Crystal Smit

Chapter 5 102 1.5 l of water per day. All the benefits in this presentation were based on short- term outcomes (e.g., “Drinking water makes your skin beautiful” and “Drinking water ensures that you can concentrate better”) because these are considered more motivating than long-term consequences (Chandran & Menon, 2004). Figure 5.1 Influence agents working together on a word web about the benefits of drinking water The technique of encouraging self-initiation of drinking water involves prompting individuals to initiate the target behavior themselves, which provides them with an opportunity to learn and develop the associated skills, all of which support their intrinsic motivation (Gillison et al., 2019; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Teixeira et al., 2020). Hence, after discussing the benefits of drinking water in the training, the influence agents were encouraged to drink more water themselves through the use of self-persuasion (Aronson, 1999). This involved placing them in a situation where they had to persuade themselves to drink more water (Miller & Wozniak, 2001; Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000). More specifically, the influence agents were asked to generate their own arguments that indicate how they could drink more water in order to persuade themselves to do so (see Figure 5.2).