Psychological attributes of energy conservation activities

This study applied a multi-attribute model to improve the level of understanding of psychological factors associated with residential energy conservation. Personal interviews were conducted with 126 middle-class households and ratings of 12 attributes were obtained for five residential energy conservation activities.

Seven research issues were investigated and it was found that: (1) attribute ratings were not generalizable across energy conservation activities; (2) multiple regression models were superior to simple summation models for predicting activity levels from attribute ratings; (3) a normalizing transformation of the attribute ratings did not substantially improve activity prediction; neither did (4) multiplicative inclusion of a general importance rating of each attribute; (5) attempts to identify attribute subsets by factor analysis and stepwise multiple regression led to mixed results; (6) monetary and nonmonetary attributes should be considered together for predicting activity levels; and (7) both attribute ratings and demographic variables were useful for predicting level of residential energy conservation activities.

It was concluded that performance of one energy conservation activity by a household did not necessarily imply performance of other activities; there were no general energy conservation activity subsets. In addition, no common set of predictors was identified which could be applied across activities; there was no general strategy for predicting energy conservation activities. Implications for policy-makers and program planners are discussed.