An intervention to increase electricity savings in the context of energy consumption: Implementation intention and transtheoretical model

The damage caused by climate change and global warming has been a long-studied and known issue. Electricity is defined to be the most used and needed type of energy and it is known that electricity consumption contributes significantly to emissions in Turkey therefore the occurred damages of the global warming. Implementation intention and readiness for change are models that are found to be effective in behavior change, and they have various applications in the literature on pro-environmental behaviors. Thus, the effect of implementation intention and readiness to change on participants' attitudes, motivations and behaviors toward electricity-saving were examined through 2 (experiment vs. control) x 2 (baseline x follow-up) x 2 (action x contemplation) mixed model repeated measures ANOVA. The sample of this research consists of 92 individuals who are above 18 years of age and there was a two-week time interval between pre and post measures. The results indicated that contrary to expected, implementation intention only influenced external motivation and readiness to change only influenced behavior, eco-management behavior, motivation, self-determined motivation, introjected motivation. The dominant effect of readiness to change was not unexpected. More profoundly, it was found that implementation intention and readiness to change had a significant interaction on persuasion behavior. This result showed the effectiveness of implementation intention paired with readiness to change and the effect of implementation intention increases when implemented to individuals in action stage of change together with the importance of individuals' stage of change in terms of effectiveness of implementation intention. For future studies and practical implications, before providing implementation intention intervention, individuals' transition to action stage from contemplation stage can be procured. Keywords: implementation intention, transtheoretical model, readiness to change, electricity saving, pro-environmental behavior