BIG-5 PERSONALITY, GOAL-SETTING AND HOUSEHOLD'S ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Climate change is one of the world’s largest threat of the 21st century and its relevant issues such as the need to reduce energy consumption has become a critical and urgent concern. Correspondingly, research has concluded human behaviour as the main determinant underlying the global climate, and it is obvious that these behaviours must therefore be modified for socio-ecological systems to take a sustainable turn (Steg and Vlek, 2009; Antal and Hukkinen, 2010). Having reviewed past literature, research gap exists on relationship of Big Five personality dimensions, Goal-setting intervention, Pro-Environmental Behaviours (PEB) and electricity conservation in the context of Singapore, taking its tropical climate into consideration. In addition, integrative approaches, which examine on the dynamical coupling between internal (Big Five personality) and external behaviour attributes (Goalsetting intervention), have invariably been rare, especially in the context of Singapore. Out of the 197 households recruited, 80 households were randomly chosen for the intervention, comprising of a mix of four and five-room HDBs. Response on Big Five personality profiles, and Energy Consumption Behaviour (EB) were collected from EBQA and EBQB, together with the weekly electricity usage of households, were used for data analysis. Using the Mann-Whitney U test , the default group exhibit a higher degree of percentage in change (PIC) Mean Rank of 38.14 as compared to control’s 33.68. In addition, the average PIC for control group is 8.22% while the default is 10.05%, proving that the default group performed better than the control group in electricity conservation. Positive correlations between Openness, Conscientiousness and PEB were observed, whereas negative correlations between Extraversion, Neuroticism and PEB were observed. Multiple regression was performed to analyse the linear relationship of personality traits, goal-setting intervention and electricity reduced (PIC) though no significant results were found. Therefore, it is possible that there is a higher order relationship between abovementioned variables. Lessons and insights from this study is believed to help to refine current household interventions by taking into consideration both internal and external behaviour attributes.