=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=Gathering and Presenting Social Feedback to Change Domestic Electricity Consumption
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-722/paper9.pdf
|volume=Vol-722
}}
==Gathering and Presenting Social Feedback to Change Domestic Electricity Consumption==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-722/paper9.pdf
Gathering and Presenting Social Feedback to Change
Domestic Electricity Consumption
Matthew Studley and Simon Chambers Ruth Rettie and Kevin Burchell
University of the West of England Kingston University
matthew2.studley@uwe.ac.uk r.rettie@kingston.ac.uk
ABSTRACT fective [1]. Rather than telling people what to do, it can
This paper describes the CHARM Energy Study in which be more effective to use ‘social proof’ [6]; influencing be-
mobile technology is used to study the impact of social group haviour by showing people what others do. Studies in sev-
feedback on household energy consumption. We describe eral related disciplines suggest that everyday practices are
the background and rationale behind the study, the technol- malleable, and can be ‘nudged’ in a socially desirable direc-
ogy which supports the study, and the study’s methodology. tion by subtle forms of social influence [21]. In particular,
The work described herein builds upon similar studies by us- research indicates that feedback on an individual’s level of
ing mobile technology and on-line feedback to increase the performance (e.g. electricity consumption) can change their
frequency of accurate social group feedback to the partici- behaviour, and moreover, that this effect is enhanced if sup-
pants. plemented by feedback on the performance of a relevant so-
cial group.
Author Keywords
Nudge, Social Norms, Smart Meters
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Writing from a sociological perspective, Shove [18] explores
ACM Classification Keywords
the social organization of normality and argues that patterns
H.5.2 Information Interfaces and Presentation: User Inter-
of consumption are shaped by the taken-for-granted prac-
faces—Evaluation and Methodology
tices of everyday life: ‘much consumption is customary, gov-
erned by collective norms and undertaken in a world of things
INTRODUCTION and socio-technical systems that have stabilizing effects on
It is widely recognized [10] that lowering domestic energy routines and habits’ (p. 9). Shove emphasises the collec-
consumption could make a significant contribution in reduc- tive conventions that underlie individual conceptions of ba-
ing CO2 emissions and hence mitigate against the risk of sic needs such as cleanliness and comfort. Thus, a year-
anthropogenic climate change and promote economic well- round indoor temperature of 22◦ C has become an accepted
being. There are significant challenges to the achievement of standard of comfort that shapes buildings, clothing habits
this goal; to change a household’s energy consumption the and energy consumption patterns, while daily showering has
householders must be motivated to change and to have the become an accepted cleanliness practice in the UK, with
tools available to enact this change. consequent impact on energy and water consumption. These
expectations are taken-for-granted, and treated as inherent
CHARM is a three-year EPSRC funded UK project that eval- aspects of ‘comfort’ and ‘cleanliness’, but their contingency
uates the impact of individual and social group feedback is demonstrated by historical and global variation. Although
on behaviour in three different contexts, including electric- Shove highlights the complex socio-technical, economic, cul-
ity consumption. The research aims to develop, evaluate tural and symbolic systems that underlie conceptions of ‘nor-
and understand the ways in which digital technology can be mal’ practices, she argues that what people take to be nor-
used to shape individual behaviour by informing and thereby mal is not fixed but ‘immensely malleable’ (p. 199). Con-
challenging ‘normal’ practice. Social norm research sug- sequently, she claims, it is important to understand the ‘dy-
gests that we can influence behaviour by telling people what namics of normalization’, that is, how do the habits and prac-
other people do [14]. tices of everyday life change and evolve?
Traditional approaches that try to change behaviour by di- Whereas Shove avoids a rational choice model with its fo-
rectly influencing attitudes and intentions often prove inef- cus on individual choices, the relatively new field of be-
havioural economics retains a focus on individual choice,
but contests the assumption of a rational economic agent,
in the light of research on the psychology of choice. Thaler
and Sunstein[21] argue that choices are inevitably influenced
by the context or ‘choice architecture’, and that it is legiti-
mate to deliberately ‘nudge’ people’s behaviour in order to
Copyright (c) 2011 for the individual papers by the papers’ authors. Copy-
ing permitted only for private and academic purposes. This volume is pub-
improve their lives. A ‘nudge’ is ‘any aspect of the choice
lished and copyrighted by the editors of PINC2011. architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable
PINC2011
1
way without forbidding any options or significantly chang- in energy bills, with promising results [3].
