Comparing the Effects of Monetary Incentives and Foot‐in‐the‐Door Strategies in Promoting Residential Electricity Conservation

Abstract

The relative effectiveness of incentive and minimal justification techniques in promoting electrical energy conservation among 90 homeowners was investigated. Subjects in the Questionnaire condition were asked to complete a short energy conservation survey. Those in the Commitment condition were asked to curtail their consumption of electricity by 15%. In the Questionnaire + Commitment condition, subjects received both requests. These three groups were compared to an Incentive condition, where individuals were offered a highly attractive monetary incentive for conserving electricity, a Questionnaire + Commitment + Incentive condition, and a Control condition. The groups did not differ in electricity consumption during baseline, initial request, or follow-up periods. However, during the conservation period, homeowners in the Commitment and the combined treatment groups conserved more electricity and contained more conservers than either of the remaining groups. These outcomes were discussed in terms of the comparative effectiveness of minimal justification and incentive strategies for inducing behavioral change.How can the likelihood that an individual will engage in prosocial behavior be increased? Recent research on this question (Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Clark, 1981;Staub, 1978Staub, , 1979 Wispe, 1978) has shown clearly how a number of factors can inhibit the occurrence of such behavior. For example, in spite of their attitudes, intentions, and moral convictions about the importance of acting in a socially responsible way, individuals are often confronted with powerful social inhibitors-for example, diffusion of responsibility, evaluation apprehension, and pluralisitc ignorance-which precent them from doing so. This study explores the conditions under which individuals can effectively 'Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard Katzev,

Changing behaviour: Increasing the effectiveness of workplace interventions in creating pro‐environmental behaviour change

“…These have covered a vast range of both antecedents and consequences of pro-environmental behavior. For instance, Katzev and Johnson (1983) and Pallak and Cummings (1976) demonstrated that commitment had longterm effects for reducing household energy use, however, later research did not find any support for long-term effects (Katzev & Johnson, 1984). Research on goal setting (Becker, 1978;McCalley & Midden, 2002) has shown that goal setting combined with feedback led to significant reductions in energy use.…”

Information strategies and energy conservation behavior: A meta-analysis of experimental studies from 1975 to 2012

“…Such strategies send non-price signals to participants that activate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Besides comparative feedback, motivational strategies also include the use of competitions (e.g., McMakin et al, 2002) and goal-setting (e.g., Katzev and Johnson, 1984) where participants are assigned or select non-binding goals over a defined period of time.…”

“…Pricing information has been widely used to induce individuals to save energy (Battalio et al, 1979;Katzev and Johnson, 1984;. Despite the direct financial benefits of saving energy, research indicates that providing information about the cost of energy use does not necessarily affect energy use behavior among households (Lindén et al, 2006).…”

Using behavioural insights for citizen compliance and cooperation

“…The use of norms on collective behavior has strong effects, such as Peterson et al's (2007) findings on energy consumption in dormitories. The use of feedback and/or norms on household bills is now a strong and repeated finding for energy (see Hayes and Cone 1977); (Winett et al 1982); (Midden et al 1983); (Katzev and Johnson, 1984); (Brandon and Lewis 1999); (Matsukawa 2004 In a slight variation on the use of social norms, public shaming and stigmatisation has been explored in relation to tax compliance. This is not the case with energy, likely linked to the fact that energy is a non-compulsory area and it is harder to tap into social norms against which people can be stigmatised or shamed.…”

“…Both Kirchler et al (2007) and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (Cabinet Office 2012) have reviewed the evidence on the impact of emphasising positive social norms (i.e. highlighting good behaviour from reference groups) on tax compliance, and shown that it is also an effective way of increasing tax compliance in individuals.…”