The BWA behaviour change database: June 2021 update
BehaviourWorks Australia ?(BWA) researchers?at the?Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) ?have spent several years curating a?database ?of over 6,000 behaviour change publications.?This database is used to inform many of our research projects and is now available for others to use.
Here are some of the most interesting and useful papers added this month:
What do we know about the size of the rebound effect? Should we believe claims that energy efficiency improvements lead to an increase in energy use? This paper clarifies what the rebound effect is, and provides a guide for economists and policymakers interested in its magnitude.
We describe how some papers in the literature consider the rebound effect from a costless exogenous increase in energy efficiency, while others examine the effects of a particular energy efficiency policy — a distinction that leads to very different welfare and policy implications.
We present the most reliable evidence available quantifying the energy efficiency rebound, and discuss areas where estimation is extraordinarily difficult. Along these lines, we offer a new way of thinking about the macroeconomic rebound effect.
Overall, the existing research provides little support for the so-called “backfire” hypothesis. Still, much remains to be understood, particularly relating to induced innovation and productivity growth.?
We present evidence from a pre-registered experiment indicating that a philosophical argument––a type of rational appeal––can persuade people to make charitable donations.
The rational appeal we used follows Singer’s well-known “shallow pond” argument (1972), while incorporating an evolutionary debunking argument (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene 2012) against favoring nearby victims over distant ones.
The effectiveness of this rational appeal did not differ significantly from that of a well-tested emotional appeal involving an image of a single child in need (Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic 2007).?
This is a surprising result, given evidence that emotions are the primary drivers of moral action, a view that has been very influential in the work of development organizations. We did not find support for our pre-registered hypothesis that combining our rational and emotional appeals would have a significantly stronger effect than either appeal in isolation.
However, our finding that both kinds of appeal can increase charitable donations is cause for optimism, especially concerning the potential efficacy of well-designed rational appeals. We consider the significance of these findings for moral psychology, ethics, and the work of organizations aiming to alleviate severe poverty.?
?A crucial determinant of socially responsible behavior is the extent to which people perceive their contributions to the collective good to be effective. We suggest that the sense of connectedness to others is an important driver of the perceived effectiveness of one's actions.
The more individuals feel connected to others, the more they believe that their actions have a substantial impact on the collective good. As a result, those who feel more connected are more likely to engage in socially responsible behavior.
We tested these predictions in one correlational and three experimental studies, involving behavioral measures such as exerting effort in support of a pro-environmental organization and contributing financially to a social cause. The data supported the hypothesized relationship between sense of connectedness, the perceived effectiveness of one's actions, and socially responsible behavior.?
Long time horizons and social distance are viewed as key psychological barriers to proenvironmental action, particularly regarding climate change. We suggest that these challenges can be turned into opportunities by making salient long-term goals and motives, thus shifting preferences between the present self and future others.
We tested whether individuals' motivation to leave a positive legacy can be leveraged to increase engagement with climate change and other environmental problems. In a pilot study, we found that individual differences in legacy motivation were positively associated with proenvironmental behaviors and intentions.
In a subsequent experiment, we demonstrated that priming legacy motives increased donations to an environmental charity, proenvironmental intentions, and climate-change beliefs. Domain-general legacy motives represent a previously understudied and powerful mechanism for promoting proenvironmental behavior.?
This paper explores the mechanisms driving the remarkable effectiveness of a widely-used behavioral intervention that reduces energy consumption by repeatedly mailing social comparison-based energy reports to households.
We perform a randomized controlled trial of this home energy report (HER) intervention in a new environment, where tenants do not pay energy bills. Our results show that HERs induce almost no behavioral changes for heating demand, with precise estimates that allow us to rule out thermostat (energy) reductions greater than 0.33% (0.1%).
We provide evidence that inattention is unlikely to have driven null results, since tenants reacted to simpler nudges from the same sender to conserve energy while they were away for vacation.
While, in theory, social comparison nudges could help ameliorate moral hazard, our findings suggest that behavioral channels, such as competitiveness, social norms, or moral suasion, do not motivate conservation in the absence of direct monetary incentives.?
Should fundraisers ask a banker to donate “if he earns a bonus” or wait and ask after the bonus is known? Standard EU theory predicts that these approaches are equivalent; loss-aversion and signaling models predict a larger commitment before the bonus is known; theories of affect predict the reverse. In five experiments incorporating lab and field elements (N=1363), we solicited charitable donations from small lottery winnings, varying the conditionality of donations between participants.?
Pooling across experiments, participants are 23% more likely to commit to donate from the winning income and commit 25% more when asked before the lottery's outcome is determined—relative to those asked to donate after they learn they have won. These differences are strongly statistically significant. This represents the first evidence on how pro-social behavior extends to conditional commitments over uncertain income, with implications for charitable fundraising, giving pledges, and experimental methodology
To access the database of over 6,000 behaviour change publications, please use this?link . For further information about BehaviourWorks please email: [email protected]
You can see my previous articles and posts?here
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Specialist and Practice Group Leader - Banking and Financial Services (Eastern and Southern Africa)
2 年Grace Kamau
as always, some excellent pieces of research being highlighted, addressing relevant and important questions.