TY - JOUR A1 - He, Shutong A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Robinson, Peter John A1 - van Beukering, Pieter T1 - Social comparison feedback in decision-making context: Environmental externality levels and psychological traits matter JF - Ecological Economics N2 - Social comparison feedback has been widely applied to encourage energy and water conservation, with the ultimate aim to protect ecosystems and the environment. Yet, the effectiveness of social comparison feedback varies. In this study, with 360 UK participants from Prolific, we conducted an online experiment based on a modified dictator game with multi-round purchasing decisions involving trade-offs between individual monetary payoff and real-world carbon offsets donation. A 2 × 3 between-subjects design was implemented, varying in the externality levels associated with the purchase (high versus low), and the type of feedback (self-feedback, social comparison feedback, and tangible emissions feedback – i.e. social comparison enriched with information relating environmental impacts to daily activity and nature). Furthermore, we measured several psychological traits of participants. Our findings show that social comparison interventions are only effective under certain circumstances. Both interventions with social comparison are more effective in the low-externality context. Furthermore, the effect of tangible emissions feedback is moderated by individuals’ tendency to conform to specific social norms and compete with others. Compared to standard social comparison feedback, social comparison feedback enriched with tangible emissions information is overall more effective. We highlight the importance of tailoring social comparison interventions to local environmental and cultural contexts. UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108047 Y1 - 2023 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108047 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-41859 SN - 1873-6106 SN - 0921-8009 VL - 2024 IS - 216 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Moerkerken, Albert A1 - Duijndam, Sem A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - van Beukering, Pieter A1 - van Well, Erik T1 - Which farmers adopt solar energy? A regression analysis to explain adoption decisions over time JF - Renewable Energy Focus N2 - Farmers can play an important role in the critical renewable energy transition by generating solar energy. Farmers' adoption of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system results from a complex and interdependent array of technical, political, social, and economic factors. Under the regime of a covenant on energy and greenhouse gas emissions, the evolution of perceptions and responses to solar PV was monitored for a panel of 279 Dutch farmers in a unique series of surveys in 2015, 2018, and 2020. We observed that the willingness to reduce greenhouse gas emissions steadily increased from 35% of the farmers in 2015 to 82% in 2020, while the perceptions toward solar PV adoption among Dutch farmers fluctuated over this period. We examined Dutch farmers’ determinants of solar PV uptake through multiple regression analyses. Consistent with the literature, our results indicate that behavioural intentions, the perceived importance of renewable energy, and farmers’ innovativeness are the most critical determinants for solar PV adoption. Many farmers mentioned the decreased payback time as the most crucial motive to adopt solar PV. We argue that a stable long-term policy for renewable energy, as implemented in the Netherlands, creates attractive economic conditions for solar PV adoption. At the same time, the payback time is a critical factor in shaping farmers’ intentions and behaviour. We recommend more extensive research using panel datasets of farmers, while we also acknowledge the difficulty of obtaining high-quality panel data, which underlines the uniqueness of our analysis. UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ref.2023.04.001 KW - Solar PV adoption KW - farmer behaviour KW - behavioural intentions KW - renewable energy policy KW - panel data Y1 - 2023 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ref.2023.04.001 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-40444 SN - 1755-0084 SN - 1878-0229 VL - 2023 IS - 45 SP - 169 EP - 178 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -