The homo economicus fallacy in behaviour and practice
The homo economicus fallacy in behaviour and practice change Niall Dunphy Director, Cleaner Production Promotion Unit, School of Engineering, University College Cork @NPDunphy n. dunphy@ucc. ie
Human factor in the energy system http: //www. entrust-h 2020. eu The ENTRUST project has received funding from the European Union’s H 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation under Grant Agreement no 657998
Behaviour Change • Technological fixes to the challenge of climate change are often more attractive than behavioural ones … ‘they require that people do basically nothing. We simply change the environment and go on living much as we have in the past. Problem solved’ Heberlein (cited in Sovacool 2014) • But there has been a (slow) realisation that technological fixes alone cannot fully solve the problem and people need to change behaviour • But what type of behaviour change. . .
Mus economicus ?
Rational Choice Model • Founded on methodological individualism which holds that aggregate social behaviour reflects sum of choices made by individuals based on their own preferences and constraints • The individual is presumed to make rational choices that provides maximum net benefit to them • Currently dominates thinking on consumer behaviour • By extension also predominate in behaviour change initiatives people often thought of solely in terms of their role as consumers
Rational Choice Model – policy implications Policy responses that result from the rational choice model involve: a) first providing information to ensure that consumers can make ‘informed’ choices and; b) second, providing a mechanism for internalising costs associated with externalities in order to make them ‘visible’ to private choice. Moloney et al. , 2010
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. ”
“To a man with a …
Common assumptions in behaviour change Behaviour change initiatives are largely based on influencing individual motivations, values and beliefs and make a number of assumptions: 1. The ‘right’ information will lead to socially and environmentally preferable behaviour - can be an important first step - but on its own is unlikely to motivate substantial changes - not likely to result in sustained change beyond a given campaign Moloney et al. , 2010
Common assumptions in behaviour change 2. Once presented with the facts on e. g. , climate change people will they will respond rationally and change behaviour - Evidence suggests that responses vary according to their contexts, cultures and emotional states, and with - Increasing knowledge about climate change and its impacts responses can vary from disinterest and disempowerment to scepticism and fear Moloney et al. , 2010
Common assumptions in behaviour change 3. Assumed primacy of individual over collective behaviour change. Which as Maniates (2002) says: ‘‘shifts blame from state elites and powerful producer groups to amorphous culprits like ‘human nature’ or ‘all of us’’’ - limits behaviour change to moral persuasion or cost incentives - ignores the considerable body of research on how agency and structure relate to each other (Giddens 1984) - marketing may be relatively effective in influencing behaviours that require little confidence or skill deeper changes to habits and lifestyles require strategies that engage individuals at a deeper level Moloney et al. , 2010
Focus on rational choice model of Behaviour
Behaviouralism Rational choice model has been widely criticised, both for failing to deliver energy reductions and for not taking account of the physical, social, cultural and institutional contexts that shape and constrain people’s choices about energy use. … Practice theory
Some food for thought • How appropriate is it to focus on the individual rather than the collective? • What is the role of social norms, practices and habits in every day behaviour activity? • To what extent are behaviour change programmes examining what is shaping and influencing the particular behaviours they seek to change?
Relevance of the (other) social sciences … • Increasing recognition that the social sciences can make an important contribution to achieving a sustainable energy transition • However, contribution often conceived in narrow behaviouralist terms • For example, Fri & Savitz, (2014) found that social science involvement in US research projects over the past number of years was dominated by psycho-social insights into human behaviour
Behaviours and practices • Many behaviours are not overtly chosen, and may be better termed habits or practices • Hand et al. (2005) give the example of the daily shower practice which has become the social norm – people are accordingly ‘locked in’ to this practice and have few options to change behaviour unless challenging social norms • In a similar way, Moloney et al. (2005) explain how private car commuting could be seen as a locked in practice rather than a behavioural choice when economic, and transport structures mean there are no viable alternatives • Shove and Walker (2010) suggest that such specific practices ‘are usefully understood as an outcome of the active integration of constitutive elements’
Behaviour change wheel Michie et al. , 2011
Behaviour change wheel Intervention Definition Restrictions Using rules to reduce opportunity to engage in target behaviour Educations Increasing knowledge or understanding Persuasion Communication to stimulate action Incentivisation Creation expectation of reward Coercion Creating expectation of punishment Training Imparting skills Enablement Increasing means / reducing barriers Modelling Provide aspirational examples Environmental restructuring Changing physical or social context
Findings from ENTRUST study Energy related behaviour change interventions are heavily clustered to ‘communication and marketing’ and ‘service provision’ policy categories, and also concentrate mostly on education, modelling and enablement interventions. Morrissey, J, Axon, S, Aiesha, Hillman, J, Revez, A, Lennon, B, Dunphy, N, Salel, M & Boo, E (2016) Identification and Characterisation of Energy Behaviour Change Initiatives. ENTRUST project deliverable. Cork: University College Cork
Findings from ENTRUST study • Schemes vary in scale, size and geography - interventions often address wider social agenda, heathy lifestyles, fuel poverty, etc. • Schemes are often short term actions • A large proportion of case studies sought to target the individual context of behaviour change • Two key challenges: a neglect of wider social elements a lack of consistency with wider policy approaches • Reluctance to apply regulatory, fiscal and legislative approaches to influence energy behaviour • Ideally, a mix of interventions and initiatives are required to sustain meaningful pro-environmental actions
Conclusions In the words of Røpke (2009): ‘it is important to identify the practices demanding considerable resources and to study the formation of these practices as a basis for policies’ This requires a mixed-methods interdisciplinary approach involving sociological perspectives to complement the traditional emphasis on on behavioral economics and psychology, which are inherently more quantitative.
Selected Bibliography Moloney S, Horne RE, Fien J. , (2010), Transitioning to low carbon communities—from behaviour change to systemic change: Lessons from Australia. Energy Policy. Vol 38, No 12 pp. 7614– 23. Sovacool B. K. , (2014), What are we doing here? Analyzing fifteen years of energy scholarship and proposing a social science research agenda. Energy Research and Social Science Vol 1, pp. 1– 29. Michie, S. , van Stralen, M. M. , & West, R. , (2011), The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, Vol 6, No 1, pp. 42. Jackson, T. , (2005), Motivating Sustainable Consumption: A Review of Evidence on Consumer Behaviour and Behavioural Change. A Report to the Sustainable Development Research Network, sponsored by DEFRA. Maniates, M. , (2002), Individualisation: plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? . In: Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, Ken Conca (Eds. ), Confronting Consumption. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Giddens A. (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hand, M. , Shove, E. and Southerton, D. , (2005), 'Explaining showering: a discussion of the material, conventional and temporal dimensions of practice', Sociological Research Online, Vol 10, No 2 url: http: //www. socresonline. org. uk/10/2/hand. htm Røpke I. , (2009), Theories of practice — New inspiration for ecological economic studies on consumption. Ecological Economics Vol 68, No 10, pp. 2490– 7. Fri R. W. , Savitz M. L. , (2014), Rethinking energy innovation and social science. Energy Research and Social Science Vol 1, pp. 183– 7.
http: //www. entrust-h 2020. eu The ENTRUST project has received funding from the European Union’s H 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation under Grant Agreement no 657998 n. dunphy@ucc. ie @NPDunphy
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