Volume 4: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part III

The Effect of Goal Setting Strategy and Residents’ Goal Commitment on Household Electricity Consumption in Singapore Meng Shen , Yujie Lu * , Yi En Law

Abstract

Goal commitment is a critical construct in understanding the relationship between goals and behavioral performance in the field of energy conservation. However, little has been done to investigate goal commitment in relation to electricity saving performances in household goal-setting treatment. This paper seeks to re-contextualize the associations of goal commitment with electricity saving performance in households and provide meaningful discussion and explanation to the findings observed. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of goal setting strategy on household electricity consumption in Singapore. In particular, interventions of assigned and self-set goal setting types were compared. Residents’ goal commitment was also accessed to understand the relationship between goals and electricity-saving performance. The results revealed a significant positive correlation between self-reported goal commitment and self-set goal choice. However, no significant relationship was found between self-set goal choice and electricity savings. It was also found that goal commitment has no significant relationship with electricity savings when goal difficulty was not a moderator, as in assigned goal group.

Keywords goal setting, self-set goal, goal commitment, electricity savings, energy behavior, intervention strategy