AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INTERACTION EFFECTS OF LIVE FEEDBACK AND SOCIAL COMPARISON INTERVENTIONS ON RESOURCE CONSERVATION.

Abstract

Motivated by empirical findings of interactions between behavioural interventions that aim to reduce resource consumption, this paper seeks to expand this empirical investigation and formalize a theoretical framework to understand such interaction effects between two commonly used behavioural interventions – live feedback and social comparison. The paper posits a model to predict behavioural responses to these interventions using reference-dependent preferences and the correction of salience bias. To evaluate its predictions, an experiment was conducted in student residences of the National University of Singapore, to investigate the effects of live feedback, social comparison and their interaction on water and air-conditioning use. Individually, live feedback reduced water use by 15% while social comparison resulted in non-negative adjustments to resource use. Implementing social comparison with live feedback offset 20% of the initial resource conservation induced by live feedback. Significantly, these findings conclude that live feedback induces the greatest conservation effect on its own.