Making Prosocial Social: The Effectiveness of Social Proof for Energy Conservation Using Social Media

Bryan Bollinger, Kenneth Gillingham and Kelley Gullo Wight

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2023, vol. 8, issue 3, 290 - 300

Abstract: Social media can be an effective tool for encouraging prosocial behavior, such as energy conservation, making it a key avenue to address the challenges associated with climate change. We examine how social media can be best leveraged to encourage energy-saving behavior. We theorize that two characteristics of social media messages are of particular importance in the context of nudging prosocial behavior: the recipient’s affiliation with the message sender and whether the content of the message contains a social proof appeal. We use a multimethod approach to test the importance of these characteristics, including a large-scale energy efficiency campaign and a controlled experiment. We find that social media messages sent by a group with which the recipient is affiliated are substantially more effective, particularly when providing evidence of social proof. We discuss the practical impact on the environment.

Date: 2023
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