REFINING AN AKA-B MODEL FOR GREATER BEHAVIOR CHANGE Katherine V. Randazzo, Ph.D., Opinion Dynamics Jane S. Peters, Ph.D., Research Into Action Caroline Chen, Statwizards Brian Smith, PG&E; Andrew Fessel, PG&E Introduction  This presentation is about going beyond the low-hanging fruit in promoting energy-efficient behavior  For many years the dominant “model” of how to get customers to save energy was the PTEM (Physical-Technical-Economic Model)  Incent people to purchase technologies and the technologies will save the energy  This was enough for a while, but we have less low-hanging fruit now  I’m going to talk about using a conceptual model of change to help us think about how to go beyond where we have been  How do we go beyond installing lighting and certain one-time purchases?  How do we get to the human element and to durable changes in the use of the energy-efficient products?  How do we avoid take-back? Refining the AKA-B Model 2 Background  California’s IOUs have long used a simple model of behavior change to think about influencing customers to change their energy efficiency behavior  AKA or AKA-B  Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior  Shows up in most program logic models and statewide program planning metrics  The CA IOUs wanted an assessment of the currency & usefulness of AKA  AKA toward what? Programs? Energy efficiency? A technology?  Attitudes are not enough to change behavior  Subsequently, jointly we developed a revised model and generated generic questionnaire items  to track movement of customers based on that model  and describe participants and non-participants at any point in time to see if the programs were reaching the right customers Refining the AKA-B Model 3 Revised Model (synthesized from a variety of literatures) (these aren’t actual interview questions)  Stage Model—not causal  Addresses durable change-not one-  Can be used for different motivational time or immediate decisions domains  Can be used for general or specific  Environmental objects of awareness etc  Financial  Program  Comfort  Technology/appliance, etc Refining the AKA-B Model 4 Mapping Revised Model to Original AKA-B ak A B  Awareness and Knowledge Collapsed  Attitude expanded into  Concern  Personal Responsibility  Intention Added  Behavior Expanded into  Behavior Change  Maintenance Refining the AKA-B Model 5 Some Uses of the Model  Describes where customers are in the process of changing behavior in a sustained way  Knowing this helps with messaging and targeting  If target customers are already far along, then information will not be effective  If customer is not knowledgeable, then information may be most effective  Provides new insight into the decision drivers for participants and nonparticipants, possibly a better estimate of true readiness to adopt technology and change habits on their own  Can be combined with segmentation to even better describe customers/participants/non-participants  Provides guidance on what to measure and at what point Refining the AKA-B Model 6 Causal Model with Intervention Points Refining the AKA-B Model 7 What We Did Next  Developed questionnaire items to measure each construct  Reliability and validity good—following two pre tests testing nearly 100 items  Some insights from our initial uses of the model:  It is essential to distinguish between influencing someone to make an energy- efficient purchase (or behavior) on one occasion versus influencing sustained changes (we knew this before but testing the model reminded us)  It is easier to predict/influence specific attitudes and behaviors than general ones  But general attitudes may be important as the context in which to influence specific behaviors at any given moment  Triggers  Making new behaviors convenient  It is a lot to ask for a specific utility/third party program to change customers’ environmental awareness or convince them to take personal responsibility for it! Refining the AKA-B Model 8 Refined Model (representing insights from prior slide) General KAwnoawrelendegsse/ / Concern RePspeorsnosniba ill it y Intention BCehhaanvgieo r Maintenance Awareness/ Behavior Knowledge Intention Change Specific Program Provides Program Trigger Information Program Program Makes it Messaging Convenient to Change Provides Decision Habit Heuristics Overcoming Barriers: Examples  But programs can build on a foundation of environmental awareness/concern that was built by mass media campaigns Refining the AKA-B Model 9 Examples: General akAB Messaging Making the connection between energy and the environment (AK) Refining the AKA-B Model 10