Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Inducing Human Behaviour for Sustainability:Exploring Psycho-Social Aspects Determining Energy Conservation Behaviour


Affiliations
1 Department of Social Work, The Bhopal School of Social Sciences (BSSS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
2 School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Raisan, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


As the consensus has emerged across the globe to promote energy conservation for reducing green-house gas emissions worldwide, achieving low-carbon society and ensuring ecological sustainability have become primary objective for policymakers. To meet these energy conservation targets, energy scholarship has been asking to shift focus from promoting usage of energy-efficient appliances to reduce their usage, terming this as shifting from efficiency approach to curtailment approach. Promoting curtailment behaviour for energy conservation requires inducing pro-social behaviour among individuals, considering which, this study attempts to understand the psychosocial aspects those help determine individual’s behaviour towards energy conservation. In the backdrop of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TpB) framework, six psychometric variables, and to capture the socio-economic realities, five socio-economic measures from a representative sample of 550 individuals belonging to urban middle-class households of a city in Madhya Pradesh state of India were measured. Comparative tests to highlight differences in psychosocial measures among different socio-economic groups of individuals, tests to ascertain association between socio-economic and psychosocial measures, along with a linear regression analysis to predict behavioural intention were conducted. Study finds gender having no association with energy-conservation behaviour of individuals and points out certain threshold levels of age, household income, and energy expenditure, above and below which the performance of human behaviour towards energy conservation is likely to change. Further, mediating role of the values, beliefs, and subjective norms on the relationship between energy-conservation attitude and behavioural intention has been suggested along with discussing implications.

Keywords

Energy Conservation Behaviour, Pro-Social Behaviour, Sustainability.
Subscription Login to verify subscription
User
Notifications
Font Size


  • Abrahamse, W., & Steg, L. (2009). How do socio-demographic and psychological factors relate to households’ direct and indirect energy use and savings ? Journal of Economic Psychology, 30(5), 711-720. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2009.05.006

  • Abrahamse, W., & Steg, L. (2011). Factors related to household energy use and intention to reduce it : The role of psychological and socio-demographic variables. Human Ecology Review, 18(1), 30-40.

  • Abrahamse, W., Steg, L., Vlek, C., & Rothengatter, T. (2005). A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3), 273-291. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.08.002

  • Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckman (Eds.), Action-control: From Cognition to Behavior (pp. 1139). Heidelberg: Springer.

  • Berkhout, P. H. G., Muskens, J., & Veldhuijsen, J. W. (2000). Defining the rebound effect. Energy Policy, 28(6-7), 425-432.

  • Barnes, H., & Parks, C. (2012). Perceptions of behaviors that cause and mitigate global warming and intentions to perform these behaviors. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(3), 246-259. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2012.04.002

  • Barr, S., Gilg, A. W., & Ford, N. (2005). The household energy gap: Examining the divide between habitualand purchase-related conservation behaviours. Energy Policy, 33, 1425-1444. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2003.12.016

  • Brandon, G., & Lewis, A. (1999). Reducing household energy consumption: A qualitative and quantitative field study. Journal of Environmental Psychology 19, 75-85.

  • Yu, B., Zhang, J., & Fujiwara, A. (2011). Representing inhome and out-of-home energy consumption behavior in Beijing. Energy Policy, 39(2011), 4168-4177.

  • Croucher, M. (2011). Potential problems and limitations of energy conservation and energy efficiency. Energy Policy, 39(10), 5795-5799. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.07.011

  • Datar, C. (2011). Illustrations of sustainable natural resource use practices. In: Ecofeminism revisited: Introduction to the discourse. New Delhi: Rawat Publications; 2011 [chapter 12].

  • DeGischolar_main & Steg (2008), Value orientations to explain beliefs related to environental significant behaviour: How to measure egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values. Enviroment and Behaviour, 40(3), 330-354 .

  • Dietz, T., Gardner, G. T., Gilligan, J., Stern, P. C., & Vandenbergh, M. P. (2009). Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 106(44), 18452-18456.

  • Dwyer, P. C., Maki, A., & Rothman, A. J. (2015). Promoting energy conservation behavior in public settings: The influence of social norms and personal responsibility. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 41, 30-34. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.11.002

  • Gardner G. T., & Stren, P. C. (2002). Environmental problems and human behavior (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.

  • Jansson, J., Marell, A., & Nordlund, A. (2010). Green consumer behavior: Determinants of curtailment and eco-innovation adoption. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 27(4), 358-370. Retrieved from https:// doi.org/10.1108/07363761011052396

  • Langewin, J., Gurian, P. L., & Wen, J, (2013). Reducing energy consumption in low income public housing. Applied Energy, 102, 1358-1370.

  • Lingyun, M., Rui, N., Hualong, L., & Xiaohua, L. (2011). Empirical research of social norms affecting urban residents low carbon energy consumption behavior. Energy Procedia, 5, 229-234. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2011.03.041

  • Lutzenhiser, L. (1992). A cultural model of household energy consumption. Energy, 17(1), 47-60.

  • Lutzenhiser, L. (1993). Social and behavioral aspects of energy use. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 247-289.

