Effects of Persuasive Communication on Intention to Save Energy: Punishing and Rewarding Messages

Communication can be used to persuade individuals to change their intentions. This study analyzes the use of rewarding and punishing messages for the purpose of changing intention towards energy saving. It also analyzes the use of social and individual rewards and punishments and their effects in motivating behavioral change positively towards energy saving. Results show that while reward and punishment are both effective in manipulating intention positively towards energy saving behaviors, overall there is no significant difference between the two. However, when individual reward was compared to individual punishment, individual punishment was found to be more effective than reward in affecting intention to save energy. This study also found that while social motivations are as effective as individual motivations in saving energy when used in rewarding messages, individual motivations in punishing messages were more effective than social ones.