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Changing habits and routines in energy consumption: how

to account for both individual and structural influences while integrating the motivational dimension

Kevin Maréchal*

Centre for Economic and Social Studies on the Environment (CESSE) Université Libre de Bruxelles – Université d’Europe

44, avenue Jeanne CP124 1050 Brussels

Belgium

Nathalie Lazaric

UNSA/ CNRS - GREDEG Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis

250 rue Albert Einstein Bât 2, Sophia Antipolis 1

06560 Valbonne France

* Corresponding author: kevin.marechal@ulb.ac.be Tel: +32 2 650 33 32 - Fax: +32 2 650 46 91

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Changing habits and routines in energy consumption: how

to account for both individual and structural influences while integrating the motivational dimension

Abstract: between 100 and 150 words … Keywords: Habits; Routines; Energy consumption; Behavioural lock-in; Evolutionary Economics

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1. Introduction The nature of the relationships between the many different levels of analysis at which system change can be assessed is a crucial topic that is central to methodological and ontological questions in social sciences. As mentioned in Hodgson (2007, p. 95), the debate can be subsumed under the heading “rivalry between accounts based on ‘situation’ or ‘disposition’“ or, as most commonly framed, the “relationship between social structure and individual agency”. As we have shown in more details elsewhere (Maréchal, 2007), mainstream analyses of the economics of energy consumption have been mostly misleading, notably regarding the “Efficiency paradox”. Our stance is that this can be explained not only by the mechanistic nature of mainstream economics but also by its inherent reductionism1. While reductionism in Economics led to a theoretical framework building on “methodological individualism” (i.e. magnified with the quest for micro-foundations), this should not lead us to resorting solely to collectivist accounts as they are nothing else than the other side of the reductionist coin of social sciences. Acknowledging both that “only by rescuing the individual from its conflation into the social can the social determination of individuality be fully appreciated (Hodgson, 2007, p. 101)” and that the empirical evidence has convincingly shown that group-level analyses where equally important in explaining the existence of socially-acquired characteristics of human beings (Henrich 2004), we thus need to turn to a framework allowing for both sources of explanation to be accounted for. Accordingly, the goal of our paper is, through using the example of the “energy paradox” as an illustration, to show how the concept of habits sheds an insightful light on this dichotomy in providing a locus that accommodates for individual as well as structural and institutional accounts to be integrated into the picture. In line with the idea of “circularity” - which, as will be shown, is central to our framework - the “energy paradox” will not only serve to illustrate the idea that the notion of habits can be viewed as a “missing link” between structures and individual agency but also to demonstrate the relevance of resorting to habits in depicting such a complex social and ecological issue. To start with, we must further investigate relational complementarities since it seems scientifically untenable not to account for the basic fact that economic agents do interact2. This amounts to turning away from the sole focus on efficiency (i.e. inspired by the typically Cartesian idea of the domination of mechanical properties) towards efficacy, a “fundamental economic problem – one that cannot be found at all in the neoclassical research agenda” (Dopfer (2005), p. 25). As we have extensively shown in Maréchal (2007, 2008), its shift of focus towards a better understanding of economic dynamics together with its departure from the perfect rationality hypothesis renders Evolutionary Economics an inevitable theoretical ground in setting up policies for sustainable energy consumption. The added value of Evolutionary Economics in providing support for designing environment-related policies lies in its reliance on Thorstein Veblen’s concept of “cumulative causation” as one of its theoretical hypothesis. Thus, contrarily to the rather deterministic and linear view that prevails in mainstream economics (Dopfer, 2005), economic change is better pictured as a process of cumulative, double 1 Given that Economics developed “along some paradigmatic lines determined by the cultural crucible in which the stuff of our mind is initially mixed” (Perlman and McCann, 1998, p.2), it was strongly influenced by the climate of Newtonian mechanistic science that was reigning at the time of its first development. Accordingly, Modern Economics can be viewed as nothing else than the coupling of the “marginalist revolution” with Cartesian “logical rigor”. This Cartesian/Newtonian legacy thus allowed a shift of “analytical mode” which “moved from the concern with the empirically observable to developing formal rules of analysis” (Perlman 1996a, quoted in Alcouffe and Kuhn, 2004, p. 224). 2 This might not be as basic as it first seems since as recalled in Kirman (1989, p. 138) the “independence of individuals plays an important role in the construction” of aggregation functions in mainstream economics.

