The interaction of descriptive and injunctive social norms in promoting energy conservation

Bonan, Jacopo; Cattaneo, Cristina; d’Adda, Giovanna; Tavoni, Massimo

doi:10.1038/s41560-020-00719-z

Cited by 73 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…This may be because water consumption in the UK is generally lower than that found in the US and Colombia, so there is less scope for improvement. This is similar to the findings in energy-focused interventions, that effect sizes in Europe are smaller than those in the US, due to the lower energy consumption in Europe [24,25]. The average water consumption of an individual living in the US is around 400 L per day, whereas in the UK it is 141 L per day.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…The intervention was found to reduce household energy consumption by around 2.2%. The intervention has since been conceptually replicated across other countries but was found to have smaller effect sizes in Germany [24] and Italy [25]. Similarly, this approach has also effectively reduced household water consumption by around 4% in the US and Colombia [26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Norms Based Eco-Feedback for Household Water Consumption

Ramli

2021

Sustainability

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Physical water scarcity is a growing threat to people’s lives around the world. Non-pecuniary interventions that encourage water conservation amongst households are an effective tool to promote sustainable consumption. In a randomised field experiment on 3461 UK households, a social norms based eco-feedback intervention was found to reduce water consumption by around 5.43 L a day or by 1.8% over 29 months. This effect did not persist for the 10 months after the intervention was stopped suggesting a lack of habit formation. Unlike previous studies, households with low consumption at baseline reduced their consumption the most, while high consumers did not. Heterogeneity was also found across quantile treatment effects, where households in the top and bottom quantiles increased their consumption. These results further contribute to the growing evidence on the effectiveness of combining social norms and eco-feedback as an intervention for conservation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Norms Based Eco-Feedback for Household Water Consumption

Ramli

2021

Sustainability

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“…Empirical cooperators respond positively to what they expect others to do while threshold-driven respond negatively to their empirical expectations; normative expectation-driven cooperators and social norm followers respond positively to an increase in normative expectations. This implies policy making must embrace heterogeneity, designing interventions that reach all types based on both empirical and normative expectations and avoiding potentially harmful messages that focus only on empirical affairs that may backfire for some individuals (threshold types in our context) 34 . Finally, we have shown that a precise, measurable definition of social norm allows quantitative analyses lead to insights about the feedbacks between norms and behavior, leading in turn to specific predictions of optimal behavioral change interventions relevant to global societal challenges.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence from a long-term experiment that collective risks change social norms and promote cooperation

et al. 2021

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Social norms can help solve pressing societal challenges, from mitigating climate change to reducing the spread of infectious diseases. Despite their relevance, how norms shape cooperation among strangers remains insufficiently understood. Influential theories also suggest that the level of threat faced by different societies plays a key role in the strength of the norms that cultures evolve. Still little causal evidence has been collected. Here we deal with this dual challenge using a 30-day collective-risk social dilemma experiment to measure norm change in a controlled setting. We ask whether a looming risk of collective loss increases the strength of cooperative social norms that may avert it. We find that social norms predict cooperation, causally affect behavior, and that higher risk leads to stronger social norms that are more resistant to erosion when the risk changes. Taken together, our results demonstrate the causal effect of social norms in promoting cooperation and their role in making behavior resilient in the face of exogenous change.

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“…This estimated mitigation wedge is conservative. The reductions could be enhanced by using our evidence on interactions between the various interventions, including the consideration of interaction between injunctive and descriptive norms 45 , and the interaction between social norms, behavioral interventions and infrastructure provisions or building design 47 . Cost effectiveness of a basket of interventions should also be assessed by taking into account the costs of different interventions (monetary incentives for example could entail higher infrastructure and regulatory costs).…”

Section: Discussion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing carbon emissions of households through monetary incentives and behavioral interventions: a meta-analysis

Khanna

Baiocchi

Callaghan

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Despite the importance of evaluating all mitigation options so as to inform policy decisions addressing climate change, a systematic analysis of household-scale interventions to reduce carbon emissions is missing. Here, we address this gap through a state-of-the-art machine-learning assisted meta-analysis to comparatively assess the effectiveness of a range of monetary and behavioral interventions in energy demand of residential buildings. We identify 122 studies and extract 360 effect sizes representing trials on 1.2 million households in 25 countries. We find that all the studied interventions reduce energy consumption of households. Our meta-regression evidences that monetary incentives are on an average more effective than behavioral interventions, but deploying the right combinations of interventions together can increase overall effectiveness. We estimate global cumulative emissions reduction of 8.64 Gt CO2 by 2040, though deploying the most effective packages and interventions could result in greater reduction. While modest, this potential should be viewed in conjunction with the need for de-risking mitigation with energy demand reductions and realizing substantial co-benefits.

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The interaction of descriptive and injunctive social norms in promoting energy conservation

Cited by 73 publications

References 55 publications

Social Norms Based Eco-Feedback for Household Water Consumption

Social Norms Based Eco-Feedback for Household Water Consumption

Evidence from a long-term experiment that collective risks change social norms and promote cooperation

Reducing carbon emissions of households through monetary incentives and behavioral interventions: a meta-analysis

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