Use, Acceptance, and Adoption of Automated Systems with Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Based Incentive Mechanisms

Incentive mechanisms are used to encourage a behavior. Incentive mechanisms can be reputation incentives (social standing risks and rewards), gamification incentives (game-based elements in non-gaming environments), and feedback incentives (verbal or text feedback). Previous research suggests that reputation and gamification incentives provide extrinsic motivation (EM), while feedback incentives provide intrinsic motivation (IM). Incentive mechanisms vary in effectiveness, but most studies indicate that IM yielding incentives are most effective. Incentive mechanisms used to promote the use, acceptance, and adoption of automated systems can prove useful to organizations that do not want to waste resources on unused systems. Incentivizing the use, acceptance, and adoption of automated systems can enhance productivity, overall safety, and work-life balance. Though there are many studies on these topics, the relative effectiveness of different IM and EM incentive mechanisms has not been studied. This study fills that gap by examining the effectiveness of incentive mechanisms that affect IM and EM. The current study utilized reputation incentives, gamification incentives, feedback incentives, and a control group to compare the use, acceptance, and adoption of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in a simulated hostage rescue task. Data were collected on how frequently participants used the system. Following the hostage rescue task, participants were given questionnaires measuring motivation, acceptance, and adoption. This study provides insight into the relative influence of IM and EM-based incentive mechanisms to promote automated technologies. These results will help elucidate the steps that organizations like the Military can take to enhance warfighter buy-in and use of new technologies.