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(downward and upward) and interactive causation (van den Bergh and Gowdy 2003; Corning 1997, Hodgson, 1997). Such an approach is insightful in that it allows for circular and self-reinforcing interactions between economic agents to be taken into account. In other words, economic dynamics involve processes that see individuals interacting with an emergent population in a self-reinforcing manner. It thus provides an alternative to the aforementioned reductionism under the form of simple aggregation (i.e. the micro-foundations of mainstream economics) by building “on the notion of circularity between individual and population (Dopfer, 2006, p. 18)”. At this stage it is important to underline that this picture arises from a focus on dynamics occurring at the “meso” level3 allowing for the role played by interdependencies of systems elements and the emergent nature of economic evolution to be accounted for. As shown in Maréchal (2007), integrating meso dynamics clearly provide an interesting level of analysis in energy-related studies so much that they have been claimed to be the “missing link” of this field by Schenk et al. (2007). This brings us to the idea put forward in Brette and Mehier (2008) according to which habits à la Veblen are consistent with the framework built upon a micro-meso-macro architecture as developed in Dopfer et al. (2004). In this paper, we will provide support to this idea in showing how habits and routines could also be viewed as a missing link of energy-related studies and that it perfectly fits in a framework building on the above-mentioned notion of circularity. To put it differently, our stance is that habits, through providing stronger foundations to the understanding of interactions between structures and individuals, helps to better depict the essence and process of meso dynamics and their related emergent properties. This paper is structured as follows. In the following section we will provide a definition of the concept of habits and show how it fits in a broader evolutionary framework. More particularly, we will try to clarify where habits stand with respect to the notion of routines that has been more widely discussed among evolutionary economists. The third section will then deal with the prominent features of habits focusing on the delicate issue of how to articulate automaticity and limited awareness with free will and motivation. The fourth section will be dedicated to specifying how habits are able to accommodate for both individual and structural/institutional sources of explanation to be integrated into the analysis. This will require going into the distinction (present in Veblen’s work) between habits of action and habits of thought. In the fifth section, we will provide an illustration of how habits and routines as developed in our framework shed a different light in the field of energy consumption most notably with respect to the “energy paradox” issue. Acknowledging that habits and routines may change and that unsustainable habitual and routinised practices in energy consumption are to be broken in order to meet Kyoto objectives, the final section will conclude by providing policy-makers with tools and instrument that specifically aim at triggering a change of practices in this field. 2. Habits and routines in the evolutionary framewor k The relation between institutions and individual behaviour has been a widely debated topic in the institutionalist theory4. Starting with the above-mentioned idea that what is needed is a framework that would allow for both the evolution of structures and individuals to be understood, turning to the insights from the Veblenian tradition seems very promising. Veblen’s view of behaviours as embedded in a wider social context through corresponding

3 The meso level is a level that is wedged between the traditional micro and macro scales (see the "Micro-meso-macro" approach in Dopfer et al. 2004). 4 A theory that depicts collective learning as resting on individual habits, routines and other types of more or less formalised practices (Commons, 1934; Veblen 1914).

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habits is essential here as it is those very habits that enable institutions to be maintained. This can be illustrated by the following quote “At the same time men’s present habits of thought which tend to persist indefinitely, except as circumstances enforce a change. These institutions which have so been handed down, these habits of thought, point of view, mental attitudes and aptitudes, or what not, are therefore themselves a conservative factor. This is the factor of social inertia, psychological inertia, conservatism” (Veblen 1899, pp.190-191). In this perspective, institutions are thus a breeding ground for thought and so are a dominant cognitive vehicle which has extended into society. Social structure operates a kind of natural selection for ‘habits’ allowing them to be renewed. In this context man is no longer defined as rational and calculating ‘homo oeconomicus’, but as a creature with coherent structure of inclinations and habits which are revealed and expressed depending on the actions mobilising him. In sum, individuals have certain habits and behaviours that are conditioned by experience (Veblen 1919, p. 79). As mentioned in Hodgson (2007, p. 107), “habits are the constitutive material of institutions” while the presence of institutions make that “accordant habits are further developed and reinforced among the population”. There is thus clearly circular causation between individuals and institutions that is magnified through the existence of habits. In fact, following Veblen, institutions are nothing else than “social habits of thoughts” as shown in figure 1. Figure 1: Veblenian process of institutional self- reinforcement

Source: adapted from Brette (2003, 2004)

Material and technical conditions

Instincts

Individual habits of action

Individual habits of thought

Institutions (social habits of thought)

« Cultural complex »

