{"id":5203,"date":"2019-03-12T11:11:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T15:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?page_id=5203"},"modified":"2019-06-03T13:39:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T17:39:18","slug":"keeping-up-with-the-joneses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping up with the Joneses"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t take much<\/strong> to encourage people to save energy\u2014they just need a little nudge. In a study<\/a> published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>, Robert Metcalfe<\/a>, an assistant professor of markets, public policy & law, found that showing householders how their energy use compares with that of their neighbors prompts them to save more.<\/p>\n

Metcalfe and his coauthors analyzed the behavior of more than 42,000 households in Southern California during a peak load event, when electricity is at its most expensive. They tested responses to social nudges, prompts designed to guide an individual\u2019s actions by comparing them to those of others. One set of households\u2014the control group\u2014received no nudges, another received energy report phone calls and a document comparing their results to their neighbors\u2019 usage, and a third received just one of the two reports.<\/p>\n

Those who got one report trimmed their energy use by 2 to 4 percent compared to the control group. Those who received both social nudges cut their usage by nearly 7 percent. According to the researchers, achieving the same impact with price increases would take a 70 percent hike in the cost of electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople care about a lot of different things beyond prices,\u201d says Metcalfe. \u201cThis might be one way to get people to conserve at these peak times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t take much to encourage people to save energy\u2014they just need a little nudge. In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Robert Metcalfe, an assistant professor of markets, public policy & law, found that showing householders how their energy use compares with that of their neighbors prompts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14430,"featured_media":0,"parent":5191,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nKeeping up with the Joneses - Questrom Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keeping up with the Joneses - Questrom Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It doesn\u2019t take much to encourage people to save energy\u2014they just need a little nudge. 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In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Robert Metcalfe, an assistant professor of markets, public policy & law, found that showing householders how their energy use compares with that of their neighbors prompts […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/","og_site_name":"Questrom Magazine","article_modified_time":"2019-06-03T17:39:18+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/","name":"Questrom Magazine","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/","url":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/","name":"Keeping up with the Joneses - Questrom Magazine","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-03-12T15:11:29+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-03T17:39:18+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/keeping-up-with-the-joneses\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Spring 2019","item":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Keeping up with the Joneses"}]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5203"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5542,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5203\/revisions\/5542"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}