Effects of self-monitoring and feedback on residential electricity consumption.
Teaching adults to read their own electric meter daily shrank power use 7 % for two months, and a simple daily note boosted the saving to 13 %.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers visited 36 homes and showed adults how to read their own electric meter.
Half the homes got only that lesson. The other half also got a daily note taped to the door that showed yesterday’s kilowatt-hours and cost.
Everyone tracked use for two months with no further visits.
What they found
Households who simply watched the meter cut electricity use 7 %. The drop held for the full two months.
Homes that got the daily note saved even more—13 %.
No prizes, no nagging—just seeing the numbers worked.
How this fits with other research
Davol et al. (1977) got a bigger 35 % drop two years earlier, but they also posted slogans like “Save Energy” and used an ABAB design. The smaller 1979 savings may come from skipping the catchy prompts.
Van der Molen et al. (2010) later added small rewards in a college dorm and landed near 15 %, showing the idea extends to young adults living in groups.
Emmelkamp et al. (1986) used the same self-monitor-plus-feedback recipe to keep kids flossing for months, proving the format travels across behaviors.
Why it matters
You can cut household energy waste with a 5-minute lesson and a scrap of paper. No staff, no tokens, no apps. Try teaching clients or their parents to log any home utility—water, gas, even screen time. One quick show-and-tell can lock in savings that last.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Prior research has indicated that frequent feedback could reduce residential electricity consumption by 10% to 15%. However, because feedback was primarily given in written form, this procedure might not be practical. The present study evaluated a potentially more practical feedback procedure during peak-use periods with high electricity consuming households. The study was conducted during the winter in an upper-middle class neighborhood of almost identical, all-electric townhouses (N = 71) that averaged about 170 KWH per day per household for a monthly bill of over $200. Twelve households received daily written feedback. Sixteen households (self-monitoring) were taught to read their outdoor electricity meter and to record KWH used every day. A comparison group was composed of 14 households that had volunteered to participate and 29 others that had only given permission to have their meters read. During a 1-month period that the procedures were in effect, the feedback group reduced consumption by 13% and the self-monitoring group by about 7%. These reductions, relative to the comparison group, were maintained during an early spring 1-month follow-up period and, to a lesser extent, during a 6-week warm spring period. Self-monitoring participants were highly reliable and persistent meter readers. Reductions in electricity use were reported by households to be largely attributable to lowering of the heat thermostat, and large monetary and KWH savings were found. Techniques to make self-monitoring cost-effective important components of the self-monitoring procedure, methods to apply self-monitoring more broadly, and plans to combine behavioral procedures with physical technology are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1979 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1979.12-173