IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i2p425-d197887.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contest-Based and Norm-Based Interventions: (How) Do They Differ in Attitudes, Norms, and Behaviors?

Author

Listed:
  • Magnus Bergquist

    (Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden)

  • Andreas Nilsson

    (Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden)

  • Emma Ejelöv

    (Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden)

Abstract

Setting up a contest is a popular means to promote pro-environmental behaviors. Yet, research on contest-based interventions is scarce while norm-based interventions have gained much attention. In two field experiments, we randomly assigned 79 apartments to either a contest-based or a norm-based electricity conservation intervention and measured kWh usage for 2 and 4 weeks, respectively. Results from both studies showed that contest-based interventions promote intensive but short-lived electricity saving. In Study 1 apartments assigned to a norm-based intervention showed more stable electricity saving (low intensity and long-lasting). Study 2 did not replicate this finding, but supported that participants in the norm-based intervention also engaged in non-targeted behaviors. These results emphasize the importance of identifying how different intervention techniques may activate different goals, framing both how people think about and act upon targeted pro-environmental behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Magnus Bergquist & Andreas Nilsson & Emma Ejelöv, 2019. "Contest-Based and Norm-Based Interventions: (How) Do They Differ in Attitudes, Norms, and Behaviors?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:425-:d:197887
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/425/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/425/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gneezy, Uri & Rustichini, Aldo, 2000. "A Fine is a Price," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Thøgersen, John & Noblet, Caroline, 2012. "Does green consumerism increase the acceptance of wind power?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 854-862.
    3. Tiefenbeck, Verena & Staake, Thorsten & Roth, Kurt & Sachs, Olga, 2013. "For better or for worse? Empirical evidence of moral licensing in a behavioral energy conservation campaign," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 160-171.
    4. Schultz, P. Wesley & Estrada, Mica & Schmitt, Joseph & Sokoloski, Rebecca & Silva-Send, Nilmini, 2015. "Using in-home displays to provide smart meter feedback about household electricity consumption: A randomized control trial comparing kilowatts, cost, and social norms," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P1), pages 351-358.
    5. repec:bla:kyklos:v:54:y:2001:i:2-3:p:317-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Carl Mellström & Magnus Johannesson, 2008. "Crowding Out in Blood Donation: Was Titmuss Right?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(4), pages 845-863, June.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    8. repec:feb:natura:0059 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Alberts, Genevieve & Gurguc, Zeynep & Koutroumpis, Pantelis & Martin, Ralf & Muûls, Mirabelle & Napp, Tamaryn, 2016. "Competition and norms: A self-defeating combination?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 504-523.
    10. Siegwart Lindenberg, 2001. "Intrinsic Motivation in a New Light," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2‐3), pages 317-342, May.
    11. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    12. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    13. Melissa Bateson & Daniel Nettle & Gilbert Roberts, 2006. "Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting," Natural Field Experiments 00214, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. Sander van der Linden, 2015. "Intrinsic motivation and pro-environmental behaviour," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(7), pages 612-613, July.
    15. Steg, Linda & Lindenberg, Siegwart & Keizer, Kees, 2016. "Intrinsic Motivation, Norms and Environmental Behaviour: The Dynamics of Overarching Goals," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 179-207, July.
    16. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chunqin Zhang & Zhangbiao Yu & Yi Huang & Mengmeng Wang & Skitmore Martin & Guangnian Xiao & Xi Lu, 2024. "Investigating the influence mechanism of goal‐framing theory on urban residents' green travel behavior," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 5144-5160, October.
    2. Emma Ejelöv & Magnus Bergquist & André Hansla & Andreas Nilsson, 2022. "Why are they eco-friendly? Attributing eco-friendly descriptive norms to intrinsic motivation increases pro-environmental purchase intention," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(10), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Timmer, Sebastian & Bösehans, Gustav & Henkel, Sven, 2023. "Behavioural norms or personal gains? – An empirical analysis of commuters‘ intention to switch to multimodal mobility behaviour," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    4. Cecilia Katzeff & Rebecka Milestad & Jorge Luis Zapico & Ulrica Bohné, 2020. "Encouraging Organic Food Consumption through Visualization of Personal Shopping Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-15, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andor, Mark A. & Fels, Katja M., 2018. "Behavioral Economics and Energy Conservation – A Systematic Review of Non-price Interventions and Their Causal Effects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 178-210.
    2. Astrid Dannenberg & Gunnar Gutsche & Marlene Batzke & Sven Christens & Daniel Engler & Fabian Mankat & Sophia Moeller & Eva Weingaertner & Andreas Ernst & Marcel Lumkowsky & Georg von Wangenheim & Ger, 2022. "The effects of norms on environmental behavior," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202219, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Camara, N'Famory & Xu, Deyi & Binyet, Emmanuel, 2017. "Understanding household energy use, decision making and behaviour in Guinea-Conakry by applying behavioural economics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1380-1391.
    4. Newman, George E. & Jeremy Shen, Y., 2012. "The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 973-983.
    5. Jason Delaney & Sarah Jacobson, 2016. "Payments or Persuasion: Common Pool Resource Management with Price and Non-price Measures," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(4), pages 747-772, December.
    6. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez & Laszlo Sandor, 2014. "What Policies Increase Prosocial Behavior? An Experiment with Referees at the Journal of Public Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 169-188, Summer.
    7. Goette, Lorenz & Stutzer, Alois, 2020. "Blood donations and incentives: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 52-74.
    8. Antoine Beretti & Charles Figuières & Gilles Grolleau, 2013. "Using Money to Motivate Both ‘Saints’ and ‘Sinners’: a Field Experiment on Motivational Crowding-Out," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 63-77, February.
    9. Antoine Beretti & Charles Figuières & Gilles Grolleau, 2019. "How to turn crowding-out into crowding-in? An innovative instrument and some law-related examples," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 417-438, December.
    10. Christoph Buehren & Maria Daskalakis, 2020. "Which green nudge helps to save energy? Experimental evidence," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202042, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    11. Bruno S. Frey & Margit Osterloh, "undated". "Yes, Managers Should be Paid Like Bureaucrats," IEW - Working Papers 187, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Heinz, Nicolai & Koessler, Ann-Kathrin, 2021. "Other-regarding preferences and pro-environmental behaviour: An interdisciplinary review of experimental studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    13. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    14. Qin, Botao & Shogren, Jason, 2023. "Endogenous Social Norms, Mechanism Design, and Payment for Environmental Services," MPRA Paper 112878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2011. "Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?," Department of Economics University of Siena 617, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    16. McAndrew, Ryan & Mulcahy, Rory & Gordon, Ross & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah, 2021. "Household energy efficiency interventions: A systematic literature review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    17. Takahashi, Hiromasa & Shen, Junyi & Ogawa, Kazuhito, 2016. "An experimental examination of compensation schemes and level of effort in differentiated tasks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 12-19.
    18. Rode, Julian & Gómez-Baggethun, Erik & Krause, Torsten, 2015. "Motivation crowding by economic incentives in conservation policy: A review of the empirical evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 270-282.
    19. Kajackaite, Agne & Werner, Peter, 2015. "The incentive effects of performance requirements – A real effort experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 84-94.
    20. Carbone, Jared C. & Gazzale, Robert S., 2017. "A shared sense of responsibility: Money versus effort contributions in the voluntary provision of public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 74-87.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:425-:d:197887. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.