Cialdini Influence Saves Power

A Desire to keep up with the neighbours is spurring conversation

LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: January 30, 2009 

A frowny face is not what most electric customers expect to see on their utility statements, but Greg Dyer got one.

He earned it, the utility said, by using a lot more energy than his neighbours.

“I have four daughters; none of my neighbours has that many children,” said Mr. Dyer, 49, a lawyer who lives in Sacramento. He wrote back to the utility and gave it his own rating: four frowny faces.

Two other Sacramento residents, however, Paul Geisert and his wife, Mynga Futrell, were feeling good. They got one smiley face on their statement for energy efficiency and saw the promise of getting another.

“Our report card will quickly get better,” Mr. Geisert wrote in an e-mail message to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

The district had been trying for years to prod customers into using less energy with tactics like rebates for energy-saving appliances. But the traditional approaches were not meeting the energy reduction goals set by the non-profit utility’s board.
 
So, in a move that has proved surprisingly effective, the district decided to tap into a time-honoured American passion: keeping up with the neighbours. Last April, it began sending out statements to 35,000 randomly selected customers, rating them on their energy use compared with that of neighbours in 100 homes of similar size that used the same heating fuel. The customers were also compared with the 20 neighbours who were especially efficient in saving energy.

Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist at Arizona State University, studies how to get Americans — even those who did not care about the environment — to lower energy consumption. And while there are many ways, Dr. Cialdini said, few are as effective as comparing people with their peers.

In a 2004 experiment, he and a colleague left different messages on doorknobs in a middle-class neighbourhood north of San Diego. One type urged the residents to conserve energy to save the earth for future generations; another emphasized financial savings. But the only kind of message to have any significant effect, Dr. Cialdini said, was one that said neighbours had already taken steps to curb their energy use.

“It is fundamental and primitive,” said Dr. Cialdini, who owns a stake in Positive Energy. “The mere perception of the normal behaviour of those around us is very powerful.”

Full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31compete.html?_r=2