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In the same vein, routines can be viewed as organisational habits. But just as organisations are not reducible to the mere sum of their members, routines must then be considered as being ontologically different from individual habits (Lazaric 2000). They display emergent properties that can not be fully apprehended through solely looking at the individual habits of their constitutive members. The organisational feature of routine is important but should not been understood as an epistemological obstacle. Indeed in the notion of habits, social learning is also present notably for the diffusion and for the imitation of successful habits of other individuals (i.e in groups of individuals where social status seems to focus attention). In the notion of routines observed in organization or groups, individuals are present notably for activating them for interpretating them and for making sense inside the organizational context (Feldman 2000). By this way routines observed are also the byproduct of individual and organization whereas habits observed at individuals levels are also expanding at the collective level. As Hodgson (2007, p. 111) clearly puts it “(r)outines are organizational meta-habits, existing on a substrate of habituated individuals in a social structure”. In short, both routines and habits emerge in social life but whereas habits may be defined as a disposition to behave or think in a specific situation according to a specific context; routines define a sequence of individual habits with the execution of one habit triggering the next (Knudsen 2008 p.131). This means that routines promote coordination because “the need to achieve tight coordination among a group of people adds a further level of error control and reliability to organizational routines compared with habits“ (ibid, 132). The importance of habits in the Veblenian tradition of institutionalist theory is to be put in parallel with recent works in social psychology where a substantial body of literature has shown that - more often than not - our behaviour is guided by habits (i.e. it takes the form of repetitive actions performed with minimum thinking) and thus without the type of cognitive deliberation and consciousness assumed in the rational choice model (Verplanken et al., 1998; Lindbladh and Lyttkens, 2002; Chartrand, 2005; Dijksterhuis et al 2005; Verplanken and Wood, 2006; Ji Song and Wood, 2007). The obvious advantage of adopting this kind of “habits” in decision-making is that it frees up resources than can be devoted to solving non routine-like problems5 and, as such, it can be said to be a highly rational6 way of allocating our limited cognitive abilities (Jager, 2003). At this stage it is crucial to provide a tentative definition of the concept of habits in order to see whether the insights from social psychology and institutional theory are compatible. Borrowing directly from the work of Veblen, James and Dewey, Hodgson (2007, p. 106) sees habits as “submerged repertoires of potential thought or behaviour to be triggered by an appropriate stimulus and context”. This definition is further complemented with two essential elements: habits are often “unconscious” and different from behaviour as they only are an “acquired predisposition” (ibid, p. 106). Within the field of social psychology, an often quoted definition is the one provided in Verplanken and Aarts (1999, p. 104), where habits are viewed as “learned sequences of acts that have become automatic responses to specific cues and are functional in obtaining certain goals or end states”. In a more recent paper, Wood and Neal (2007, p. 843) complement the definition with respect to goals by underlining that “habits are subserved by a form of automaticity that involves the direct association between a context and a response but that interfaces with goals during learning and performance”. Before describing habits in further details in the next section, it is important to note that Hodgson’s definition refers to both “thought” and “behaviour” (i.e. actions) whereas most of

5 An empirical study performed by Wood et al (2002) has clearly demonstrated that people had thoughts unrelated to the task at hand when performing a habit while the thoughts they had when performing a non-habitual form of behaviour were connected with the task. 6 Herbert Simon coined the term « procedural rationality » to characterise this use of resource-saving habit-like decision processes.

