Comparing the Impacts of Education, Feedback, and Hypocrisy Induction Intervention Methods on Electrical Energy Conservation Attitude, Intentions and Behavior

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to compare the effects of three intervention methods, including skills training, feedback, and hypocrisy induction, on household attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. The present study used a quasi-experimental design with three experimental groups and one control group, a pretest, a posttest, and an 8-week follow-up. The statistical population consists of the electricity subscribers of Golsar suburb in Rasht. The sample of the study consists of the households of 46 units of a housing complex in this zone, which were divided into four groups of 12 units each. The experimental groups were assigned educational brochures for the education intervention, weekly consumption reports for the feedback intervention, and promotional announcements and a virtual group for the hypocrisy intervention. Attitude and intention to conserve were measured initially at pretest and six weeks after the start of the interventions at posttest using the researcher-developed Attitude and Intention to conserve scales. The extent of conservation behavior was measured by reading electricity meters at the pretest and posttest, and eight weeks after the intervention at the follow-up stage. Changes in attitudes and intentions were assessed by multivariate analyzes of covariance and post hoc tests, and changes in behavior were assessed by repeated measures analyzes of variance. Results showed that education could only change people’s attitudes toward environmental protection. Instead, inducing hypocrisy was effective in arousing intention to protect the environment, as was feedback in activating environmental protection behavior.

Keywords

• conservation
• attitude
• intention
• feedback
• hypocrisy induction