IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018 - 38

The insights offered by the social identity approach provide
suggestions for group-based approaches to encourage
sustainable-energy attitudes and behaviors.

in community sustainable-energy groups and thereby
developing a new social identity that can motivate sustainableenergy behaviors.
in summary, our group memberships (i.e., social identities) and the processes that relate to these groups can strongly
influence our attitudes and behaviors related to sustainable
energy. When a particular group membership becomes selfdefining, personal interests are pushed to the background,
and people's sustainable-energy attitudes and behaviors are
motivated by the content of their group's identity (when sustainability is relevant to that group identity). this can promote cooperation among group members in the service of
sustainability but also conflict between groups over energyrelated issues. the influence of membership is particularly
strong for people who highly identify with their group and
when the social context makes them stand out as a group.
these insights highlight the important role of group processes in the context of sustainability.

significantly more than groups of lower economic status, it is
particularly members of economically disadvantaged groups
(e.g., small island developing states) who will experience the
harmful impacts of climate change the most. this enhances
the likelihood that group memberships become salient in the
context of sustainable energy and that group memberships
influence one's position on sustainable energy.
the important role of groups and group processes in the
context of sustainable energy makes evident why group-based
approaches are particularly well suited for changing attitudes
and behaviors in the context of sustainability. addressing
people as a group, rather than as individuals, can help them to
overcome their differences and to act in accordance with their
shared group membership in the energy domain. as we will
discuss later, groups can either support or discourage sustainable energy, depending on their social identity content.

Group-Based Approaches
to Change Consumers' Energy Behavior

groups influence how we see ourselves, with whom we connect, and what kind of beliefs and behaviors we think are
appropriate in a situation. clearly, these influences depend
on our shared understanding of what the group is about (its
content), which is in part based on the group's values (i.e.,
general principles that are important for the group) and
group norms (i.e., what is considered appropriate to do and
think within a group). sustainable attitudes and behaviors
are most likely when group memberships are made salient in
which sustainable values are focal and norms promote sustainable-energy behaviors. We will explain these two factors
in more detail.

the insights offered by the social identity approach provide
suggestions for group-based approaches to encourage sustainable-energy attitudes and behaviors. to date, most interventions to promote sustainable-energy attitudes and behaviors target people as individuals, aiming to change their
individual motivations (e.g., save energy to save money).
Yet, the transition toward sustainable energy is inherently
social and particularly suitable to be addressed by groupbased approaches.
evidence for this position comes first from the fact that
the unsustainable usage of limited energy sources fostering
climate change has often been defined as a collective problem. collective actions of individuals and groups have caused
the unsustainable usage of limited energy sources, and cooperation among individuals and groups is needed to transition toward a more sustainable-energy system. One example
of the potential for cooperation can be found in denmark,
where the community on samsø has made their island the
first fully renewable energy-powered island in the world.
second, evidence for the social nature of the sustainableenergy transition lies in the fact that different groups in society have contributed to and will be affected by this collective
problem to different degrees. for example, whereas groups
of higher socioeconomic status (e.g., large, often western,
industrialized nations) are contributing to climate change
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ieee power & energy magazine

Social Identity Content: Supporting or
Discouraging Sustainable Energy

The importance of group values
group values indicate what a group stands for. for example,
green political parties have protecting the environment as a
central value whereas conservative political parties usually
privilege economic growth. group values are strongly intertwined with the group's identity, believed to be relatively
stable over time, and are seen as underlying factors that consistently affect members' behaviors and beliefs. according
to schwartz's universal value theory, there is a set of values
that can be found across individuals and groups worldwide.
individuals and groups endorse most of these values to a certain extent but differ in the way they prioritize them.
two value clusters-self-enhancement and self-transcendence values-are generally considered to relate to
january/february 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018