Explainability as a Psychological Inoculation: Building Resistance to Digital Persuasion in Online Gambling through Explainable Interfaces

Persuasive interfaces raise ethical concerns when users are unaware of persuasion or find it hard to resist it. Inoculation Theory suggests that attitudes can be inoculated against persuasive attacks. Studies show that disclosure statements in native advertising help people recognize persuasive intent. Likewise, just-in-time disclosure statements in persuasive interfaces may have a similar effect. In this article, explainable persuasion was used as an inoculation intervention to build resistance against persuasive interfaces. The effectiveness of this approach was assessed via a 4x2 online experiment, taking online gambling as an illustrative domain. 240 participants (age range 18–73 years, 138 male, 100 female, 2 participants choose not to disclose) were recruited from the UK. Inoculation was delivered through an animated video, while explainable persuasion was operationalized through the disclosure of persuasive intent. The findings showed that explainable persuasion increased awareness of the presence and risks of persuasive interfaces and strengthened user resistance to persuasive attempts. Explainable persuasion, being information-based, can be a cost-effective strategy for helping people stay in control over their digital usage while engaging with persuasive technologies.