Does social pressure motivate private contributions to a public good? Evidence from a field experiment in the residential electricity market

本文的研究确定了社会压力是否鼓励自愿节电。该项目是与一家大型电力公司合作进行的现场试验。这项实验测试的是，当邻居们可以看到家庭的参与时，他们是否更有可能签署能效计划。高层公寓楼的居民在大楼大堂公开张贴的签名表上签署了能效计划。注册表有助于将注册决定从居民起居室的隐私转移到公共环境，在公共环境中，社会压力可能会增加参与的动机。签名表的设计各不相同，因此在某些情况下，居民的参与决定是匿名的。在其他情况下，这些决定是可以观察到的。如果社会压力促使参与，那么当他们的决定可观察到时，更多的人会参与其中。为了帮助确定在什么条件下社会压力最有效，居民被邀请通过各种邮件参与，这些邮件强调了该计划的不同方面。这项计划更广泛的影响是它对保护工作的贡献。这项研究记录了美国人节约能源的内在动机，并测试了鼓励节约能源的可复制方法。真实世界的设置很容易将此实验的结果推广到其他设置。研究成果将有助于监管机构和绿色营销人员降低能源消耗，鼓励消费者购买绿色产品。

This dissertation research determines whether social pressure encourages voluntary electricity conservation. The project is a field experiment conducted with the cooperation of a large electric utility. The experiment tests whether households are more likely to sign up for an energy efficiency program when their participation is observable by their neighbors. Residents of high rise apartment buildings sign up for the energy efficiency program on sign up sheets posted publicly in their building lobby. The sign up sheets help move the sign up decision from the privacy of residents' living rooms to a public setting, where social pressure may increase the motivation to participate. The design of the sign up sheets varies so that in some cases residents' decisions to participate remain anonymous. In other cases, these decisions are observable. If social pressure motivates participation, then more people will participate when their decision is observable. To help determine the conditions under which social pressure is most effective, residents are invited to participate via varied mailers which emphasize different aspects of the program.The broader impact of this project is its contribution to conservation efforts. The research documents Americans' intrinsic motivation to save energy and it tests replicable methods of encouraging conservation. The real-world setting makes it easy to generalize the results of this experiment to other settings. The research results will assist regulators and green marketers in reducing energy consumption and encouraging consumers to purchase green products.