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Social diffusion of habits as contribution to the formalization of social
energy practices
Michel Klein, Jan Treur
Agent Systems Research Group, VU University Amsterdam
A different lifestyle of individuals concerning energy-related behaviour is an important factor in
achieving future sustainable energy management, and, for example lowering the impact of the society
on the environment. To analyse behaviour change of an individual the interplay of his or her internal
mental states such as attitudes, beliefs, goals and motivations is relevant. However, in addition to this it
is recognized that not only the actual goals and values of an individual are important, but also habits:
the everyday routines that have been formed in the past (by some adaptive learning process) to achieve
particular goals and persist in the absence of those goals (Wood and Neal, 2007). Behaviour change will
also have to deal with getting rid of bad habits and replacing them by good habits. In addition to these
two major elements (interplay of mental states and habit formation) in an indivudual’s decision making,
it is becoming more and more clear that in general substantial behaviour change cannot be reached by
interventions that focus on individual decision making only (Hargreaves, 2011). Instead, the combination
of social interaction with an individual’s internal mental processes and states such as attitudes, beliefs
and motivations turn out to be quite relevant for analysing and understanding behaviour change
(Giddens, 1984).
In this presentation a computational model is discussed that has been developed for lifestyle change of
individuals concerning energy-related behaviour that takes into account the three main elements
discussed (interplay of mental states, habit formation, and social interaction). The model describes
change of habitual energy-related behaviour within a group of actors as a result of the contagion of
individual goals, attitudes, valuations, and intentions (see also Klein et al, 2012). The model considers
both the level of individual mechanisms of habit formation, involving a person’s attitudes, goals,
intentions and relevant environmental cues, and the level of social mechanisms, such as the impact of
others in a social network on an individual. The model can simulate the emergence and diffusion of
social practices based on individual values, and can also provides an insight the effect of changes in
individual perceptions on the collective behaviour. Within the model a number of individual factors that
influence energy-related behaviour change has been integrated (similar to what was done in Klein et al,
2011 for a different domain). The model describes the interaction of personal energy behaviour change
barriers and attitudes within social networks of the individuals. An extension towards societal structures
is anticipated to fully cover social practices in energy usage behaviour.
References
Tom Hargreaves (2011). Practice-ing behaviour change: Applying social practice theory to proenvironmental behaviour change. Journal of Consumer Culture March, vol. 11 no. 1 79-99
Giddens A (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: The
Polity Press.
Klein, M.C.A., Mogles, N., Treur, J., Wissen, A. van (2012) Contagion of Habitual Behaviour in Social
Networks: an Agent-Based Model. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social
Computing (SocialCom’12), IEEE Computer Society Press.
Klein, M.C.A., Mogles, N., Wissen, A. van (2011) Why Won’t You Do What’s Good for You? Using
Intelligent Support for Behavior Change. International Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding
(HBU’11), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7065, pp. 104-115. Springer Verlag.
Wood, W. and Neal, D.T. (2007). A New Look at Habits and the Habit-Goal Interface. Psychol. Review
114, 843-863.