Personalizing reminders to personality for melanoma self-checking

This paper investigates whether different types of persuasive reminder should be sent to patients with different personalities. We describe a study where we presented participants with a personality measure, then describe a scenario with a fictional patient, who has not performed a skin check for recurrent melanoma. We asked patients to imagine they are in that situation and rate validated reminders based on Cialdini's 6 principles of persuasion for their suitability. Participants then chose their favourite reminder, and an alternative reminder to send if that one failed. We found that persuasive reminders that use `Authority' and 'Liking' are the most popular overall. We also found that personality had an effect when deciding on the type of persuasive reminder to use. In particular, we have found that those with high emotional stability are more responsive to any kind of persuasion, those with low agreeableness rated all types of reminder higher than those with high, and that conscientiousness matters when selecting an alternative reminder.