Norms, prices, and commitment: A comprehensive overview of field experiments in the energy domain and treatment effect moderators

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of field experiments utilizing social norms, commitment and price-based interventions to promote energy conservation, load shifting, and energy efficiency behaviors. Treatment effects reported in the extant literature, as well as the factors that may strengthen or dampen these effects are reviewed. We find that social norm and incentive-based interventions mostly achieve small reductions in energy consumption, and that the effects of commitment-based interventions are essentially zero for the most part. Incentive effects on energy efficiency investments are mostly non-existent, safe for a few exceptions. One gap that we identify is the almost complete absence of field experiments leveraging social norms or commitment to promote energy efficiency investments. We discuss a broad range of (mostly under-researched) plausible moderators of the interventions' effects. Crucially, a more careful attention to moderators in future research can highlight instances in which interventions can be effective, notwithstanding their modest or non-existent average treatment effects. Our review offers a starting point in this regard.

Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

“…Yet another difference between small- and large-scale interventions is that the latter communicates the social normative message via a third party, which might reduce the influence because people perceive that someone is trying to influence them (see refs. 33 – 35 for reviews). Taken together, although the WAAP-analysis suggests that large-scale interventions tend to have small average effects, these are indeed important tools as, by definition, large-scale interventions have the capacity for broader reach.…”

Promoting electricity conservation through behavior change: A study protocol for a web-based multiple-arm parallel randomized controlled trial

“…Behavioral science has been making strides in designing interventions to enhance electricity saving by targeting key determinants influencing individuals' energy-related decisions, encompassing elements like communicating social norms, consumption feedback, informational provision, commitment goals, and competition [2][3][4][5]. However, a recent overview [6] indicates that research outcomes have been varied, predominantly leaning toward small or non-significant effects of these interventions on energy consumption.…”

“…The proposed study will implement six distinct intervention types, which have been empirically established to influence behavior [6,8,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. It is important to note that all tips (intervention messages) and survey questions regarding shifting energy away from peak periods (including checking the website or app of the energy provider) will only be presented in Norway (as smart meters are not less widely adopted in the other participating countries).…”

Advancing realistic estimations of behaviour interventions: A large-scale real-world experiment on electricity consumption reduction in Europe

“…Moreover, commitment strategies appear particularly ineffective in the energy conservation domain. 12 Several papers propose that commitment strategies are particularly effective, if commitment is given in public (compared to private) form. [14][15][16][17] Introducing competitions to motivate energy saving has been also tested.…”