A dynamic and spatially explicit psychological model of the diffusion of green electricity across Germany
Authored by Andreas Ernst, Ramon Briegel
Date Published: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.12.003
Sponsors:
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Green energy, i.e. electricity stemming from renewable resources, can
help mitigate climate change. This paper presents a social simulation
(or agent-based model) that aims going one step in validating a dynamic
psychological decision micro-theory that has been developed to include
goals, deliberative decisions as well as status quo bias, social
milieus, communication over personal networks, and sensitivity towards
external events such as price changes or messages from the media. We
show how the simulation replicates a set of customer data from a German
green energy provider, reproducing the temporal and spatial diffusion of
adoption of their product. The building of the simulation is supported
by a survey (N = 778) investigating the psychological variables relating
to the adoption of green energy and lifestyles (milieus), and online
experiments about personal networks and information processing style. A
scenario, i.e. an experiment run within the simulation, introduces more
frequent communication between households that is interpreted as the
effect of an information campaign. The frequency of personal
communication and a salient event reported in the media interact to
foster green energy adoption. We argue that social simulation proves
being an appropriate tool to develop and test dynamic psychological
theories. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Tags
Decision Making
Social simulation
networks
Adoption
spatial diffusion
Innovation adoption
systems
Environmental behavior
Attitude
Determinants
Social-influence
Motivation
Green energy
Status quo bias
Household energy-conservation
Status-quo