Mental accounting is impacting sustainable behavior

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/udg-mai101320.php

News Release 13-Oct-2020onsumption and carbon emissions.
Université de Genève

Mental accounting is a concept that describes the mental processes we employ to organise our resource use. Human beings tend to create separate mental budget compartments where specific acts of consumption and payments are linked. This mechanism can be counter-productive when it comes to energy consumption and can have a negative impact on attempts to reduce carbon emissions.


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Mental accounting, a concept known by psychology researchers since the 1980s, describes how the human mind functions when performing acts of consumption. For instance, someone who has bought a cinema ticket in advance but who cannot find it on entering the cinema will typically not buy a second ticket: their film budget has already been spent! This example illustrates our tendency to mentally segment our budgets and link them to specific acts of consumption.

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The spillover effect refers to the fact that we tend to justify one behaviour by another of our behaviours. «Someone who makes the effort to cycle to work every day will use this argument to justify, to himself or others, buying a plane ticket to go on holiday to the Seychelles

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The rebound effect explains how actions can induce a negative energy balance when people fail to adapt their budgets to a new situation. For example, people who buy an energy-efficient car may feel inclined to use it more often, cancelling out potential energy savings. To tackle this phenomenon, the psychologists suggest informing people about the real energy costs of their new car so they can update their consumption budget.

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