Making Prosocial Social: The Effectiveness of Social Proof for Energy Conservation Using Social Media

Abstract

Social media can be an effective tool for encouraging prosocial behavior, such as energy conservation, making it a key avenue to address the challenges associated with climate change. We examine how social media can be best leveraged to encourage energy-saving behavior. We theorize that two characteristics of social media messages are of particular importance in the context of nudging prosocial behavior: the recipient’s affiliation with the message sender and whether the content of the message contains a social proof appeal. We use a multimethod approach to test the importance of these characteristics, including a large-scale energy efficiency campaign and a controlled experiment. We find that social media messages sent by a group with which the recipient is affiliated are substantially more effective, particularly when providing evidence of social proof. We discuss the practical impact on the environment.