IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018 - 39

The transition toward sustainable energy is inherently
social and particularly suitable to be addressed by
group-based approaches.

environmental behaviors and beliefs. Values are relevant for
groups as well as for individuals (for a discussion of individual
values, see steg et al. in this issue). self-enhancement group
values focus on benefits for the group and its members (e.g.,
pleasure, gratification of desires, power, and resources),
whereas self-transcendence group values focus on the welfare of others and nature (e.g., social justice, being helpful,
and respecting and protecting the environment). generally
speaking, the stronger a group endorses self-transcendence
values, the more likely the members will act sustainably;
whereas the stronger a group endorses self-enhancement
values, the less likely that members will act sustainably.
self-transcendence and self-enhancement group values are
often believed to be in opposition but can coexist. the relative strength of both value clusters determines which value is
more influential for behavior.
group values can be operationalized in two ways. first,
and most commonly, group values can be operationalized
as the aggregate of group members' personal values. that
is, the group's value system equals the sum (or mean) of all
the group members' personal value systems. assuming
that members actively contribute to what the group values
through interactions, this appears to be a relatively objective way of measuring group values. this operationalization can be useful in characterizing groups and comparing
them with each other, to identify what members, on average,
value. By knowing that, arguments for sustainable-energy
behaviors can be made more persuasively by tapping into
these values. for instance, members of a community who,
on average, endorse self-transcendence values more than
self-enhancement ones may be more persuaded to invest in
photovoltaic panels by arguments that fit with their group
values (e.g., focusing on environmental benefits rather than
on financial profits).
second, group values can be assessed by asking members how strongly they think a typical group member
endorses each value. this more subjective approach assesses
how members perceive the values of the group. according
to the social identity approach, this would be particularly
likely to influence group members' behaviors as it is these
values that people internalize when a particular social identity is salient. these subjective group values could also be
more easily changed by the context or an intervention. for
instance, making a community member aware that typical
members place strong value on the environment and nature
can strengthen the perceived self-transcendence values of
january/february 2018

this group, which in turn can increase the willingness of this
community member to invest in energy-efficiency measures.

The importance of group norms
Often linked to the groups' core values, groups can have
stronger or weaker norms, indicating whether sustainableenergy behaviors and beliefs are appropriate or inappropriate
within a group (e.g., use energy efficiently or install energyefficient technology). group norms are more concrete than
values and often focus on specific actions or behaviors.
Whereas group values are believed to be relatively stable
over time, group norms are more flexible, which makes them
more suitable for interventions.
there are two main types of group norms: injunctive and
descriptive. injunctive norms describe which actions are
approved of or desired by a group. for instance, an organization can state that employees should switch off their
lights when leaving the office. for an injunctive norm to
be influential, it should be clearly and strongly communicated and focal when the required action is desired. to be
effective, injunctive norms should fit with the values of the
group. if this is not the case, it could be seen as illegitimate,
"greenwashing" (i.e., presenting the group as more sustainable than it actually is) and might exacerbate tensions
between subgroups (e.g., they, the management, versus us,
the employees).
descriptive norms focus on what group members do
in general. for instance, an employee observes that most
colleagues switch off their lamps when leaving the office.
When the desired behavior is clearly (made) visible, a positive descriptive norm could be very powerful in promoting
this behavior. for instance, when all of your colleagues
commute by public transportation to a meeting, you'll be
more likely to also use it instead of your car. descriptive
norms might be particularly effective for group members
who slightly underperform on the norm, since these individuals see others performing better. When someone already
outperforms most other group members, confronting this
individual with the behaviors of others (e.g., that you are
saving more energy than others) could backfire if that person defines him or herself in terms of personal identity ("i'm
doing better than others, so i don't need to try so hard").
however, when one accentuates that these behaviors are
strongly valued by the group, well-performing group members are likely to feel good about their own performance,
as it signals that they are exemplary group members. this
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