Using social norms in energy conservation interventions
Abstract: When designing interventions to promote pro-environmental behaviors, practitioners may choose between techniques based on for example education, incentives, commitments, or social norms. These intervention techniques may, however, target different kinds of motivation, and therefore differ in their psychological and behavioral implications. It is therefore important to examine the motivational bases and implications of intervention techniques targeting pro-environmental behavioral change. The aim of the current licentiate thesis is to assess norm-based intervention techniques targeting energy conservation. Study I compared the psychological and behavioral implications of a contest-based and a norm-based intervention technique. Building on Goal-framing theory, we predicted that the contest-based intervention technique would frame a gain goal, while the norm-based intervention technique would frame a normative goal. Results of three experiments showed that participants who engaged in writing energy-saving tips and performed a recycling task under a contest-based intervention technique engaged more intensively in the tasks, but also made more errors, than participants who performed these tasks in a norm-based intervention technique. We also found a significant mediational path from writing energy-saving tips, via personal norms, to intentions of future energy conservation only for the norm-based intervention technique. Moreover, after conducting the recycling task, participants in the norm-based intervention technique tended to show stronger obligations to perform the non-targeted pro-environmental behaviors energy conservation behaviors and acceptance of pro-environmental policies. Based on the focus theory of normative conduct, Study II examined compliance to combinations of prescriptive and proscriptive norms, targeting an overt energy conservation behavior. We tested an “attention-reactance proposition”, predicting that prompts including both a prescriptive norm and a proscriptive norm (dual-injunctive prompts) would both attract attention and prevent reactance, and therefore elicit greater compliance than prompts including only prescriptive or proscriptive norms (single-injunctive prompts). Results from a field experiment found that 88.1% of the participants exposed to the dual-injunctive prompts turned off the lights in a public restroom compared with 78.6% of the participants exposed to the single-injunctive prompt. To test how these prompts were perceived, an online survey measured emotional response and rated reactance to all four prompts. Results generally supported the attention-reactance proposition. Finally, participants were also asked to choose the prompt they thought would encourage as many people as possible to turn off the lights after using a public bathroom. Results showed that a majority (80.5%) of the participants chose the single-injunctive prompt, which was the least effective prompt in promoting energy conservation in our field experiment. Study I and II highlights the role of social norms, both as an intervention technique increasing obligations and intentions for engaging in energy conservation and to increase energy conservation.
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