IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018 - 41

as a whole or a particular neighborhood, can accentuate shared
group membership and may foster
the willingness to cooperate on
problems of sustainable energy.
in addition to highlighting or
focusing on existing group memberships, new groups can also be
formed to further sustainableenergy actions. people can form
groups with others holding similar sustainable-energy attitudes to
advocate for sustainable-energy
transitions. groups focused on
sustainable energy can attract new
members, who can then be motivated toward sustainable-energy
use. thus, by creating or emphasizing shared group memberships,
figure 3. A neighborhood in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in which neighbors
groups can influence the attitudes
started an initiative to increase energy saving and sustainable energy in their neighand behaviors of its members and
borhood. (©Buurkracht, used with permission.)
foster cooperation among people
in the context of sustainability. neighborhood groups that form to facilitate the instal- memberships in the transition to a more sustainable society
lation of solar panels or meet to discuss ways to make and help them to better take into account the social dimentheir neighborhood more sustainable are examples of sion of the sustainable-energy transition when designing
this approach in action (see figure 3 for a picture of such a sustainable interventions.
neighborhood initiative).
although making particular group memberships salient For Further Reading
can enhance cooperation among group members, it can at the m. a. ferguson, r. i. mcdonald, and n. r. Branscombe,
same time make it more difficult for groups to cooperate on "global climate change: a social identity perspective on
sustainability issues. indeed, strong national identities are an informational and structural interventions," in Understandimportant reason why negotiations between members of the ing Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory,
united nations to mitigate climate change are so difficult. in s. mcKeown, r. haji, and n. ferguson, eds. new York:
these negotiations, the focus seems to be on the subgroup iden- springer, 2016, pp. 145-164.
tities of these different nations, and what is in the interest of
K. s. fielding and m. J. hornsey, "a social identity analthese (national) subgroups, rather than on what is in the inter- ysis of climate change and environmental attitudes and beest of the united nations as whole. highlighting shared group haviors: insights and opportunities," Frontier Psychol., vol.
membership at a superordinate level can be a way to overcome 7, pp. 121, feb. 2016.
such frictions and to foster cooperation for the greater good.
l. Jans and K. fielding, "the role of group processes in
environmental issues, attitudes, and behaviors," in Environmental Psychology: An Introduction, l. steg, a. f. van den
Summary
in this article, we have discussed the important role Berg, and J. i. m. de groot, eds. Bps Blackwell.
a. r. pearson, J. p. schuldt, and r. romero-canyas,
that groups play in the context of sustainable-energy issues
and the important influence they have on people's attitudes "social climate science: a new vista for psychological sciand behaviors regarding energy. We have outlined the key ence," Perspectives Psychol. Sci., vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 632-
theoretical approach within the field of social psychology to 650, 2016.
understand the influence of groups on people's attitudes and
behaviors in general as well as specifically in the context of Biographies
sustainability. Based on these insights, we have discussed Lise Jans is with the university of groningen, the netherlands.
different group-based approaches to encourage sustainThijs Bouman is with the university of groningen, the
able-energy attitudes and behaviors and foster cooperation netherlands.
around sustainable-energy issues. We hope these insights
Kelly Fielding is with the university of Queensland,
enable the readers, and in particular our colleagues in elec- australia.
p&e
trical engineering, to better assess the importance of group
january/february 2018

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