ing their economic incentives’ (p. 6). Thaler and Sunstein
highlight research in social psychology that shows one can The study by Schultz et al. combined individual and so-
nudge people simply by telling them what other people do. cial group feedback, but did not distinguish between the im-
pacts of these two interventions. There is considerable re-
Whereas earlier research on conformity [5] [12] relied on search on the impact of individual feedback in energy ef-
overt social pressure, more recent research [7] has focused ficiency. Darby [9] identifies feedback as the single most
on subtle, indirect influences of which participants may be promising method for reducing household energy consump-
unaware; these are more analogous to nudges. Cialdini et tion, and calls for more field testing. Research shows that
al. [8] distinguish between two types of social norms, de- more frequent feedback is more effective, and that feedback
scriptive and injunctive. The former simply state what most can be effectively conveyed through a website [2]. Research
people actually do, the latter express an overtly normative on social group feedback in energy bills is more equivo-
message about what people should do. Both can be effective, cal. Surveys conducted in the US and Norway indicate that
but descriptive norms are less invasive. Social norm research consumers are receptive to comparisons of their energy con-
typically [14] includes descriptive social norms, e.g. ‘70% sumption with relevant social groups, but Roberts et al. found
of students on this campus do not take drugs’, and has been the idea of social comparison was unpopular in UK focus
widely used in social-norm marketing campaigns aimed at group research [15]. Iyer [11] reviews different expressions
alcohol and substance abuse among young people. Research and formats of comparative social feedback and advocates
suggests that the impact of social norms depends on the ex- small comparison groups preferably based on physical loca-
tent to which they are focal (i.e. salient) and in alignment tion.
[7].
Two field studies are directly relevant to electricity efficiency. Methodology
In these studies participants’ electricity meters were read by We performed two pilot tests, the former involving ten par-
research assistants who provided feedback on door-hangers. ticipants recruited from University staff, the latter twenty
Nolan et al. [13] tested descriptive social norms such as: participants recruited from two coherent geographical areas
chosen to represent different socio-economic groups. Due
to the small size of the pilots no statistically valid infer-
In a recent survey of households in your commu- ences can be drawn from their output; these trials were per-
nity, researchers at Cal State San Marcos found that formed to test technology, recruitment and communications.
77% of San Marcos residents often use fans instead of The main study includes four hundred and twenty partici-
air conditioning to keep cool in the summer. Using fans pants professionally recruited in these two target areas. Par-
on energy instead of air conditioning — Your Commu- ticipants are paid an incentive for their participation. Re-
nity’s Popular Choice! cruiters administered a pre-trial questionnaire (e.g. ascer-
taining house type, the number of rooms in the house, heat-
The study found that these had significantly more effect on ing type, et c..). A matching questionnaire will be admin-
consumption than injunctive appeals to self interest, protec- istered after the trial to see what change has taken place in
tion of the environment or social responsibility, although the way the participants see themselves and their behaviour.
respondents in an earlier study (reported in the same pa- We believe that the CHARM Energy Study is unique in us-
per) thought that the descriptive norm message would be ing mobile technology to study the effect of frequent on-
least motivational. A study using a similar methodology line social feedback in a UK study large enough to enable
by Schultz et al., [17] again used door-hangers, giving par- statistically-valid conclusions to be drawn.
ticipants feedback on their individual and local neighbour-
hood electricity usage figures. This research compared a Households were randomly assigned to one of three con-
feedback only condition (descriptive social norm) with an ditions; control (no feedback), individual feedback only, or
intervention than combined feedback with a positive or neg- both individual and social group feedback. The control groups
ative emoticon or ‘smiley’ (descriptive and injunctive social have their energy use monitored but receive no communica-
norms). In the feedback only condition, participants who tions from the team during the study, and do not receive any
were using more than their neighbours used significantly feedback on their energy use. We will use the data on the
less after the intervention, but those who were using less control groups’ usage to account for environmental factors
moved towards the norm, and started to use more electric- which effect electricity use (cold weather, mass use of TV
ity (the ‘boomerang’ effect). In the second condition, when to watch landmark events, et c.) and to allow us to take into
descriptive and injunctive social norms were combined, the account the fact that simply having an ‘electricity monitor’
‘destructive’ movement towards the norm was avoided: us- in the home may have an effect on the energy behaviours of
age of those below the norm remained stable while the usage the household.
of those above declined. Note, these two studies used per-
sonal meters readers attached handwritten feedback to re- In addition to the questionnaires, we will conduct approx-
spondents’ front doors; this personal element may have en- imately 35 face-to-face semi-structured interviews, with a
hanced the normative effect of the communication. A large purposive sample of subjects. Interviews will occur in re-
scale year long trial conducted by Cialdini at Positive Energy spondents’ homes and involve as many adult household mem-
(O Power) combines descriptive and injunctive social norms bers as feasible, and will include observation and discussion
2
of home configuration, energy efficiency features, types of such as checking the unit is receiving power, ask the house-
energy consumed and appliances used. A number of respon- holder to reboot the unit, et c..
