AUTHOR=Graffeo Michele , Ritov Ilana , Bonini Nicolao , Hadjichristidis Constantinos TITLE=To make people save energy tell them what others do but also who they are: a preliminary study JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=6 YEAR=2015 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01287 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01287 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

A way to make people save energy is by informing them that “comparable others” save more. We investigated whether, one can further improve this nudge by manipulating Who the “comparable others” are. We asked participants to imagine receiving feedback stating that their energy consumption exceeded that of “comparable others” by 10%. We varied Who the “comparable others” were in a 2 × 2 design: they were a household that was located either in the same neighborhood as themselves or in a different neighborhood, and its members were either identified (by names and a photograph) or unidentified. We also included two control conditions: one where no feedback was provided, and one where only statistical feedback was provided (feedback about an average household). We found that it matters Who the “comparable others” are. The most effective feedback was when the referent household was from the same neighborhood as the individual's and its members were not identified.