Keywords

1 Introduction

Energy saving activities are human activities to reduce energy consumption. These activities can be an effective measure to reduce energy consumption and humans can start them immediately, so it is expected as a measure against resource depletion and increased carbon dioxide emissions [1, 2]. In this context, there have been attempts made from various viewpoints based on the knowledge that the improvement of understanding it would lead to putting it into practice [3, 4]. However, the results of a questionnaire survey on energy saving activities have indicated that there is a gap between understanding and in-practice regarding energy saving, and improvement of understanding does not lead to in-practice. From this point, it is expected not to improving the understanding, but to propose a method that gives direct motivation for energy saving activities. In this study, we focus on@“vanity”, which is considered to be one of human needs for promoting energy saving activities, as shown in Fig. 1. Here, “vanity” means a desire to pretend to be something good they are not.

Fig. 1.
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Our approach for promoting energy saving activities.

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In recent years, there have been many studies that encourage people to act to support energy saving activities [5, 6]. On the other hand, on social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram, there are many posts including photos. Among them, there is a term “Instagrammable”, which is a photo that shows well on Instagram. The term means assuming the value by others, and aims at getting others to feel “good”. In addition, it shows the desire to pretend to be something good they are not. The desire to be recognized well by others is approval desire and a mindset of “vanity”.

The purpose of this study is to consider experimentally whether energy saving activities could be applied to the target of vanity. At first, we will consider a method of applying vanity for energy saving activities and construct an experimental system to experimentally verify whether or not vanity could act as a motivation to promote energy saving activities. The experiment will be conducted using the experimental system to check if there are any persons who activate vanity regarding energy saving activities.

Vanity originates from a human desire to be recognized by others and is an internal motive. If vanity could be used to promote energy saving activities, it is expected that it would lead to voluntary and sustainable energy saving activities. Figure 2 shows the concept for utilization of vanity on energy saving activities. If there is a person who utilize vanity for energy saving activities, it can be expected to promote energy saving activities by creating a place to activate vanity for energy saving activities. However, energy saving activities generally have different characteristics from the target of vanity. In other words, the targets of vanity are assumed to be what many people want, such as possessing goods that many people want to get, traveling to popular places, etc.

Fig. 2.
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Out concept for utilization of vanity on energy saving activities.

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2 Related Studies

In recent years, there have been many studies on interfaces that encourage people to promote energy saving activities [5, 6]. Gustafsson et al. have developed an extension cord that shines when power is used to give people awareness of power consumption [7]. Yagida et al. have investigated the impact of household electricity consumption by visualization on energy consumption in order to promote human understanding of energy [8]. Ueno et al. have focused on the fact that people have multiple ways of thinking about energy saving, classified people into multiple patterns, and proposed a method of supporting energy saving activities that matches the patterns [9]. In this way, there are some studies that promote understanding of energy and expect energy saving activities.

However, in order to put them into practice, it is difficult to motivate human energy saving behavior only because of the understanding of energy problem, that is, “to reduce energy consumption”. Therefore, studies has been conducted to motivate energy saving activities by using social influences such as the effects of the existence, attitude, and behavior of others. Petersen et al. have focused on competition among groups, and proposed a method of competing for low power consumption among groups and motivating energy saving activities [10]. Aoyagiet al. focused on the sympathy of groups and proposed a method of supporting energy saving activities, which reporting each other on energy saving activities would lead to synchronizing with other people, that is, “If everyone is doing energy saving activities, let’s do it [11]”.

In these methods of supporting energy saving activities using various social influences, Abrahamse et al. have proposed that a method of supporting energy saving activities by using the influence of the group would be more effective than supporting individuals [12]. In particular, they have pointed out that face-to-face interaction would have a high energy-saving effect [12]. However, face-to-face interaction is characterized by a low diffusion rate of influence and high human cost. Therefore, we use the situation that arises from one-to-many interactions by using the Web. In this study, we would like to promote the energy-saving effect by using the social influence, that is, the mindset of “vanity” of a person in a situation where some people see it.

3 Method to Utilize “vanity” for Energy Saving Activities

When the targets of vanity are energy saving activities, the targets are classified into intentions and actions. As for the intentions, the vanity for the intension would lead to trying to show more intentions than the actual one. As for the actions, the vanity for the action would lead to trying to do more actions than the real quantity of actions.

