INFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS AND ENERGY-RELATED BEHAVIOUR ON SELF-SET GOALS FOR SINGAPORE RESIDENTIAL HOUSEHOLDS

Abstract

There is no doubt that Singapore, like the rest of the world, faces with an imminent issue of global warming and this has been caused by the ever-increasing energy consumption. One of the areas that raises a great concern is the energy consumption in Singapore households. It was found that household consumption accounts for a considerable proportion of the electricity consumed (Steg, 2008; He & Kua, 2013). Hence, there is a great need to examine interventions and study the effectiveness of these intervention in Singapore households. One of the most primitive intervention is goal-setting. However, little or nothing has been done in Singapore to test its effectiveness in dealing with the issue of the increased electricity consumption. However, before considering the effectiveness of goal setting, it is important to understand the intricacy of setting a goal and the underlying mechanisms that could explain the goal choices being made. This report will seek to evaluate how demographic factors and energy-related behaviours could possible interact with the selection of the difficulty level of an energy goal. A sample of 375 households participated and out of these households, 61 households were randomly selected to choose an energy goal from the range between 5% to 25%. Demographic information and self-reported energy-related behaviours were also collected through questionnaires and were taken to test against the self-set goals for correlation. It was found that only three out of the fourteen demographic factors, region, precinct and last renovation completed, correlate with self-set goals. Further Kruskal- Wallis H test and Post-hoc test was conducted to confirm where the differences occurred between the groups within the region, precinct and last renovation factors. No correlation was found between the energy-related behaviours and the self-set goals. This report also discusses the mechanisms between the interaction of the demographic factors and self-set goal to understand the underlying grounds of how households derive the difficulty level of their energy goal. It was noted that demographic factors could determine a household’s opportunities, constraints, belief system and abilities which ultimately affects the way one perceive the attainability of an energy goal. In turn, the level of perceived attainability of an energy goal would govern the selection of the difficulty level of an energy goal. This was presented in a diagram was drawn to summarise the various interactions. Lessons and insights from this study is believed to be able help policy makers design future selfset goal strategies in Singapore households.