dents will be interviewed both before and after the experi-
ments, in order to benchmark conceptions and practices and Feedback
to facilitate identification of changes (these respondents will Information is supplied to the participants in the individual
be excluded from the field trial analysis). A number of re- and social experimental groups in a number of ways. They
spondents will be re-interviewed at least six months after the can view information about their electricity use on the web-
trial to identify any long term changes in overall levels and site (see below). They receive weekly emails which encour-
underlying practices. Respondents will receive an additional age them to maintain their participation in the study. Indi-
incentive for their participation in the interviews. In addi- viduals known to be infrequent visitors to the website may
tion, we plan three professionally moderated focus groups, receive SMS text messages prompting them to participate, a
to elicit discussion of the trials and normative discourse in mechanism which was shown to be an effective way of en-
a social context; the focus groups will be reconvened after a couraging re-engagement in the initial field trial.
period of six months to explore the longevity of any changes
in practices.
Technology
Each respondent who volunteers to take part in the study is
supplied with a box containing three components
1. A current-clamp which attaches to the meter tail and which
transmits usage data every two seconds via a 433 MHz
wireless link.
2. A monitor which stores this data and sends the data to our
server via GPRS using a roaming SIM.
3. A power adapter which supplies the monitor with power
for operation.
Figure 1. Social Feedback on Web Interface
There is no real-time display visible to the individuals in the
household. It has been shown [4] that real-time displays are As previously stated, households are assigned to one of three
a powerful tool in effecting behavioural change since they experimental groups which define the type of feedback they
promote experimentation to see what effect individual ap- receive. The feedback provided to households in the social
pliances have upon power consumption, but have not been feedback category is illustrated in fig. 1. We hope to cre-
included in this study in order to focus on the effects of so- ate the conditions where we may most easily see an effect
cial feedback. of social proof in changing behaviour in the following ways.
Firstly, we attempt to increase saliency as recommended in
The monitor and current-clamp make use of a commercially- [7] and focus on small geographic areas as recommended in
available off-the-shelf home energy monitor with a real-time [11]. Secondly, we provide descriptive and injunctive feed-
display. We hide the display from view in the box that con- back in the form of emoticons after Schultz [17] to reduce
tains the GPRS modem and microcontroller. Using a COTS the possibility of the ‘boomerang’ effect. Finally, we pro-
solution allowed a significant saving in development time vide easy access to energy saving tips which we hope will
and the time taken to meet regulatory and safety require- provide householders with the means to lower their energy
ments. consumption. The website also provides the user with views
of his electricity consumption in a context suited to his ex-
As a result of field-testing in the pilot studies, the embedded perimental group for previous time periods; yesterday, last
controller has evolved through several iterations to account week, and the whole of the study thus far.
for network outages, automatically reloads new versions of
firmware as we release them, and can be remotely controlled Initial results from the participants in the twenty-strong sec-
in situ to trigger recovery from several abnormal conditions. ond test indicate that the feedback is viewed as both interest-
ing and useful, and we look forward to reporting the results
Usage information is gathered via GPRS upload by the HTTP of the full trial in the near future. Recruitment for the main
‘GET’ mechanism to a web-server where it is logged in a trial started in January, 2011, and we expect to present re-
relational database. The web-server provides an password- sults after the trial in the Autumn of that year.
controlled management interface which allows us to track
the performance of each monitoring unit and participant house- Novelty
hold, to determine for example when participants in a house- The CHARM Energy Study differs from the work reviewed
hold have not viewed their data on the website, and to track above in the following ways. There have been studies in-
the frequency of data transmission from monitors enabling volving more people with monthly feedback on paper-based
the team to track network outages, request user interventions bills [3], and studies involving small numbers of people with
3
weekly paper-based feedback [17]. We believe that ours is 7. R. B. Cialdini and N. J. Goldstein. Social influence:
the first study testing the social norm approach with frequent Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of
automated data collection and feedback. Further, ours is the Psychology, 55:591–621, 2004.
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Conclusion
It is planned [19] that all UK homes will have Smart Meters 9. S. Darby. Energy advice — what is it worth? In
installed by 2020, and the EU Smart Meter market has been European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy,
predicted [16] to be worth 25 Billion Dollars US in the ten 1999.
years from 2010 to 2020. Although the emerging UK stan-
dard [20] mandates that UK Smart Meters will provide bidi- 10. T. Dietz, G. T. Gardner, J. Gilligan, P. C. Stern, and
rectional communications and support in-house displays, we M. P. Vandenbergh. Household actions can provide a
are unaware that there is yet a standard for the type of infor- behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce U.S. carbon
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Science, 106:18452 – 18456, 2009.
If the study shows a real reduction in domestic electricity
11. M. Iyer, W. Kempton, and C. Payne. Comparison
use resulting from social feedback methods, we hope that we
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Acknowledgements New York, 1974.
This work was partly funded by the Engineering and Physi-
cal Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and is one of a se- 13. J. M. Nolan, P. W. Schultz, R. B. Cialdini, N. J.
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