Promoting Sustainable Travel Behavior through IS-Enabled Feedback – Short-Term Success at the Cost of Long-Term Motivation?

The shaping of sustainable future transportation systems is posing serious challenges for policy-makers today and massive investments are made into infrastructures and travel demand management. Meanwhile, Green IS research is addressing the potential of information systems as high-scale, low-cost means of influencing human actions and has successfully been applying psychological theories. However, research is still in its early stages and while positive short-term effects are relatively well understood, little is known about the long-term effects of such measures. This study, investigates the impact of an IS-enabled social normative feedback intervention on the intrinsic motivation of participants of an e-bike commuting competition. The results of a four-month field study show a negative effect of the intervention on participants' intrinsic motivation, thus challenging long-term benefits of the measure. Additionally, our findings lend support to the reasoning of Cognitive Evaluation Theory that a dissatisfaction of participants' need for autonomy may underlie this effect.