  • Martinsson, J., Lundqvist, L. J., & Sundstr, A. (2011). Energy saving in Swedish households . The ( relative ) importance of environmental attitudes. Energy Policy, 39, 5182-5191. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.05.046

  • Mccalley, L. T., & Midden, C. J. H. (2002). Energy conservation through product-integrated feedback: The roles of goal-setting and social orientation. Journal of Economic Psychology, 23(5), 589-603.

  • Macey, S. (1991). A causal model of the adoption of home heating energy conservation measures. Energy, 16, 621-630.

  • Moll, H. C., Noorman, K. J., Kok, R., Engstrom, R., Throne-Holst, H., & Clark, C. (2005). Pursuing more sustainable consumption by analyzing household metabolism in European countries and cities. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(1-2), 259-578.

  • Oceja, L., & Berenguer, J. (2009). Putting text in context: The conflict between pro-ecological messages and anti-ecological descriptive norms. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 12, 657-666.

  • O’lander, F., & Thogerson, J. (1995). Understanding of consumer behavior as a prerequisite for environmental protection. Journal of Consumer Policy, 18, 317-357

  • Pachauri, S. (2004). An analysis of cross-sectional variations in total household energy requirements in India using micro survey data. Energy Policy, 32(15), 1723-1735.

  • Pachauri, R. (2008, September 19). Blog: Lifestyle changes for a healthy planet. Retrieved from http:// blog.rkpachauri.org/blog/4/Lifestyle-Changesfor-A-Healthy-Planet.htm

  • Pachauri, S., & Rao, N. D. (2013) Gender impacts and determinants of energy poverty: are we asking the right questions? Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability, 5(2), 205-215. DOI:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.04.006

  • Pandey, V. L., & Chaubal, A (2011). Comprehending household cooking energy choice in rural India. Biomass Bioenerg, 35(11), 4724-4731.

  • Parikh, J. K. (1995). Gender issues in energy policy. Energy Policy, 23(9), 745-54.

  • Raosoft Sample Size Calculator. Retrieved from http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html

  • Ryan, S. E. (2014). Energy research & social science rethinking gender and identity in energy studies. Energy Research & Social Science, 1, 96-105. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2014.02.008

  • Schwartz, S. H. (1973). Normative explanations of helping behavior: A critique, proposal, and empirical test. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 9, 349-364.

  • Schwartz, S. H. (1977). Normative influence on altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 221-279), New York: Academic Press.

  • Steg, L. (2008). Promoting household energy conservation, Energy Policy, 36, 4449–4453. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2008.09.027

  • Vandenbergh, M. P., Barkenbus, J., & Gilligan, J. (2008). Individual carbon emissions: The low hanging fruit. UCLA Law Review, 55, 1701-1758

  • Wenshun, W., Xiaohua, L., & Hualong, L. (2011). Empirical research of the environmental responsibility affected on the urban residential housing energy saving investment behavior. Energy Procedia, 5, 991-997. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2011.03.175

  • Werff, E. Van Der, & Steg, L. (2015). Energy research & social science one model to predict them all: Predicting energy behaviours with the norm activation model. Energy Research & Social Science, 6, 8-14. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2014.11.002

  • Warner, C. M., Cook, S., Colby, J., & Lim, H. J. (2012). Lights out in university classrooms: Brief group discussion can change behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(4), 418-426. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2012.07.001

  • Wei, Y. M., Liu, L. C., Fan, Y., & Wu, G., (2007). The impact of lifestyle on energy use and CO2 emission: An empirical analysis of China’s residents. Energy Policy 35, 247-257.


Abstract Views: 194

PDF Views: 0




  • Inducing Human Behaviour for Sustainability:Exploring Psycho-Social Aspects Determining Energy Conservation Behaviour

Abstract Views: 194  |  PDF Views: 0

Authors

Rutwik J. Gandhe
Department of Social Work, The Bhopal School of Social Sciences (BSSS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Satish C. Pandey
School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Raisan, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Abstract


As the consensus has emerged across the globe to promote energy conservation for reducing green-house gas emissions worldwide, achieving low-carbon society and ensuring ecological sustainability have become primary objective for policymakers. To meet these energy conservation targets, energy scholarship has been asking to shift focus from promoting usage of energy-efficient appliances to reduce their usage, terming this as shifting from efficiency approach to curtailment approach. Promoting curtailment behaviour for energy conservation requires inducing pro-social behaviour among individuals, considering which, this study attempts to understand the psychosocial aspects those help determine individual’s behaviour towards energy conservation. In the backdrop of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TpB) framework, six psychometric variables, and to capture the socio-economic realities, five socio-economic measures from a representative sample of 550 individuals belonging to urban middle-class households of a city in Madhya Pradesh state of India were measured. Comparative tests to highlight differences in psychosocial measures among different socio-economic groups of individuals, tests to ascertain association between socio-economic and psychosocial measures, along with a linear regression analysis to predict behavioural intention were conducted. Study finds gender having no association with energy-conservation behaviour of individuals and points out certain threshold levels of age, household income, and energy expenditure, above and below which the performance of human behaviour towards energy conservation is likely to change. Further, mediating role of the values, beliefs, and subjective norms on the relationship between energy-conservation attitude and behavioural intention has been suggested along with discussing implications.

Keywords


Energy Conservation Behaviour, Pro-Social Behaviour, Sustainability.

References