Energy Use Study Demonstrates Remarkable Power of Social Norms

An interesting extension of the “information cascade” effect. Researchers found that, given information about other people’s energy usage, people will likely adjust their own energy usage to match the “social norm” as presented to them. A study was done on a group in California to observe how their energy consumption behavior changed when given information about other people’s behaviors. The study showed that people whose intial usage was below the norm tend to increase their own usage with a “whew! I have some extra carbon to burn relative to everyone else” mindset and people whose energy usage was way above the norm tended to curb their own consumption. Because intial predictions vary so much, many of the people increased their own energy consumption when they found out that “most” people were using more than they were. In an information cascade, individuals make decisions about their own actions based on the prior actions of other people. In this particular case, all humanitarian and environmental tendencies aside, it was shown that people will generally adjust their own behaviors to reflect how they view people’s behaviors as a whole, often in a detrimental direction.

What is significant about this pattern is that it displaces many theories formed about American energy consumption. Obviously it has been a hot topic for several decades amongst the environmental and green activist groups, and everyone from lobbyists to preschool teachers have been trying to figure out ways to convince American people to be more conservationist. Here, we see that the phenomenon of information cascades may be a powerful tool in persuading American people to cut back on their SUV usage. If, someone, people were convinced that it is the “norm” to be using much less energy than they are, then they will lower their own usage, and so the norm would be lowered, and so on and so forth. Currently, it would not be surprising to find that energy usage is so high because people are made to believe that everyone else is driving Hummers and leaving their bathroom lights on.