In order to form a place where vanity would be shown on the Web, we examine a method of presenting intentions and actions on the Web. The targets of the vanity should be limited to energy saving activities when presenting the intentions and actions. In addition, in order to confirm the presentation of oneself and to expect the competition of vanity, it is necessary to make the presentation of intentions and actions by oneself and others visible. Figure 3 shows the outline of the utilization of vanity.

Fig. 3.
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Outline of utilization of vanity.

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As for the intentions, we request users to reduce the power consumption. Here, we use “public commitment” as a mechanism for energy saving activities. Public commitment is to publicly declare the positions on an issue [13]. For example, Pallak and Cummings have shown that when homeowners make a public commitment to energy conservation, they are more likely to comply, compared to homeowners who make the declaration in a less public manner or those who do not make a public commitment at all [14].

When we use the mechanism of public commitment, at first we ask a user for energy saving activities. Then, the user announce the intention. Concretely, the user could select the intension on how much effort s/he wants to reduce power consumption. When presenting the intention, s/he is required to input in the range of \( 0 \%\,to\,100 \% \) in increments of \( 10 \% \). The output of the intension is a bar graph and it shows the intension (%) and the others’ intentions (%). Figure 4 shows an example of the output.

Fig. 4.
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An example of an output for a user’s intention.

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As for the actions, we request users to show an action for energy saving. Specifically, in order to confirm the presented action, a photograph is used as a recording medium of the action. And, we request users to show two photos before and after the action for energy saving. The photos would clarify the action the user did by comparing the photo before with the photo after. In addition, in order to show the focused point on the photos, we request the users to add a description about the action. Figure 5 shows an example of a presented action.

Fig. 5.
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An example of a presented action (photos before and after the action).

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4 Experiment

4.1 Purpose

The purpose of this experiment is to confirm whether anyone is going to utilize vanity with regard to energy saving activities.

4.2 Method

The number of the participants is thirty, and the participants were divided into six groups (g1–g6;one group of five participants). The period of the experiment was two weeks. We have prepared an experimental environments on the Web for their presentation of energy saving activities. We gave them the instructions on how to use the environment and showed how to input each presentation and how to see the output for the intent and action on energy saving activities. And, there was no explanation on vanity for energy saving activities. After the experiment, we asked them to answer the following questions regarding the intension and action on energy saving activities at the time of their presentation and browsing.

  • I want to show it off to the others.

  • I want to show the power to someone.

  • I want to be praised by someone.

  • I want to show it off to the others.

  • I want to be praised by someone.

The answers were selected between 1 (“strongly disagree”) and 5 (“Strongly agree”) (five-degree scale).

4.3 Results

Figure 6 shows the total number of posts on action and intent for each group. Figure 7 shows the average of the results of the questionnaire asked about vanity.

Fig. 6.
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The number of posts on action and intent for each group (g1–g6).

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Fig. 7.
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Results of the questionnaire on the vanity for energy saving activities .

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From Fig. 7, the average value of all items was less than 3 for all items, however, there were six participants out of 30 who showed vanity (the value of the answer was 4 or more). In addition, “action” has a higher average value for both input and output than “intent”.

Next, there were the differences in the situation among the groups. There were 4 groups who showed vanity and 2 groups who did not. The former groups were g1, g2, g3, and g4, and latter groups were g5 and g6. From Fig. 6, the number of photos posted was larger in the former groups than in the latter groups. From the results, the participants with vanity might influence the other participants.

5 Conclusion

In this study, we proposed a method to support energy saving activities. Specifically, we focused on the mindset of vanity generated from the desire for approval. Then, we have designed and developed an experimental environment for energy saving activities on the Web, and conducted a two-week experiment with 30 participants. The results would suggest the following points.

  1. 1.

    Among thirty participants of the experiment, there were six participants whose mindset of vanity would be utilized for energy saving activities.

  2. 2.

    When a participant utilizing vanity was in a group, the other participants in the group might have been influenced.

The contribution of this study is to suggest that vanity could be utilized for energy saving activities. In the future, we would like to investigate how to create a place to promote vanity for energy saving activities.