Repeated Behavior and Environmental Psychology: The Role of Personal Involvement and Habit Formation in Explaining Water Consumption¹

Abstract

Extending existing theory in social and environmental psychology, we develop a model to study important predictors of water consumption behavior. Overall results provide support for the predictive ability of stimuli (e.g., environmental awareness), reasoned processes (e.g., personal involvement), unreasoned processes (e.g., habits), and situational factors (e.g., income) on water consumption behavior. Findings indicate that households with lower water usage display greater awareness of water conservation issues, are more highly involved in the decision to use water, and tend to form habits associated with lower usage levels. Furthermore, the results are consistent with past research that attitudes toward water usage appear to be poor predictors of water consumption behavior. After controlling for situational factors (e.g., household size), the findings substantiate the role of personal involvement and habit formation in explaining water consumption, lending further support to the adaptation and development of repeated behavior models in environmental psychology.

Causes of Domestic Water Consumption Trends in the City of Alicante: Exploring the Links between the Housing Bubble, the Types of Housing and the Socio-Economic Factors

“…Other authors state that in homes with young families and with children, the average consumption is higher than in households where older people live [64,65]. It can also be observed that older people have better water saving habits, as shown in research carried out by Gregory and Di Leo [66] in Shoalhaven (Australia) and by Gilg and Barr [67] in Devon (Southwest England).…”

Optimal residential water conservation strategies considering related energy in California

“…Although the use of a uniform distribution should seem na€ ıve, Gregory and Di Leo [2003] reported that there is little or no correlation between general awareness of water conservation issues and household consumption, but their findings substantiate the role of personal involvement and habit formation. Because of the novelty of the research on environmental psychology on the link of reasoned and unreasoned influence on behavior, we have not found any empirical-based function in the literature that could capture this personal involvement and habit formation on water savings that could perform better than the uniform distribution for the consciousness factor.…”

Patterns of practice: a reflection on the development of quantitative/mixed methodologies capturing everyday life related to water consumption in the UK

“…These assume a rational actor model, where consumers will seek to maximise the efficiency with which they meet their preferences for watering the garden (for example) given the right technology and information. However, the effectiveness of such approaches can be limited: there is a well-observed "value action gap" (Gregory and di Leo, 2003) in people's behaviour -a disjoint between reported attitudes towards the environment and actual actions to reduce water use (see, e.g. Russell and Fielding, 2010 for a review of studies), whilst household water use is typically quite inelastic to price (Arbués et al, 2003;Schleich and Hillenbrand, 2009;Arbués et al, 2010).…”