Exploring the Impact of Psychological Incentive Design on Community Vitalization: A Multi-Agent Simulation and Field Experiment Approach

This study investigates how dynamic psychological mechanisms—particularly self-efficacy—can enhance user engagement in community-based digital systems. We combine a multi-agent simulation and a 121-day field experiment to compare system designs with and without psychological adaptation. In the simulation, agents with adaptive self-efficacy formed larger social networks and exhibited more gift-giving behavior. In the real-world setting, three staged interventions—a gift reimbursement scheme, social rankings, and a step prediction contest—were introduced to stimulate motivation. Results show that while the effect of extrinsic incentives declined over time, user participation remained stable, suggesting partial internalization of motivation. The study provides empirical evidence for integrating psychological constructs into digital community design and offers a framework for measuring motivational impact beyond short-term reward effects.