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ENERGY CONSERVATION BEHAVIOUR

Three thumbs up for social norms

Nature Energy volume 5, pages 826–827 (2020)Cite this article

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Social norm interventions are widely used to foster residential resource conservation. Now researchers have shown that the effectiveness of providing information about others’ energy use alongside messages of social approval for energy savings behaviour depends on the strength and consistency of these messages.

Writing in Nature Energy, Jacopo Bonan and colleagues from the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, the Polytechnic University of Milan and the University of Milan6, further explore how energy consumption changes when injunctive feedback pulls behaviour in the same or opposite direction as descriptive information. In their field experiment, 256,487 Italian households received home energy reports that included descriptive norm information on how their energy use compares to their peers, as well as injunctive norm information that varied in strength, ranging from one thumbs up (“you can do better”) to three thumbs up (“excellent”). Consistent with previous studies, they found that, on average, utility customers who received descriptive and injunctive norms information about their energy consumption reduced their energy usage, although the magnitude of savings — 0.35% — is much smaller than similar field experiments conducted in the United States (which range from 0.88% to 2.55%7).

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  1. Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Jon M. Jachimowicz

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  1. Jon M. Jachimowicz
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Correspondence to Jon M. Jachimowicz.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Jachimowicz, J.M. Three thumbs up for social norms. Nat Energy 5, 826–827 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00723-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00723-3

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