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While personality traits have been prominently studied as moderators of digital interventions, social-cognitive perspectives on intervention effectiveness are scarce. In the present paper, we sought to understand how social-cognitive processes that define an (un)reflective user - namely, self-enhancement, social projection, and cognitive reflection - moderate the effectiveness of two prominent digital interventions aimed at reducing digital consumption (one sec) and improving productivity (Structured). We propose that understanding a user's perceptual processes can help researchers understand the focal points of the effectiveness of these digital interventions and inform them about targeted ways to tailor digital interventions to the user persona. In two intervention experiments (N = 1809; N = 1932) with two digital interventions realized by two actual smartphone applications - one sec and Structured - we tested the moderating effects of self-enhancement on digital behavior change, of social projection on users' subjective experiences with the intervention, and of cognitive reflection on the probability of a user dropping out of the intervention experiment.
Grüning et al. (2024) studied this question.