical perspective. In a sequence of (quasi-)experimental field studies we shall test if self-regulatory processes and the use of the persuasive system can contribute to a short-term as well a longer-term change of dysfunctional habitual behavior. We will examine organizational context factors that support the change of habitual behavior.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1921: Intentional Forgetting