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the work in social psychology deals with habits that intervene at the level of actions (i.e. habits that moderate the relation between intention and behaviour). Here again, the work of Thorstein Veblen is enlightening as this dichotomy between actions and behaviour was explicitly acknowledged through its clear distinction between “habits of thought” from “habits of life”. Brette (2004, p. 247-248) convincingly shows how “habits of life” à la Veblen are equivalent to the “habits of actions” defined by Charles Sanders Peirce as “a rule of action” allowing to address “familiar circumstances in an effective way” (see also Waller, 1988, p. 114). As shown in figure 1, Veblen sees habits of thoughts as an outcome of habits of life (Brette 2004, p. 253). This perspective of habits as depicted in figure 1 allows for going beyond mere habits of actions to see habits as “a potential basis for new intention or beliefs” (Hodgson, 2004, p. 656). Habits can also include habits of thoughts and is thus a generative ground of both reflective7 and non-reflective behaviour. Hodgson’s view of habits as a propensity is interesting as it is “both interactionist and evolutionary” (Hodgson, 2004, p. 658) since humans are considered as socially constructed beings but with different predisposition and aspirations. This shows how habits fit into an evolutionary framework that rests on the concept of circularity between individuals and structures as they provide a locus allowing for the mutual interdependence between both levels to be accounted for. Routines from the other hand, express a form of coordination driven by individual forms of habituation, and trigger inside an organizational context (Nelson and Winter 1982; Cohen and Bacdayan 1984). They are a result of a group of recurrent pattern of interactions between individuals who are in a situation of triggering a disposition in a reciprocal way (Cohen and Bacdayan ibid). 3. The distinctive features of habits and routines It follows from the above-mentioned two definitions that habits and routines can be characterised as a context-dependent form of acquired automaticity. However, this automaticity is somewhat limited (i.e. behaviour is only “potential”) by a required functionality or correspondance with objectives. As we already mentioned in a previous paper (Maréchal, 2008), the crucial feature that characterises a habit is not its repetitive nature but the degree to which it has become automatic. This is in line both with Verplanken (2006, p. 639) who considers that “whereas repetition is a necessary condition for a habit to develop (…) it is not repetition per se that matters“ and with Hodgson (2007, p. 106) who claims that “(r)epeated behaviour is important in establishing a habit. But habit and behaviour are not the same”. To put it more precisely, the main feature of habit is “the automatic elicitation of behaviour upon encountering specific cues” (Verplanken and Orbell, 2003, p. 1317). This situation/behaviour association is often referred to as a cognitive script which can thus be viewed as the knowledge structure behind the habits (Jager, 2003). In sum, provided that a habit has been formed through the satisfactory repetition of a given behaviour and that the goal associated with that habit is activated8, the presence of the specific cue automatically triggers the habitual behaviour9. However, acknowledging the third principle that follows from the aforementioned recent definition provided in Wood and Neal (2007), this is only valid as long as a conflicting goal-habit interaction does not result in people exerting control over their triggered habits. Although automaticity is regarded as the main feature of habits, it is of crucial important to note that “(h)abit is not mere automatic behaviour; that mistake reproduces the Cartesian dualism of thought and machine. Even the most ingrained habits are the objects of recurring mental activity and evaluation. (…) Consequently, habits have both intentional and causal facets. Furthermore, we do not have to regard the evolutionary selection process as operating simply on the raw material of programmed action. There should be a place in an evolutionary explanation for some freedom of the will, but not in quite 7 This would thus include rational optimisation as a process that relies on habits. 8 The functionality (or the goal-directed nature) of habits is important as shown in Ouellette and Wood (1998). 9 Veblen (1899), p. 106, also mentioned the fact that habits were “a method of responding to given stimuli”.

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the same sense as the fully deliberating and choosing agent found in the rhetoric economic theory ” (Hodgson, 1993, p. 229). Indeed, highlighting the role that habits play in mediating behaviour does not mean that there is no room left for controlled or deliberate processes in the causal factors of behaviours. In fact, since habits are acquired and learned, they originally require deliberation as free will is essential to memorization10. The often quoted “driving metaphor” indeed perfectly illustrates that even though experienced drivers are able to change gears without having to think about it, this cognitive automatism was “acquired through a long learning process in which motivation plays a far from negligible role” (Lazaric, 2007, p. 3). In fact, as noted in Wood and Neal (2007, p. 850), “the habit-goal interface is constrained by the particular manner in which habits are learned and represented in memory”. It appears that the instigation of the goal to act is necessary to activate the associate actions automatically (Aarts and Dijksterhuis 2000). Thus, if it can be said that “consumer behaviour is often mediated by processes that occur outside of conscious awareness” (Chartrand, 2005, p. 209), it could also sometimes be qualified as unconsciously resorting to previously consciously determined evaluation. In sum, we have “intelligent habits”11 and thus, the puzzling question of how to account for both the automatic and motivated nature of habits can not be eluded. As it will be shown in section 4 accounting for free will and motivation is essential for analysing the important issue of how habits and routines may be changed. As Martha Feldman has highlighted in this regard: “Routines are performed by people who think and feel and care. Their reactions are situated in institutional, organizational and personal contexts. Their actions are motivated by will and intention. They create, resist, engage in conflict, and acquiesce to domination. All these forces influence the enactment of organizational routines and create a tremendous potential for change” (Feldman, 2000, p. 614). This idea that knowledge is not inert but may change is induced by the idea that free will is essential and is at the heart of many cognitive automatisms. This idea is central in the work of Bargh (1997) who progressively integrates the principles of motivations such as they are described in the « self determination theory ». In this theory, John Bargh observes to what extent the emotional, cognitive and motivational conditions that characterize an environment can serve as the basis for a preconscious psychological state that can generate an automatic response – automatic in that it escapes the individual’s awareness and direct consciousness. This hypothesis is summarized in the following figure. Figure 2: Bargh ‘s motivational system

10 As shown by Bargh (1997). It is also important to note that social processes like imitation and conformism are involved in habit forming (Hodgson, 2004, p. 652). This is in line with Jager (2003) where is it mentioned that the initial performance of behaviour before it becomes a habit forming is deliberation, learning form peers or imitation of successful behaviour. 11 Echoing Dopfer’s sentence on “emotional intelligence and intelligent emotions” (see Dopfer, 2005, p.25) we could say that the general disposition to rely on habits could be considered as a form of “habitual intelligence”.

