How political identity changes response to energy conservation feedback by 200%

Nudges: Interventions where behavioral architects change aspects of the choice architecture—as opposed to aspects of the choices themselves—to lead people to choose in a certain way.

Identity Economics: The branch of economics that focuses on how people’s identity—in this case, political identity—influences people’s choices.  

Social Norms: Social norms are rules that rule how individuals ought to act in a society. Oftentimes, social norms and group identity are closely tied: belonging to a certain group comes with having to follow certain group-specific rules.

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues today, and most experts agree that curbing energy consumption is key to mitigating its effects. Consequently, policy makers across the world need to act fast: we need policies that lower energy consumption. One successful method has been to increase taxes on energy consumption; for instance, Danish taxes on energy consumption constitute more than 50% of consumers’ electricity bill.

In the United States, however, political gridlock has prevented policy makers from implementing high energy tax. (In various polls, Democrats and Republicans differ between 20 and 30 points on whether they’re in favor of higher electricity taxes.) This begs the question: if the political differences between liberals and conservatives halted traditional legislation, would they also affect the impact of a nudge? 

Many have turned to nudges as a low-cost alternative to traditional policy proposals like increased taxation. In a 2008 case, a large utility district started sending over-consuming citizens a HER report, which details how their electricity usage is above their neighbors’, and gives them tips on how to curb their electricity usage. 

Who was included in the sample?

The researchers looked at 35,000 contiguous, single-family households who received an HER report, and at a control group of about 49,000 contiguous, single-family households who did not receive it. To be eligible, the household could not be in an apartment complex, and had to be between 250 and 99,998 square feet. They then looked at these households’ consumption data starting from January 2007 to October 2009, and matched it to the data provided by the HER report and the control data. (When either was unavailable, the household was discarded from analysis.)

How was political ideology assessed?

To test for political ideology, the researchers purchased household voter registration data from Aristotle, a political data and consulting firm. This allowed them to see a household’s political affiliation and donation patterns; in particular, the researchers were able to see whether i) a household’s votes were more liberal or conservative leaning, ii) whether the household donated to an environmental group, and iii) whether the household enrolled in the electricity company’s previous, voluntary renewable power program. They also looked at a survey, provided by the utility provider, of around 1,375 households’ attitudes towards the HER program. 

Using these measures, the researchers claimed to estimate whether a household was liberal or conservative, what their attitudes towards the HER program were, and how much energy they consumed before and after the program was implemented.

All else being equal, the nudge was effective in both liberals and conservatives, to differing degrees. Liberals decreased their consumption by 2.4%; conservatives decreased their consumption by 1.7%. Controlling for income, home value, and renter status had no statistically significant effect. Living in a liberal neighborhood did have a statistically significant effect: both liberals and conservatives in such neighborhoods were more likely to reduce consumption after reading their HER.

Examining additional variables

When all else was not equal, the difference between liberals and conservatives heightened. For instance, among households who did not purchase renewable energy, and which did not donate to environmental causes, liberals' energy consumption reduced by twice more than their conservative colleagues’ (4% to 5% vs. 1% to 2%, respectively.) Looking at various additional vectors, the researchers estimated that the nudge was two to four more times more effective on liberals than on conservatives. Additionally, conservatives were more likely to report negative attitudes towards the HER, and were much more likely to stop reading after two minutes than liberals. 

Key takeaway

Overall, while the HER successfully nudged liberals and conservatives towards consuming less energy, it was more effective among liberals. Moreover, conservatives were much more likely to respond negatively to it. Thus, the researchers recommend that policymakers consider individualizing nudges based on household and neighborhood political make-up.

• While OPOWER’s initial intervention was successful at curbing energy consumption among liberals, it was less successful—and sometimes backfired—amongst conservatives.
• The data set’s size suggests that the participant set was diverse, but equity was not explicitly discussed.
• Their purchase of the data set makes it unclear whether privacy and consent were respected.

Holding the Line: Social Norms and Party-Line Voting:

We saw how a big motivation for California’s HER policy was that there was a large political gridlock between liberals and conservatives in the United States. We also saw how political identity affects the policy’s effectiveness at mitigating energy consumption. As it turns out, however, political identity’s effect on decision-making is partly responsible for the gridlock in the first place. In this article, Shi Shi Li provides a behavioral perspective on how political identity, and the social norms associated with that identity, lead members of congress to vote along party lines.

How Social Norms Complicate Behavioral Research:

In this study, we saw one way in which group identity complicates behavioral interventions. However, group identity also affects behavioral research, too. In this piece, John Lawrence documents some of the ways in which group identity—and the social norms that come with it— affect research in the behavioral sciences.