‘relational line’) separately. The two elements that make up the relational line are discussed integrally alongside the line itself. First, a short explanation is given of why the given interaction is relevant. Then the scientific field(s) that is/are relevant
for influencing this relational line and knowledge that can be gleaned for HEMS is discussed. The first part of the framework explained in more detail is the user and the interaction with other people. This is because the main body of knowledge on issues surrounding HEMS is from social sciences and centres on influencing behaviour.
§ 3.3.1
User <-> other people: the fields of social and environmental psychology:
Relevance of the interaction between the user and other people
This interaction is relevant because a household often consists of more than one person and all household members contribute to the overall household energy consumption, as discussed in § 2.2.3 and § 2.2.4. A HEMS is intended to influence the energy consumption and behaviour of different household members, either directly or possibly also indirectly through the interactions and dialogues between different household members. How many people use the HEMS within the household and how they use it is a factor that is explored in this research.
The fields of social and environmental psychology have attempted to influence the energy-related behaviours of household in various ways, as is detailed in the following section. In particular, feedback is viewed as an important or core element in lowering the environmental impact of households, and therefore this research is grounded within the fields of social and environmental psychology. However, social and environmental psychology has predominantly been interested in influencing the behaviour of household members through the intervention feedback, and has been less interested in the medium by which feedback is given, the HEMS. That is why feedback and its working principles are discussed within this relational line.
§ 3.3.1.1 The field of social and environmental psychology
Two strategies to influence behaviour that are commonly used within the fields of social and environmental psychology are addressed in this thesis, namely using interventions to achieve behaviour change and using influence tactics. These are not strictly disparate strategies, but they do represent different schools of thought. Influence strategies are not completely dissimilar to interventions, but they have a different accent or work on a different scale with several influence strategies being applicable to just one intervention strategy. The following section discusses both in more detail. A brief overview of the various strategies applied within social and
environmental psychology, along with their applicability to HEMS, is given, with a particular focus on feedback – the core principle of HEMS.
A Intervention strategies
Interventions are commonly used in the fields of social and environmental psychology and medical/health sciences to help people change a certain behaviour or habit or its context. There is also quite an extensive body of knowledge on the role that interventions can play in achieving pro-environmental behaviour. Within this field there are two main types of interventions: structural interventions – which are aimed at altering the context and conditions in which a behaviour takes place – and psychological (or ‘behavioural’) interventions, which aim at altering “already existing perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, norms and values” (Abrahamse, 2007). Structural interventions are commonly divided into “financial–economic measures, physical/technical alternatives [which design interventions can be a part of] and legal regulation” (ibid.).
Abrahamse et al. (2005) divide behavioural interventions used in research on household energy consumption into two subcategories, namely antecedent interventions (preceding a targeted behaviour) and consequence interventions (succeeding a targeted behaviour). The main forms of antecedent interventions are goal setting (setting a specific target to reach), commitment (participants say they will commit to doing ‘something’ sustainable), modelling behaviour (participants are shown role model behaviour) and information. Feedback is the main form of consequence intervention. Another form is rewards, whereby a participant is promised a reward for either participating or achieving a certain behaviour. Of these different types of intervention, feedback seems to have a high potential for success, particularly in combination with other interventions and with increasing frequency (Abrahamse et al., 2005, Fischer, 2008). In addition, feedback is a prerequisite for certain
interventions, such as those using goals or rewards. These depend on feedback in order to set a certain goal or level at which a reward will be given.
Working principles of feedback
Feedback is basically “the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event or process to the original or controlling source” (Merriam-Webster, 2013). In this thesis, feedback relates to information about a user’s energy consumption. This can be current, real-time consumption or historical consumption, that is, energy consumed over a previous period such as a day, a month or a year. Extrapolation to the future, based on past consumption, is commonly called feed-forward or a prognosis.
According to Abrahamse (2007), feedback may increase a user’s perceived possibilities to conserve energy (also called ‘self-efficacy’), which can then encourage the user to actually conserve energy. Similarly, Darby (2006b) explains that feedback can be seen as part of a learning process. She has visualized this process (Figure 19). Darby notes that while the figure is not complete and that real life does not follow such a smooth curve, it does highlight the elements that are involved in the energy learning process.
Information, action and feedback in synergy ability to learn unaided Tacit, durable knowledge Figure 19
A model for the development of tacit, durable knowledge (Darby, 2006a)
Darby explains that within this process, feedback increases a user’s ability to find the needed information and sources more independently. She also explains that feedback contributes to “building up of a body of ‘tacit knowledge’ or know-how about the supply and use of energy. In this, people take in information concerning their energy use, they act (change their behaviour in some way) and they gain understanding of what has happened by interpreting any feedback that is available” (2006a). However, the learning process of people can be hindered. People need to be able to interpret the feedback for it to have an effect, and ‘affective factors’, such as attachments to certain practices, can inhibit people’s willingness to change.