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The underlying idea – which Bargh borrowed from Whitehead (1911) and Shiffrin and Dumais (1981) – is that the routinisation of certain procedures helps an individual focus his/her attention on essential, new and creative tasks. What is new compared to the traditional theory on cognitive automatisms is the manner in which Bargh analyses motivation. Indeed, nothing happens by accident. Echoing the aforementioned driving metaphor, Bargh (1997, p. 28) underlines not only that before walking may become an automatic process, we have learnt how to walk but also, and not less important, that we intended to walk. He even talks of an « auto-motive model » to explain to what extent mental representations are essential to the development of cognitive mechanisms. The interactions between cognition and motivation are therefore essential and must be taken into account. Consciousness is essential in that it initiates the process of skill acquisition with possible tensions during this learning stage: « But even in the case of these automatic motivations, it is possible for a person to become aware of his or her actions and, as in the case of bad habits, attempt to change those behavior patterns. This question of how automatic and conscious motivations interact when in conflict is one of practical as well theoretical importance, and we are now investigating parameters of this interaction” ( Bargh, 1997, p. 52). Recent studies converge on the fact that the consciousness vs. automaticity opposition is a dichotomy that is no longer valid because it has now become clear that consciousness accompanies, rather than replaces, the processes of automatisation (Baumeister & Sommer 1997; Tzelgov 1997; Bargh and Chartrand 1997; Gardner and Cacioppo, 1997). Parallely, the same can be said about the long-held idea that there exists a clear division between automatic and controlled processes. In line with the work of Damasio (1995, 2000) that shows the presence of cortical interconnectivity in the human brain, it is now clear that mental processes generally involve a mix of automatic and controlled attributes at the same time12. In sum, both consciousness and deliberation accompany the process of automatisation. Hodgson (2007, p. 107) goes further in saying that “(h)abit is not the negation of deliberation, but its necessary foundation”. This explains why automatisation should thus not be overlooked as reminded by Camerer et al. (2005, p. 11) who claim that “human behavior requires a fluid interaction between controlled and automatic processes and between cognitive and affective systems( …) since we see only the top of the automatic iceberg, we naturally tend to exaggerate the importance of control’“.

12 See the work of Bargh (1996) or more recently Betsch et al. (2004) and Jackson (2005).

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In order to provide an answer to the question of how a decision process that has become automatic may evolve and change, let’s turn again to the work of John Bargh. Following Bargh (1994), automaticity can be considered as displaying four distinct features (the “four horsemen of automaticity”): lack of control, lack of awareness, efficiency (i.e. saving up cognitive resources than can be used for other purposes) and lack of intention13. Verplanken and Orbell (2003) provide evidence that habits tend to display the first three features of automaticity, at least to a certain extent (which can serve to distinguish the strength of different habits). For instance, even though habits are controllable in principle, it is often quite difficult to override strong habits such as smoking cigarettes (Verplanken and Faes, 1999). Dijksterhuis et al (2005) as well as Chartrand (2005), provide ample and well documented evidence regarding the minimal awareness that is involved in performing consumer behaviour. As far as efficiency is concerned, Wood et al (2002) provides evidence that people can think about other things while performing a habit. Regarding the unintentional feature of habits the picture must be somewhat qualified: if habits can turn to be “counterintentional” (Verplanken and Faes, 1999), the fact that they are functional (i.e. goal-directed) make them intentional (or volitional) to some degree (Polites, 2005). All together, this again shows that, as mentioned earlier, habits and routines are not purely automatic as reflex-type of behaviours could be deemed to be14. This is what makes them amenable to change. Echoing the question raised in Klockner et al. (2003, p. 400) who consider inappropriate “to ask people to report the strength of their habits when an essential feature of habit is its unconscious character”, it is then necessary to explain how people can exert control over a decision process that is considered unconscious. First, it must be recalled that the essential feature of habits is their automatic nature and not their unconscious character. Lack of awareness is only one of the four features of automaticity and is thus sufficient but not necessary for a process to be qualified as automatic. Then, in line with Chartrand (2005), it seems appropriate to start with setting a clear distinction between the different stages at which awareness may operate: the environmental cues, the process by which these cues influence behaviour and the outcome of that process. Dijksterhuis and Smith (2005), p. 226, claimed that while we are usually aware of the outcome and sometimes aware of the cues, we are usually not aware of the process. Following that line of thought, many choices are thus “introspectively almost blank” (Dijksterhuis et al., 2005, p. 193) with respect to behavioural details but, at the same time, consumers are nonetheless aware of their action in a broad sense (Dijksterhuis and Smith, 2005, p. 226). In sum, whereas people certainly do not have access to many automatic and tacit processes, they are still able to report on the occurrence of some of these provided we touch on this “broad sense awareness” (i.e. if they are presented question in a meta-cognitive fashion that touches on the “learned sequences” part of habits). We are thus aware that we rely on habits15 even though we are not fully conscious of it when performing the habitual behaviour - this broad awareness being a distinguishable feature of habits as compared to fully automatic behaviours such as reflexes. For instance, building on the example of grocery shopping described in Dijksterhuis et al. (2005), p. 193, consumers may have picked most items that end up in their cart with nothing more than “a fleeting moment of awareness” and thus have no memory of making those choices, but they would still be able to realize (and report) afterwards that they have not been thinking about those decisions when “making” it.

