Inducing Human Behaviour for Sustainability: Exploring Psycho-Social Aspects Determining Energy Conservation Behaviour
Published: 2018
Author(s) Name: Rutwik J. Gandhe, Satish C. Pandey |
Author(s) Affiliation: Assistant Prof., Dept. of Social Work, The Bhopal School of Social Sciences (BSSS), Bhopal, M. P.
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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
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