Similarly, it is easy to imagine a non-profit committed to influencing behaviour away from an easy, but ultimately detrimental behaviour, using a CRM Case Management framework to help encourage the desired behaviour. For example, an animal rescue non-profit might use a game where the player has the option to adopt a puppy from a shelter or buy one from a pet store. The process of selecting a pet can be very difficult: the final big decision involves many smaller sub-decisions, including where you go to look for your new best friend. The cognitive effort required in this chain of decisions might cause some would-be pet parents to default to the easier option (Garg et al., 2013) of getting a familiar purebred from a pet store, instead of what might be seen as the riskier choice of adopting a mutt from a shelter. A game that engages and immerses the player in exploring the outcomes of their choices—for example, shopping for a purebred and thereby unintentionally supporting the inhumane activities of puppy mills—might provide the necessary motivation to encourage players to overcome the negative task-related effect that can lead to the decider either delaying the decision or opting for the easiest, most comfortable alternative (Garg et al., 2013).
Consumer behaviourists have identified incidental greek mobile phone numbers effect—emotions caused by circumstances outside the control of marketers and potentially unrelated to purchasing decisions—as potentially hazardous to brands. Non-profit marketing professionals are similarly threatened by incidental effect, where an otherwise sympathetic audience member might react negatively to messaging after an unrelated incident leading to the stimulation of anger (Garg et al., 2013; Herrewijn & Poels, 2013; Carver & Scheier, 1990;). Gamers might argue that it is precisely these types of incidents that gamification can neutralise to varying degrees. Even after a negative encounter in a parking lot, a player might remain positively engaged with their upcoming task if it is presented as part of a larger “mission.” A well-designed game in the right hands might override some of the indirectly-related but potentially impactful factors.
Elizabeth A. Freudmann and Yiorgos Bakamitsos / Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 148 (2014) 567 – 572 that could lead to negative affect; and, in inherently being “fun” (McGonigal, 2011; Poels, de Kort, & Ijsselsteijn, 2007), games might necessarily create a high level of stimulation resulting in positive affect.