Engaging with energy reduction : does a climate change frame have the potential for achieving broader sustainable behaviour?

By Alexa Spence, C. Leygue, B. Bedwell, Claire O'Malley. 2014

110 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Reducing energy use is key in meeting ambitious climate change targets being set around the world. This research considers the psychological impact, and potential for behavioural spillover, resulting from receiving energy information framed in terms of financial costs or the environment. We utilised an online tool in order to present undergraduate participants with an energy display simulation of their own energy use and presented energy use in terms of kilowatt-hours, carbon dioxide (CO2), or costs. Study 1 found increased motivations to save energy for climate change reasons and some indications that environmental behaviour might increase after participants received CO2 information compared to alternatives. Study 2 found that CO2 information increased climate change salience, which mediated effects observed on environmental behaviour intentions. Data suggest that highlighting climate change in relation to energy savings may be useful for promoting broader environmental behaviour.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6702671e1933a2bb8ddd3a73dd885b37c0b8243b

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In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

1. Ben Anderson
2. Kathryn Buchanan
3. Riccardo Russo

Citations in the corpus

• Effects of Monetary Versus Environmental Information Framing: Implications for Long-Term Pro-Environmental Behavior and Intrinsic Motivation (2018, unknown): “To this point, only a few studies have examined the effects of monetarily or environmentally framed behavioral information on the target pro-environmental behavior or intentions (e.g., Bolderdijk, Steg, Geller, Lehman, & Postmes, 2013; Dogan, Bolderdijk, & Steg, 2014; Schwartz et al., 2015; Spence e”
• The question of energy reduction: The problem(s) with feedback (2015, background): “Second, framing feedback in terms of financial costs rather than CO2 savings may reduce the likelihood of climate change becoming a salient issue, and thus may negate the opportunity for behavioural spillover (e.g., Maio et al., 2009; Spence et al., 2014) – an effect whereby users may expand their e”