B Influence strategies
Besides intervention strategies, there is also a school of thought on influence or persuasion strategies, which are commonly used in marketing. Cialdini’s (1993) work draws on ethology, where fixed action patterns describe the automated behaviour of animals. He calls these automated responses “click–whirr” responses, where ‘click’ activates the appropriate tape and ‘whirr’ results in a pre-set sequence of behaviours. He distinguishes six principles, or ‘weapons’, of influence.
•
Reciprocation – This is based on the tendency of people to return a favour.•
Commitment and consistency - If people make a commitment, they want to fulfilit so that they are not perceived as being inconsistent. This is strongly related to cognitive dissonance, whereby people do not want to contradict themselves.
•
Social proof – In other words, normative conduct or looking at what other people do.People are basically copycats. If a number of people are looking up at the sky, other people will imitate this behaviour even though they cannot see what is being looked at.
•
Authority - People tend to believe and obey authority figures.•
Liking – If a person finds another person agreeable, the latter is more likely to be able to persuade the former.•
Scarcity – If something is perceived as scarce, then people will want to have it. Cialdini and colleagues also studied which of these subconscious motives is relevant to pro-environmental behaviour. They especially studied the possibilities for social proofing. Practical examples of the implementation of influence strategies can be found in, for example, Goldstein et al. (2008), where messages encouraging the reuse of hotel towels were altered to appeal to people’s normative conduct, with success. Additionally, Nolan et al. (2008) tested the effects of four messages (save money, benefit society, protect the environment, the neighbours conserve energy). They found that the descriptive normative message that a majority of the neighbours conserved energy was the most effective in motivating people to reduce energy, even though people indicated that this was the least important. This implies that the way in which a message is put across is significant to its effectiveness.An energy billing company (Opower) has recently been implementing Cialdini’s work by combining persuasion strategies with feedback on energy consumption (Ayres et al., 2009). Both descriptive norms (what most people do) and injunctive norms (what people ought to do) were combined with monthly feedback on overall energy consumption, and the results showed that there is good potential here. It was done by giving feedback in comparison to similar households and giving smileys according to how well the participants had done. The study consisted of two large-scale pilot projects amongst 75,000 households; savings of 1.2% and 2.5%, respectively, were achieved. This shows that feedback is also an important component for some
persuasion strategies; however, the manner in which it is given needs to be considered, which is relevant to the interface of HEMS.
§ 3.3.1.2 Application of the knowledge from the field of User <-> Other People and psychology to HEMS
Various influence and intervention strategies are implementable within the design of HEMS. For example, goal setting and feedback can be combined within HEMS and presented using commitment & consistency along with social proofing tactics. Opower’s energy bills are, in essence, already a product, but Opower has also implemented these influence principles in online tools and energy alert platforms for smart phones and tablet PCs. However, more work could be done to implement different intervention and influence strategies within HEMS.
The most relevant and commonly implemented strategy for HEMS is feedback (page 92). Both the abovementioned intervention and influence strategies attribute value to feedback and see it as one of the important elements, or the core element, in lowering the environmental impact of households. Feedback is both an effective intervention strategy and an important precondition for several influence strategies. As Midden (2006) says concerning feedback, “One might say that the system persuades the user in a certain sense to make more energy-ef ficient choices.” He states that to be effective, feedback needs to fit with user’s goals that are in effect at the point in time when feedback is given, and that it needs to be presented on the level of the task that the user is executing.
An important characteristic of feedback for this research is that it ties in with two major issues addressed in Chapter 2. One is that the energy consumption of households is caused by many different appliances, technical installations and the structural characteristics of the home, as well as by behavioural and demographic factors. It is therefore important to view households as systems, and not aim at altering only one of these aspects. Feedback is capable of addressing these different factors of energy consumption.
The second issue is the invisibility of background appliances and energy flows. Most households receive a bill only once a year and it may even be based entirely on estimates. Kempton and Layne (1994) draw a parallel with shopping: “consider groceries in a hypothetical store totally without price markings, billed via a monthly statement like ‘US$527 for 2362 food units in April’. How could grocery shoppers economize under such a billing regime?” Feedback is a necessary element to make energy consumption visible, just like a receipt in a supermarket does.
As explained at the beginning of this section, social and environmental psychology have predominantly been interested in the effects of the intervention on the behaviour of household members rather than the medium (HEMS) by which feedback is given. Feedback was discussed within this section because of the focus on the person rather than on the HEMS or the interaction between the HEMS and the user. However, it is part of the HEMS and therefore this chapter continues by shifting towards the relational line HEMS <-> user, discussing the interaction between the user and the HEMS as well as the design of the HEMS.