13 These features are comparable to the “distinctive properties of routines actions” mentioned in Cohen (2006, p. 388). 14 As noted in Limayen et al. (2001), p. 277, habits are, unlike reflexes, “based in part on the ability of the individual to learn or acquire/absorb the particular behaviour into a cognitive schemata or script”. See also the encoding or cognitive processing that characterises the first stage of habit formation in Jager (2003). 15 As mentioned above, free will plays a role in the learning phase of habits. More generally, relying on habits is a deliberate choice since “there is still a sort of economic calculation in the unwillingness to subject existence to economic calculation” Bourdieu (1986), p. 180.

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This meta-awareness may explain the finding of Bartiaux (2007) where it is shown that reporting on personal habits is a first step towards bringing knowledge from practical to discursive consciousness which, in turn, is deemed to be a necessary condition for changing habits. The distinction between practical and discursive consciousness - that is borrowed from the work of Anthony Giddens - is similar to the difference between “procedural” and “declarative” memory (see Lazaric, 2007)16. This seems intuitive since habits are thought to be “acquired through a process in which repetition incrementally tunes cognitive processors in procedural memory” (Neal and al., 2006, p. 198). As it is known since the work of, among others, Cohen and Bacdayan (1994) and Egidi (1996), procedural memory is the storehouse of our habits and skills17. Consequently, bringing information from procedural (or practical) to declarative (or discursive) memory could be conceived as a step backwards (or a return trip to the source) since the declarative stage (i.e. the cognitive processing of information in memory) is the first stage of habit formation which ends up with the procedural stage (Jager, 2003). This would suggest that going back, in some way, to the initial phase of habit formation could provide a starting point for changing habits and routines. This echoes the view suggested in Langer (1989) and in Langer and Modoveanu (2000) that routines may be activated in a “mindful manner” - which thus acknowledges that declarative and procedural memories co-evolve and that determination and consciousness also do. Langer defined this process in a similar vein that Giddens (1984) with the notion of “mindfulness” highlighting individuals’ attention inside cognitive automatisms. In this perspective, individuals should make sense of what they do and perceive by increasing their acuity so as to be able to integrate new information and to continuously update and refine their mental categories. Indeed, the notion of “mindfulness” emphasizes the necessity of focusing not so much on simple quantitative questions of data storing, but on the quality of the cognitive process. 4. The process of habits and routines formation an d their persistence In a recent article, Cohen (2006, p. 388) gives the example of Russian soldiers that, although disguised as civilians, formed up in ranks and marched away to illustrate what he calls “the occasional “misfirings” in which routines are executed in inappropriate but compelling circumstances”. This picture is quite similar to the idea put forward by social psychologists that show how habits may often become “counterintentional” (Verplanken and Faes 1999) as the stronger they are, the more effect they have on behaviour relative to intentions18. Indeed, in line with the collective example of Russian soldier, even in cases where a single individual does form intentions to perform a given behaviour (e.g. eat more healthily), he sometimes does not implement it because it contradicts existing habits (e.g stop by the fast-food restaurant around the corner)19. Strong habits have also been found to moderate the impact

