Project description
Design framework to create avatars closing the intention-action gap
Virtual reality avatars have significant potential to motivate behaviour change yet how to design them effectively for this purpose remains poorly understood. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MOTIVE project aims to develop evidence-based guidelines for creating avatars that foster autonomy, competence and relatedness – characteristics known to drive sustained motivation. The team will focus on intention-action gaps in sustainable human practice. MOTIVE will combine development of psychometric measures and scales with controlled virtual reality experiments evaluating various avatars and their effects on behaviour. Outcomes could enable MOTIVE to equip researchers and practitioners with practical tools to harness avatar embodiment for sustained engagement in sustainability-relevant behaviours.
Objective
MOTIVE proposes a programme to guide designers and researchers in creating avatar-mediated immersive experiences that strengthen autonomy, competence and relatedness to support sustained action in effortful tasks relevant to sustainability. It addresses the intersection of Self-Determination Theory, avatar embodiment and immersive virtual reality (VR), which has yet to mature on theoretical, empirical and practical levels. It does so by: RO1) developing and validating a third-person psychometric scale that measures perceived need satisfaction in avatars; RO2) conducting an immersive VR experiment that manipulates avatar motivational profiles and tests causal effects on behaviour with moderation by individual differences; and RO3) synthesising findings into a practical framework and design guidelines for motivational embodiment and behaviour change, triangulating theoretical and empirical evidence. The host institution and my skills are highly complementary: I will transfer expertise in psychometrics and user studies, while Tampere University’s Gamification Group provides strengths in avatar design, gamification, human-computer interaction and sustainability needed to deliver the research objectives. The project will produce a validated scale, a replicable experimental paradigm and clear design guidelines for researchers and practitioners working on mixed reality and behaviour change. By addressing intention-action gaps through avatar design, MOTIVE contributes actionable methods and evidence for sustained engagement in sustainable human practice.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
33100 TAMPERE
Finland
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