SGER: Footprints: Exploring Methods of Personalizing Suggestions for Actions in an Energy Conservation Social Network Site

2005年，美国人在日常活动中消耗了100千万亿btu的能源，几乎是世界人均水平的六倍。这反过来又导致了22亿吨二氧化碳（CO2）的释放，这种温室气体被认为是不利气候变化的主要原因。通过采取简单的行动来节约能源，个人可以帮助显著减少二氧化碳排放总量。许多这样的改变，比如用紧凑型荧光灯泡取代白炽灯，对个人来说都是简单而节省成本的措施。虽然亲环境的态度和信念是普遍的，这些很少转化为实际的节能行为。态度和行为之间的关系是复杂的，行为改变的障碍包括动机不足和不确定哪些选择将产生最大影响等问题。社会心理学研究和干预研究有助于定义一些有希望的特征，这些特征可以支持能源行为的改变，包括个性化，目标设定，以及关于个人结果和他人成功的动态比较反馈。该提案中的原型系统StepGreen试图通过频繁和适当地提供个性化信息，通过社会影响过程（例如，同伴的说服）以及与其他同样试图节约能源的群体的竞争性互动来诱导能源消耗的变化。互联网作为大规模变革的场所，其已被证实的能力为大规模试验这些特性提供了一个合适的场所。具体而言，该项目将收集有关如何最好地支持和鼓励能源使用方面的行为改变的数据，其结果将为StepGreen原型系统的设计提供信息。这项工作的一个基本前提是，建议需要在各个方面对每个StepGreen成员进行个性化，包括建议采取哪些行动、建议的顺序以及提出建议的方式（文本和图形）。这样的系统要想有效，就必须拥有庞大的用户基础。该项目的另一项中心活动是与有关民间组织发展伙伴关系，以确定适当的人口和使这些人参与的行之有效的技术。更广泛的影响：这个跨学科项目的结果将通过识别误解和教育个人关于行为和能源消耗之间的关系，使从环境工程到社会心理学到人机交互等领域受益，并提供关于如何利用互联网规模的技术来支持广泛的行为改变的详细理解。最后，这项工作将通过帮助解决一个关键的社会问题，即能源消耗，从而导致美国能源使用的具体减少，并通过提供结果为其他领域提供信息，这些领域的社会效益取决于个人行为的改变（例如，健康，乱扔垃圾，社区行动），从而造福社会。

In 2005, Americans consumed 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy in the course of everyday activities, almost six times the world wide average per person. This in turn caused the release of 2.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas indicated as a major cause of adverse climate change. By taking simple actions to conserve energy, individuals can help reduce total CO2 emission significantly. Many of these changes, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, are easy, cost-saving measure for individuals. Although pro-environmental attitudes and beliefs are widespread, these rarely transform into actual energy saving behaviors. The relationship between attitudes and behaviors is complex, and barriers to behavior change include issues such as insufficient motivation and uncertainty about what choices will have the most impact. Social psychological research and studies of interventions help to define some promising features that could support energy behavior change, including personalization, goal-setting, and dynamic, comparative feedback both about individual results and others' successes. The prototype system in this proposal, StepGreen, attempts to induce changes in energy consumption through personalized information presented frequently and appropriately, through social influence processes (e.g., persuasion by peers) and by competitive interaction with other groups who are similarly trying to save energy. The Internet, with its proven abilities as a locus for mass change, provides an opportune place to experiment with these features in the large.Specifically, this project will gather data about how to best support and encourage behavioral change regarding energy use, the results of which will inform the design of the prototype StepGreen system. A fundamental premise of this work is that suggestions will need to be personalized to each individual StepGreen member along a variety of dimensions, including what actions are recommended, the order in which they are recommended, and the manner (text and graphics) in which they are presented. To be effective such a system must achieve a massive user base. The other central activity to this project is developing partnerships with relevant civic organizations to identify appropriate populations and proven techniques for engaging those individuals. Broader impacts: The results of this interdisciplinary project will benefit fields ranging from environmental engineering to social psychology to Human Computer Interaction by identifying misconceptions and educating individuals about relationships between behavior and energy consumption, providing a detailed understanding of how internet-scale technology can be leveraged to support widespread behavioral change. Finally, the work will benefit society by helping to address a critical social issue, energy consumption, leading to concrete reductions in U.S. energy use and by providing results that inform other domains in which societal benefits depend on individual behavior change (e.g., health, littering, community action).