Social information programs are widely used to nudge behavioural change. Their effectiveness strongly depends on household and individual traits. The existing evidence in economics and psychology points to the role of environmental values and identity in determining pro-environmental behavior and the impact of social information. In a large field experiment on household energy conservation, we combine electricity metering and survey data to test whether the impact of a social information program can be strengthened by leveraging environmental values and identity. We experimentally augment social information messages with an environmental self-identity prime. The self-identity prime does not strengthen the effectiveness of a social information program on average. Nonetheless, we find suggestive evidence that priming environmental self-identity can be effective if targeted to specific sub-groups.

社会信息程序被广泛用于推动行为改变。它们的有效性在很大程度上取决于家庭和个人特征。经济学和心理学上的现有证据指出了环境价值和身份在确定环保行为和社会信息影响方面的作用。在一项有关家庭节能的大型实地实验中，我们将电表和调查数据结合起来，以测试是否可以通过利用环境价值和身份来增强社会信息计划的影响。我们实验性地使用环境自我身份素词来增强社交信息消息。平均而言，自我认同素养并不能增强社交信息计划的有效性。尽管如此，