Push yourself a bit harder: The impacts of force-based gestures on consumer decisiveness and self-regulation

Abstract

The emergence of force-based gestures (e.g., peek and pop) brings more functionalities to mobile interaction. Although it is believed that peek and pop could facilitate user navigation experience, the psychological and behavioral effects of force-based gestures remain unexplored. This study aims to investigate whether and how force-based gestures (gentle tap vs. hard press) influence mobile consumer decision making. Drawing on Embodied Cognition Theory and Mobile Application Usability literature, we propose that hard press (compared with gentle tap) could make consumers more decisive and thus lead to faster decisions; moreover, hard press (compared with gentle tap) could also facilitate willpower summoning and thus enhance consumer self-control. We also propose that these effects are contingent on visual responsiveness. Accordingly, a 2 by 2 lab experiment is designed. Potential theoretical contributions, practical implications as well as future research directions are discussed.