Talking with consumers about energy reductions: recommendations from a motivational interviewing perspective

Abstract

Reduction of energy costs has become a concern for many organizations. First, we review energy-saving studies in organizations in which consumers showed resistance to change their behavior. Second, we relate resistance to change to the psycholinguistic construct “sustain talk” that describes verbal arguments against behavior change (e.g., “Work processes have priority here”). Third, we argue how Motivational Interviewing (MI)—an interaction-approach to facilitate behavior change—might be helpful in dealing with this behavior. We transfer MI to interactions about energy-savings in organizations and demonstrate how qualification in MI for energy managers may affect these interactions. Therefore, we present three short case scenarios (i.e., video vignettes) that demonstrate socio-interactional mechanisms underlying energy-relevant decisions and behaviors. Consumer' verbal responses are graphed as one single time-variant index of readiness versus resistance (R-index) in order to illustrate interactional dynamics. In sum, we combine theoretical and empirical perspectives from multiple disciplines and discuss an innovative socio-interaction approach that may facilitate energy-efficient behavior in organizations.

Using Motivational Interviewing to reduce threats in conversations about environmental behavior

“…Organizations are increasingly implementing social change agents in order to increase employees’ motivation for sustainable behavior (e.g., Kraft and Neubeck, 2004 ; Carrico and Riemer, 2011 ; Steiner et al, 2011 ; Kauran, 2013 ; Klonek and Kauffeld, 2015 ). For organizational practice, our findings imply that change agents aiming to improve environmental conservation behaviors need to show interaction behavior that adheres to MI principles and aligns with the core tenets of SDT (i.e., change agents should respect recipients’ need for autonomy and facilitate self-determined decisions).…”

“…To assess whether this need is being met in change agent/recipient interactions, organizations could implement quality assurance measures (e.g., the MI spirit rating scale from the MITI). Finally, in order to reduce perceived confrontation during such interactions, organizations should consider training change agents in MI (see also Klonek and Kauffeld, 2015 ). Discussing discrepancies between current energy use and organizational benchmarks to save a certain amount of energy would likely not only be perceived by employees as less threatening but could also yield the intended behavior change as a result.…”

“…Motivational Interviewing as a communication method has been applied in numerous behavior change settings, such as reducing risk behavior (e.g., Colby et al, 1998 ; McCambridge and Strang, 2004 ), treating psychological problems ( Burke, 2011 ), or promoting healthy behavior (cf., Lundahl et al, 2010 ; Perry and Butterworth, 2011 ). Whereas MI was traditionally taught to practitioners in the helping professions, it is also highly suitable for the context of environmental behavior ( Tribble, 2008 ; Forsberg et al, 2014 ; Klonek and Kauffeld, 2015 ). For example, Klonek and Kauffeld (2015) suggest that human resources departments could provide MI training for energy managers in order to reduce organizational energy consumption.…”

“…Whereas MI was traditionally taught to practitioners in the helping professions, it is also highly suitable for the context of environmental behavior ( Tribble, 2008 ; Forsberg et al, 2014 ; Klonek and Kauffeld, 2015 ). For example, Klonek and Kauffeld (2015) suggest that human resources departments could provide MI training for energy managers in order to reduce organizational energy consumption. In support of this argument, Forsberg et al (2014) showed that MI training increased the conversational skills of Swedish environmental inspectors.…”

Avoidance, Rationalization, and Denial: Defensive Self-Protection in the Face of Climate Change Negatively Predicts Pro-Environmental Behavior

“…We based the construction of the CSPS on a literature review of psychological and sociological studies on defensive, self-protective strategies and coping in the environmental domain. We developed a pool of items based on qualitative interviews by Stich and Wagner (2012), Norgaard (2011), and Klonek and Kauffeld (2015), open-ended questions by Ojala (2012), and theoretical considerations by Opotow and Weiss (2000). Moreover, we translated and adapted quantitative measures by Homburg et al (2007), Sparks et al (2010), Lavergne & Pelletier (2015), and Zaalberg, Midden, Meijnders, and McCalley (2009) into German.…”