Steg Linda, Perlaviciute Goda, van der Werff Ellen
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen , Groningen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2015 Jun 17;6:805. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00805. eCollection 2015.
Global climate change threatens the health, economic prospects, and basic food and water sources of people. A wide range of changes in household energy behavior is needed to realize a sustainable energy transition. We propose a general framework to understand and encourage sustainable energy behaviors, comprising four key issues. First, we need to identify which behaviors need to be changed. A sustainable energy transition involves changes in a wide range of energy behaviors, including the adoption of sustainable energy sources and energy-efficient technology, investments in energy efficiency measures in buildings, and changes in direct and indirect energy use behavior. Second, we need to understand which factors underlie these different types of sustainable energy behaviors. We discuss three main factors that influence sustainable energy behaviors: knowledge, motivations, and contextual factors. Third, we need to test the effects of interventions aimed to promote sustainable energy behaviors. Interventions can be aimed at changing the actual costs and benefits of behavior, or at changing people's perceptions and evaluations of different costs and benefits of behavioral options. Fourth, it is important to understand which factors affect the acceptability of energy policies and energy systems changes. We discuss important findings from psychological studies on these four topics, and propose a research agenda to further explore these topics. We emphasize the need of an integrated approach in studying the human dimensions of a sustainable energy transition that increases our understanding of which general factors affect a wide range of energy behaviors as well as the acceptability of different energy policies and energy system changes.
全球气候变化威胁着人们的健康、经济前景以及基本的食物和水源。要实现可持续的能源转型，就需要家庭能源行为发生广泛的改变。我们提出了一个理解和鼓励可持续能源行为的总体框架，它包含四个关键问题。首先，我们需要确定哪些行为需要改变。可持续能源转型涉及广泛的能源行为变化，包括采用可持续能源和节能技术、对建筑节能措施的投资，以及直接和间接能源使用行为的改变。其次，我们需要了解这些不同类型的可持续能源行为背后的因素。我们讨论影响可持续能源行为的三个主要因素：知识、动机和背景因素。第三，我们需要测试旨在促进可持续能源行为的干预措施的效果。干预措施可以旨在改变行为的实际成本和收益，或者改变人们对行为选项不同成本和收益的认知与评估。第四，了解哪些因素影响能源政策和能源系统变革的可接受性很重要。我们讨论了关于这四个主题的心理学研究的重要发现，并提出了一个研究议程以进一步探索这些主题。我们强调在研究可持续能源转型的人类维度时需要采用综合方法，这种方法能增进我们对哪些一般因素影响广泛的能源行为以及不同能源政策和能源系统变革的可接受性的理解。
