For better or for worse? Empirical evidence of moral licensing in a behavioral energy conservation campaign

Tiefenbeck, Verena; Staake, Thorsten; Roth, Kurt; Sachs, Olga

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2013.01.021

Cited by 378 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Tiefenbeck et al (2013) utilised water consumption as a valid pro-environmental behaviour. Moreover, we adopted components from Catlin and Wang's (2012) study on paper usage to assess water consumption during a towel-washing task.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In one study, Clot, Grolleau, and Ibanez (2014) found that when participants performed pro-environmental behaviours, their willingness to donate to an environmental charity would reduce. Tiefenbeck, Staake, Roth, and Sachs (2013) observed that people who reduced water consumption actually increased their electricity usage later. There was additional evidence of individuals being selectively pro-environmental, such as behaving pro-environmentally at home but less so while travelling (Barr, Shaw, Coles, & Prillwitz, 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In today's global community, human-driven environmental problems have wide-reaching implications for many domains, such as climate change, air quality, water and noise pollution, depletion of the ozone layer, energy consumption, and loss of biodiversity (Steg & Velk, 2009;Tiefenbeck et al, 2013;Hautier et al, 2015). Within these scenarios, individuals are facing more extreme environmental events that could be detrimental to our overall life quality (Dominicis, Fornara, Cancellieri, Twigger-Ross, & Bonaiuto, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Can Previous Pro-Environmental Behaviours Influence Subsequent Environmental Behaviours? The Licensing Effect of Pro-Environmental Behaviours

Geng

Cheng

Tang

et al. 2016

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology

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M ethods for promoting individuals' pro-environmental behaviours are becoming very important. Besides traditional factors relevant to pro-environmental actions, few studies have examined the licensing effect within this domain. Across three studies we have explored whether the licensing effect really exists in pro-environmental behaviours, how this effect actually works, and how to inhibit or even avoid this effect. Results have revealed that previous pro-environmental behaviours lead to a decrease in subsequent pro-environmental behaviours, indicating a licensing effect. Also, the licensing effect in pro-environmental behaviours can be explained by having individuals focus on goal progress and reduced by focusing on goal commitment. Furthermore, attributional recall could be an intervention for mitigating the licensing effect.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Can Previous Pro-Environmental Behaviours Influence Subsequent Environmental Behaviours? The Licensing Effect of Pro-Environmental Behaviours

Geng

Cheng

Tang

et al. 2016

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology

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“…It could be the result of a moral licensing effect, if someone does "something good" (reduce their energy consumption patterns), they might then feel more justified in doing "something bad" (reduce their investment in efficiency), as they feel they have a moral license to do this. Empirical evidence of behavioural change in energy conservation campaigns has previously been ascribed to this effect (Tiefenbeck et al, 2013). In this case households who received information on their water consumption and reduced their usage, also increased their electricity consumption by 5.6 percent compared to a control group.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…As far as we are aware, this trade off between curtailment and efficiency behaviour has not been empirically demonstrated before, however other re-3 search has demonstrated perverse side effects between water and electricity usage in energy conservation campaigns (Tiefenbeck et al, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

Unintended outcomes of electricity smart-metering: trading-off consumption and investment behaviour

McCoy

Lyons

2016

Energy Efficiency

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Smart-metering allows electricity utilities to provide consumers with better information on their energy usage and to apply time-of-use pricing. These measures have been shown to reduce electricity consumption and induce time-shifting of demand. Less is known about how they affect residential energy efficiency investment behaviour. We use data from a randomisedcontrolled trial on a sample of almost 2500 Irish consumers, conducted over a 12 month period to investigate the effect of smart-metering and residential feedback on household investment behaviour. The results show that exposure to time-of-use pricing and information stimuli, while reducing overall and peak usage, can also have the unintended effect of reducing investment in energy efficiency measures within the home. Our findings indicate that households exposed to treatment were less likely to adopt any energy saving measure (23-28% on average); and those households adopted less energy saving features than those in the control group (15-21% on average). This result highlights the potential for behavioural interventions to have unintended consequences on behaviours other than those specifically targeted. Furthermore it underlines the importance of examining a wider range of outcomes and allowing longer time-scales when evaluating this type of experiment.Keywords Residential electricity smart-metering · Randomised-controlled trial · Energy efficiency investment IntroductionReducing energy consumption and increasing the adoption of energy saving measures and energy efficient appliances are seen as crucial elements in reducing energy demand. A recent EU directive 1 , aims to "remove barriers and overcome market failures that impede efficiency in the supply and use of energy". The reluctance of users to adopt energy efficient appliances that offer them seemingly positive NPV is known as the "Energy Paradox" and has been widely studied (Blumstein et al

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Voluntary carbon offsetting and consumer choices for environmentally critical products—An experimental study

et al. 2021

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Purchases of voluntary carbon offsets (VCOs) are growing tremendously. At the same time, the number of activities and products for which VCOs are available is increasing. Experts discuss whether offering VCOs is exclusively associated with positive effects on the environment or if it instead may lead to increased consumption of environmentally critical products. To date, empirical evidence on such adverse effects is scarce. Therefore, this study uses a randomized controlled trial design to investigate how the availability of VCOs affects consumers' choices for environmentally critical products. The results suggest that when VCOs are available, the likelihood of environmentally critical consumption increases. From a mental accounting perspective, our findings support the theoretical rationale of VCOs as an instrument for moral licensing. Additionally, our results indicate that individuals tend to trivialize the harmfulness of the environmentally critical product and overestimate the effectiveness of VCOs for environmental protection, which we consider strategies for reducing cognitive dissonance and guilt.

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For better or for worse? Empirical evidence of moral licensing in a behavioral energy conservation campaign

Cited by 378 publications

References 51 publications

Can Previous Pro-Environmental Behaviours Influence Subsequent Environmental Behaviours? The Licensing Effect of Pro-Environmental Behaviours

Can Previous Pro-Environmental Behaviours Influence Subsequent Environmental Behaviours? The Licensing Effect of Pro-Environmental Behaviours

Unintended outcomes of electricity smart-metering: trading-off consumption and investment behaviour

Voluntary carbon offsetting and consumer choices for environmentally critical products—An experimental study

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