Research On The Psychological Motivation And The Intervention Of Non-financial Information On Group Electricity-saving Behavior

In recent years,environmental pollution and climate problems caused by high carbon emissions have attracted strong attention by the public and the international community.As one of the signatories of The Paris Agreement,China has been making efforts to reduce carbon emissions.At the Climate Ambition Summit in 2020,President Xi Jinping once again mentioned China’s carbon reduction goal that China would peak its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and strive to be carbon neutral by 2060.Electricity consumption is the largest single source of carbon emissions and air pollution in China now.Although it has been declining year by year in the industrial field,it is increasing year by year in the living field.What’s more,organizations generate nearly twice as much energy as households in the living field.Therefore,how to reduce the level of electricity consumption in the living field becomes an important field to promote carbon emission reduction.Therefore,outside the private sphere,such as households,group energy-saving behavior without financial motivation may be a breakthrough to achieve emission reduction targets.In addition,most of the current studies on electricity-saving behaviors in the living field are concentrated in the private sphere such as families and individuals,while there are few researches on electric-saving behaviors at the group level in the public fields such as companies and campuses.In order to fill this gap and promote electricity-saving actions in the public sphere,this study takes group electricity-saving behavior as the research object and explores psychological driving mechanism of group electricity-saving behavior and the effect of non-financial information intervention on group electricity-saving behavior.The results of this research can provide management suggestions to promote action to save energy and reduce emissions for companies and campus with group energy-using behavior.The research contents and key conclusions of this research are as follows:The first part is empirical research.In this part,the model of psychological motivation of group electricity-saving behavior was constructed and tested.Firstly,according to the theoretical basis and relevant literature review at home and abroad,combined with the characteristics of group behavior,the theoretical model of psychological motivation and mechanisms of group electricity-saving behavior is established by expanding the Theory of Planned Behavior.Secondly,the initial scale was developed according to the variables of theoretical model,and was tested by preinvestigated.Then formal scale was formed after revision of initial scale.Finally,the structural equation model was used to test and revise the theoretical model.The results show that attitude,subjective norms,perceived behavioral control,system knowledge and action knowledge can promote group electricity-saving behavior by promoting group electricity-saving willingness,but there are differences in the effect intensity of different psychological antecedents.In addition,the group cohesion has a moderating effect on the conversion of the group’s electricity-saving willingness to the electricitysaving behavior.The second part is experimental research.This part tested the effect of four different non-financial information intervention on group electricity-saving behavior through a 14-week longitudinal field controlled experiment.First,based on the empirical research results of psychological motivation and mechanism of group electricity-saving behavior,the corresponding non-financial information intervention frameworks were designed according to the psychological antecedents of group electricity-saving behavior,such as attitude,subjective normative,perceived behavioral control,system knowledge and action knowledge.There are two kinds of pre-use information frameworks(environmental education information and normative information)and two kinds of feedback information frameworks(self-contrast feedback and group-contrast feedback).Second,a 14-week field experiment was conducted in the dormitories of university students and the intervention effects of the above four kinds of non-financial information on the group electricity savings were tested.In the field experiment,4 experimental groups and 1 control group were set up and four types of non-financial information coupled with pre-use information and feedback were respectively assigned to the four experimental groups.The effectiveness of four kinds of non-financial information intervention frameworks on promoting group electricity savings was evaluated by the approach of difference-in-difference.The results showed that appropriate non-financial information intervention can significantly promote group eelectricity savings,and group cohesion plays a moderating role in the impact of non-financial information intervention on the group’s actual energy saving behavior.Finally,according to the results of empirical research and experimental research,this study puts forward exercisable management suggestions for using non-financial information intervention to promote electricity-saving behavior at the group-level.These conclusions provide a detailed basis for decision-making on how to use nonfinancial information to promote energy conservation and emission reduction in the public spheres.There are 15 figures,42 tables and 188 references in this paper.