16 It also reflects the difference generally made between tacit and explicit knowledge in Evolutionary Economics (see footnote 8 in Nelson and Winter, 1995, p. 32). Wallenborn (2006), allows us to come full circle in trying to link concepts developed within evolutionary economics with the work of Giddens. Indeed, after mentioning Gidden’s definition of “practical consciousness” as being “all things actors know tacitly …without being able to give them direct discursive expression”, he adds that it is not “unrelated to the concept of routine” (Wallenborn, 2006, p. 65). 17 Following Dutraive (2008), we can relate habits to the concept of “routine transactions” developed within the school of Old Institutionalism (Commons 1934, 1950). Routines transactions are the ones related to habitual activities involving stabilized knowledge (embodied in rules) and “strategic transactions” are those related to situations of novelty implying new practices and new opportunities and for which there is no stabilized knowledge and rules of thumbs. In other words, “routines transactions” are stabilized procedures deeply entrenched in the individual procedural memory whereas ‘strategic transactions’ concern new ways of doing things, that are not yet classified by the human mind 18 As already suggested in Triandis (1977), p 205, habits thus « become a better predictor of behaviour than behavioural intentions”. 19 The failure for intentions to predict behaviour for people with strong habits has been shown to be the case for car use (Verplanken et al., 1998) as well as for food purchases, watching TV news and riding the bus (Ji Song and Wood, 2007).

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of moral norms and self-concepts on behaviour (Wood and Neal, 2007, p. 853). In consequence, beyond explaining how habits and routines form, it is also necessary to explain why they sometimes persist although they are conflicting with norms, goals or intentions. Knusden (2008) provides an explanation of this process by showing common characteristics of habits and routines in social populations. First, habits and routines multiply and spread in social contexts. These potential externalities lead us to have a specific glance on the environmental feedback which may be viewed as a force causing the reinforcement as well as the elimination of some forms of behaviours judged un-adapted. Second, habits and routines contain ‘ready-made solutions to common problems in a sable context’ because they have been elaborated in a frame of bounded rationality. These two characteristics may explain some potential sub optimality of habits and routines, notably why despite these intrinsic features, they may be widely diffused in populations and organizations (Knusden, ibid 133). First, habits and routines are persistent during time and may even promote some form of inertia for individuals as well for organizations ((Hannan and Freeman 1989). Habits and routines being able to accommodate for both individual and structural/institutional accounts, the reasons for their persistence will thus refer to both levels of explanation in an intertwined and mutually interdependent manner. To do so, it quickly appears that the concepts of “lock-in and path-dependence” are very useful. Indeed, Paul David, who pioneered together with Brian Arthur the research on “lock-in” processes, already asserted in the mid-80’s that path dependencies may arise “in the presence of strong technical interrelatedness, scale economies and irreversibilities due to learning and habituation” (David 1985, p. 336 -emphasis added). As mentioned in Barnes et al. (2004, p. 372) only the first two arguments were used in the literature on “technological lock-in” that has followed from the work of David and Arthur to the detriment of the “behavioural” part of the lock-in process. In fact, there is a sort of mutual (i.e. or circular) form of reinforcement that arises from the influences of the socio-technical system (STS20) in shaping behaviour which makes individual form habits in specific ways that are consistent with the STS operating constraints (Hodgson, 2004, p 656). As mentioned in Ramazotti (2007, p. 774), “consumers can only ask for what is available; they cannot demand what is deemed "technically" impossible to produce. These real constraints eventually feed back on mental habits”. There are thus institutional reasons that make individual resort to the use of habits as habits allow for collective structures to be sustained through being a vector for the transmission of norms and customs (Waller, 1988). The influence of institutions in forming habits is illustrated in Barnes et al. (2004, p. 373) with the example of the influence of financial market on the management decisions taken by firm actors. In fact, as claimed in Pierson (1993, p. 603), “policies provide incentives that encourage individuals to act in ways that lock in a particular path of policy development”. However, we can also find explanatory factors at the level of individuals. As mentioned earlier, the primary reason for people to resort on habits is to efficiently allocate their limited cognitive resources. Relying on habits liberates the individuals from “the burden of all decisions” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, quoted in Lindbladh and Lyttkens, 2002). As it has convincingly been shown in Tversky and Kahnemann (1974), people use a variety of cognitive and emotional heuristics to deal with the impossibility of amassing all possible information and thus tend to make immediate and sometimes not even conscious choices of behaviour. This is where people become somewhat “locked in” their decision routines as illustrated by Simon’s concept of docility - which refers to the “human propensity for accepting information and advice that comes through appropriate social channels” (Simon,

