We'll save energy if the neighbours do first
Across America, a number of homeowners are beginning to reduce their household energy usage. But why?
It seems like a simple question with an obvious answer: those who conserve energy are probably doing so either to save money or to reduce their impact on the environment. But, as with many issues involving human decision-making, the reality is not that simple.
Researcher Robert Cialdini and colleagues wanted to find out the real reasons why homeowners conserved energy. To do so, they conducted a telephone survey in which they asked people to rank how important four different factors were in their decision to conserve. Those who answered the survey ranked the four factors in this order of most to least important: environmental concern; helping society; saving money; and because others do it. Yet when Cialdini correlated those answers with the answers respondents gave to additional questioning, a surprising trend emerged.
The study showed that perceptions about how many other people conserved energy were the best predictor of whether a homeowner conserved. In other words, homeowners who believed that most Americans conserved energy were themselves most likely to conserve. People who said they believed that protecting the environment or saving money were very important behaviors were only slightly more likely to conserve. The study indicated that not only were people unaware of why they conserved energy, but also that environmental concerns (and even financial savings) took a back seat to keeping up with the Joneses.
Could “social norms” — perceptions about what most other people are doing — be a key to getting the public to reduce their home energy usage? Cialdini and colleagues wanted to find out. In the second phase of their study, another set of homeowners was given one of four randomly selected brochures with a message that focused either on how conserving energy helped society, how it helped the environment, how it saved money, or how most other people were doing it. Cialdini then tracked the actual energy usage of participants’ houses over the following months. Want to take a guess as to which brochure led to the greatest reduction in energy use?
The brochure which invoked social norms by stating that most people already conserved energy was the only brochure that led homeowners to reduce their energy usage (Nolan et al. 913–924). This trend isn’t limited to energy conservation; other studies have confirmed that social norms messages can be more effective than pro-conservation messages in eliciting sustainable behaviours like reusing towels in a hotel, refraining from littering in a public park, and using less water in the shower (Goldstein, Cialdini and Griskevicius 2008; Cialdini 2003; Aronson and O’Leary 1983).
What are environmentalists to make of this? It’s hard to picture an environmental organisation using messages focused on the social norms of energy conservation instead of the environmental benefits. Yet the scientific record indicates that doing so could have a bigger payoff, especially in the short term.
Cialdini’s research highlights the need for environmental NGOs (and all of us armchair activists) to study the research on human psychology before crafting messages. Simply stating what we believe, or assuming we know what motivates human behaviour, leaves us less effective than we could be in creating change.
Editor’s note: This article was a guest post by Nick Cooney, director of The Humane League, an animal advocacy non-profit with offices in Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC; and author of “Change Of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change” (due for release this week by Lantern Books). The book examines 80 years of scientific research conducted on human psychology and related fields, and distills that research down into practical tips that animal rights organisations and other non-profits can use to more effectively persuade the public and create social change.
