A social influence approach to household energy conservation behaviours in student households

As household energy conservation is a growing concern, understanding the motivations underlying household members urging each other to consume less energy is important. Although biospheric values are well-known to promote a broad range of pro-environmental behaviours, less is known about the role of egoistic values. While scarcely researched, there is some evidence that egoistic values might promote social influence actions. To better understand the role of biospheric and egoistic values in this process, an exploratory questionnaire study was conducted with 193 students to assess the link between values and pro-environmental social influence behaviours. As expected, both biospheric and egoistic values promoted these types of actions, with biospheric values having the larger effect. In addition, the effect of biospheric values was moderated by the strength of egoistic values. Specifically, biospheric values more strongly predicted the likelihood of social influence actions as egoistic values increased, except when egoistic values were high. The current paper contributes to the literature by considering the connections between values and social influence behaviours within shared housing situations, and furthering current knowledge on the role of egoistic values in environmental actions