THE EFFECT OF GOAL SETTING STRATEGY AND RESIDENTS’ GOAL COMMITMENT ON HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN SINGAPORE

Goal commitment is a critical construct in understanding the relationship between goals and behavioral performance in the field of energy conservation. However, little has been done to investigate goal commitment in relation to electricity-saving performances in household goal-setting treatment. This paper seeks to re-contextualize the associations of goal commitment with electricity saving performance in households and provide meaningful discussion and explanation to the findings observed. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of goal setting strategy on household electricity consumption in Singapore. In particular, interventions of assigned and self-set goal setting types were compared. Residents’ goal commitment was also accessed to understand the relationship between goals and electricity-saving performance. The results revealed a significant positive correlation between self-reported goal commitment and self-set goal choice. However, no significant relationship was found between self-set goal choice and electricity savings. It was also found that goal commitment has no significant relationship with electricity savings when goal difficulty was not a moderator, as in assigned goal group.