Mental accounting mechanisms in energy decision-making and behaviour

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Mental accounting refers to the fact that people create mental budgets to organize their resource use and to create linkages between specific acts of consumption and specific payments. Research on financial decision-making and consumer behaviour shows that these mechanisms can have a large impact on decisions and behaviours, deviating from normative economic principles. Here we introduce a theoretical framework illustrating how mental accounting mechanisms may influence individual decisions and behaviours driving energy consumption and carbon emissions. We demonstrate the practical relevance of mental accounting in the context of designing carbon pricing mechanisms and discuss the ethical dimensions of applying the concept to intervention design. By bridging the mental accounting literature and research in the energy domain, we aim to stimulate the study of the cognitive mechanisms underlying energy-relevant decisions and the development of novel theory-based interventions targeting reductions of energy use and carbon emissions.

Original languageEnglish
JournalNature Energy
Volume5
Issue number12
Pages (from-to)952-958
Number of pages7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12.2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature Limited.

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Ego depletion and the use of mental contrasting
  2. Diversitätsgerechte und digitale Lehre - Chance oder Widerspruch?
  3. Selbstreguliertes Lernen im Mathematikstudium
  4. CSR reporting as a communication signal contributing to the corporate reputation
  5. Über das Marionettentheater
  6. Ecophysiological isotope tools for characterising the drought sensitivity of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii Mirb. Franco)
  7. Species diversity of forest floor biota in non-native Douglas-fir stands is similar to that of native stands
  8. The Clock of the Long-Now
  9. Practical wisdom and virtue ethics for knowledge co-production in sustainability science
  10. Brand mit Ansage
  11. Capacity building for transformational leadership and transdisciplinarity
  12. 再生可能エネルギー促進に向けたドイツの法的ステップ
  13. ’I know you you can’t see it, but you can imagine it.'
  14. Fazit: Wie hacken?
  15. RiB-Kit (RFID-in-a-Box)
  16. Affective events and proactivity
  17. Genetic Implications of Chemical and Textural Properties of Some Fra Mauro Breccias (Apollo 14)
  18. Equivalence scales based on revealed preference consumption expenditures - the case of Germany
  19. Comparative human resource management
  20. Cultural stability, managerial behavior, and employee attitudes in M&A projects
  21. Investigation on Flexible Coils Geometries for Inductive Power Transmission Systems
  22. Zur Wiederentdeckung des Körpers - die Feldenkraismethode
  23. Art, Aesthetics and Organization
  24. Eco-Controlling
  25. The hidden power of language
  26. Wertermittlung von Mauerwerksbauten nach Vergleichswert, Sachwert und Ertragswert
  27. Dada Data
  28. Ágnes Lesznyák: Communication in English as an International Lingua Franca. An Exploratory Case Study
  29. Commentary to article 1
  30. Impact of Germany's recent space policy and progress towards a national legislation
  31. Kybernetik in Urbana
  32. Perspective as Practice. Renaissance Cultures of Optics, (About the development of optics and perspective between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries) (TECHNE 1) Dupré, Sven (ed.): Brepols, Turnhout 2019
  33. You could be lucky
  34. Interferenzbuchstabe