Research On Influencing Factors And Guiding Policy Of Energy-conservation Behavior Of Urban Residents

As the country that has the biggest population in the world, China’s residents’energy consumption is of obvious significance on economic and social development.With rapid urbanization process and residents’living standard improving continuously,demand of living energy will keep increasing. Promoting urban residents that are themajor group of living energy consumption to implement energy conservation behaviorare the key to build saving-and low-carbon society. Especially, the level of economicdevelopment of eastern region’ is high; however, the level of self-sufficiency ofenergy is low. Therefore, guiding urban residents of eastern region to implementenergy conservation behavior is of more practical significance.Energy-conservation behavior choice of residents is a complex process. Thispaper’s technical route is from raising questions to theoretical research and empiricalresearch taking urban resident’s energy-conservation behavior as the research object.Based on the classical theory of behavior models, this paper establishes the theorymodel of the influencing factors on urban residents’ energy conservation behaviorusing the theory and methods of behavioristic and psychology. Using the data from aquestionnaire survey among urban residents of eastern region, the internal andexternal influencing factors are analyzed deeply and systematically. The internalmechanism of urban residents’ energy conservation behavior is clarified. And thenbased on the complex adaptive system theory, the simulation system is establishedusing the simulation platform Netlogo. On the situation of the external policyenvironment change, the behavioral intention and the behavioral choice of energyconservation of urban residents is dynamically analyzed. Finally, after the empiricalanalysis and simulation research, the policy system of guiding urban residents’ energyconservation behavior is designed and the policy suggestions are proposed. The threespecific research contents are as follows:Firstly, the theory model of the influencing factors of urban residents’ energyconservation behavior establishment and empirical analysis. On the basis of literatureresearch, this paper carries out in-depth interviews on urban residents and consultationwith experts, uses qualitative research method of grounded theory. Then theinfluencing factors are filtered into four concepts: social demographic factors,individual’s psychology characteristics factors, situational factors and behavioralresults factors. And the theory model of the influencing factors of urban residents’energy conservation behavior is built, the relationship of these factors is described and the research hypotheses are proposed. Using our measurement scale，the preliminarysurvey and the formal one is carried out among the urban residents of eastern region.On the basis of the survey data, the model of influencing factors of energyconservation behavior is tested using the method of multivariate statistical analysisand structural equation model.The results show that urban residents’ energy conservation behaviors aresynthetically affected by those four factors. Social demographic variables have directeffects on them. Individual’s psychology characteristics factors contain of eightvariables---values, sensitiveness of energy problems, knowledge of energyconservation behavior, perceived self-efficacy, perceived behavior control andpreferences of comfort affect the behavior mainly through the mediatingvariabls---behavior intention. External environmental locus of control and preferenceof comfort have negative effects and the others have positive ones. Situational factorshave six variables---social norms of energy conservation, popularization ofenergy-conservation policy, execution and validity of policy, execution and validity ofinformation intervention, level of price and factors of energy-conservation products,which can regulate the process of intention transforming into behavior. Level ofenergy-conservation products price has a negative effect and the others have positiveones. Perceiving economical saving of behavior results has lower significance aninfluence degree on behavior intention. While perceiving spiritual satisfaction has alarger effect on behavior intention.Secondly, multi-agent simulation model establishment and results analysis ofurban residents’ energy conservation behavior. As the basis of theory and data fromempirical analysis, this paper establishes the multi-agent simulation model to revealcomplicated internal mechanism of urban residents’ energy conservation behaviorusing complex adaptive theory. Artificial neural network makes the resident agentintelligent and verifies the complicated internal mechanism of relationship of theexternal energy conservation policy and behavior emerging. By means of differentparameters setting, this paper simulates the dynamic variation of urban residents’behavior choice and intention in short term and long term to reflect the effects ofbehavior choice and perceived behavior results on the intention.The results show that in the absence of external policy role, urban residents’energy conservation behavior does not match the behavior intention, which is mostobvious to quality-threshold behavior and interpersonal-facilitation. Different policies have difference intensity and direction effects on the process of intention transformingto behavior. Social norms of energy conservation and population of guiding energyconservation policy can promote the process of intention transforming tohabit-adjustment, quality-threshold and interpersonal-facilitation behavior.Popularization of economic energy conservation policy and the price level of energycan promote the process of intention transforming to habit-adjustment,quality-threshold and efficiency-investment behavior. The execution and validity ofenergy policy and information intervention can promote the process of intentiontransforming to the four behavior. Factors of energy-conservation products canpromote the process of intention transforming to efficiency-investment behavior whilethe price of energy conservation production has the negative effects on the contrary. Inthe long run, social norms of energy conservation, popularization of guiding energyconservation policy, execution and validity of energy policy can strengthen theintention and promote the implementation of energy conservation behavior.Finally, based on the results of empirical analysis and simulation research, thispaper designs the policy system of guiding urban residents’ energy conservationbehavior from the aspects of technical, economic and information measures. And thecorresponding policy suggestions are proposed.