Based on the field study by shultz and his colleagues (2007) in which several households in a neighborhood received weekly feedback about their level of energy consumption relative to their neighbors, if you wanted to encourage people to use less electricity, what would you do?

If I wanted people to use less electricity, I would also identify the households which consume more electricity than the average and would give them information on how their consumption compares to the average (above the average). Also I would go to the households that have a consumption below the average and let them know the good they are doing in terms of consuming and the positive impact of what they are already doing.

Explanation:

The field study by Shultz and his colleagues consisted in giving weekly feedback to several households about their level of energy consumption relative to their neighbors. The study first measure the level of energy consumption of each household to establish a baseline. The households were told about this study.

Then, they proceed to take measures of the households consumption of electricity but they separated the households into two groups:

Then they proceed to make new measures of energy consumption and they left messages at the door of the households:

1. Households in the descriptive norm-only condition: each message contained (a) handwritten information about how much energy they had used in the previous week, (b) descriptive information about the average energy consumption in their neighborhood during the same period and (c) suggestions on how to conserve energy.

2. Households in the descriptive-plus-injunctive-information condition received the same information than the first group but if the household had consumed less than the average for the neighborhood the researcher drew a happy face, whereas if they consumed more than the average the researcher drew a sad face.

The households from the first group that were below the average actually increased their consumption, and the ones above the average decreased their consumption.

The households from the second group that were below the average continued being below the average, and the ones above the average decreased their consumption.

Based on this results, if I wanted people to use less electricity, I would also identify the households which consume more electricity than the average and would give them information on how their consumption compares to the average (above the average). Also I would go to the households that have a consumption below the average and let them know the good they are doing in terms of consuming and the positive impact of what they are already doing.

answer; the hypothalamus;