20 For a definition, see Geels and Kemp (2006).

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2005, p. 95)21. Starting from the idea that social learning is the most important form of learning of human beings (Tomasello et al., 2005) and that it is impossible to verify every piece of information we consider legitimate (i.e. rationality is bounded), there is some form of “path-dependence” of the information that we use to make our decisions. This is confirmed in an empirical study by Hoeffler et al. (2006) that shows how the impossibility to experience all options before making a decision makes that initial choices have long lasting effects on future preferences. Interestingly, this “path-dependence” of preference is stronger when early decisions are deliberate as this reinforces the adoption of a biased search process. Another reason for the potential persistence of habits lies in the presence of strong short-term rewards that override long term benefits as illustrated by the case of “bad habits” such as smoking where people can not give up the pleasure of a cigarette (i.e. short term reward) even though they formulate strong intentions to quit given the potential health damage it could help avoid (i.e. long-term benefits). This is what we called the “temporal asymmetry” problem (Maréchal, 2008). The benefits attached to a habit may be economic/financial, biological or psychological (Verplanken and Wood, 2006, p. 92). Immediacy and recurrence of positive feedbacks – which are clearly both valid in the cigarette case – are two important factors that contribute to the reinforcement of habits. There can also be what Jager (2003) calls a “contingent reinforcement” which denotes the fact that a deeply ingrained habitual decision strategy will likely be tested in different but comparable situations. The very nature of habits may also explain their persistence as, due to their automatic nature (i.e directly cued by environmental stimuli) and the minimal cognitive effort they require, habits “assume precedence over more thoughtful actions” (Verplanken and Wood, 2006, p. 93). This is important as in today’s society that can be said to be characterised by a feeling of generalised time pressure, people will tend to use simple heuristics such as habits22. In fact, the trend towards individualization and the parallel rapid technological and institutional changes that characterises contemporary society engenders a feeling of information overload which renders habits an element enhancing security and comfort (Lindbladh and Lyttkens, 2002). For mainly risk-adverse people, habits can also be considered less risky as outcomes and probabilities are allegedly known with greater certainty23. Routines also play the same role by exhibiting some feeling of comfort and security associated to the notion of truce in organizations. This explains their possible persistence because routines can be seen as truces amongst potentially conflicting interests. Consequently their modification creates the fear of breaking some durable social interactions in which they are embedded (Dosi et al 2008). Finally, it should be noted that this picture on the pervasiveness of habits is even enhanced through self-reinforcing processes acting both on the general propensity to rely on habits and on the existing habits themselves. First, as mentioned above, there is a form of path-dependence of the information that is used to make our decisions. Second, people with strong habits display what Faiers et al. (2007, p. 4385) call the “confirmatory bias” which refers to the fact that people tend to favour and seek out information that confirms their views, beliefs and behaviours24. This may be explained by the fact that discarding contradictory information is a way to solve the problem of psychological discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. Those two elements25 contribute to make existing habits even more deeply ingrained with time26. Furthermore, at a broader level, it has been shown that people 21 Simon (2005) explains this concept using the example of hot stoves that we learn not to touch without actually having to experience touching it ourselves. 22 Betsch et al. (2004) show the importance of time pressure on the prevalence of counter-intentional behaviour. 23 As noted in Lindbladh and Lyttkens (2000), this does not preclude the possibility that habitual behaviour can sometimes be more risky like, for instance, the habit of not wearing a seat belt in a car. 24 See also the aforementioned empirical result in Hoeffler et al (2006). 25 We could also add the reduced capacity to detect environmental change in the presence of strong habits (Verplanken and Wood, 2006, p. 92). 26 As noted in Jager (2003), short term benefits of habits often tend to increase with time.

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relying on habits adjust their cognitive perceptions, matters of appreciation and normative judgements in coherent structures (Lindbladh and Lyttkens, 2002) which strengthen the idea that the reliance on habits is dependent upon past experience and conditions. To put in other words, not only do existing habits get more entrenched through time but so does the general disposition to rely on habits. This also was already acknowledged in Veblen (1899, p. 107-108) where it is said that “the longer the habituation (…) the more persistently will the given habit assert itself”. There is thus clearly a form of lock-in process of habits. Finally, it must be noted that the interplay of emotions with habits provides another source of reinforcement (Carrus et al. 2008)27. The aforementioned empirical result from the study of Hoeffler et al (2006) which shows that the long lasting effect of initial choices is stronger when the latter are deliberated could be explained by the influence of emotions. In fact, it is known that deliberation is more likely to happen when the degree of involvement is high (Jackson, 2005). We could thus make the assumption that the increased emotional charge of the initial decision that make people more reluctant to contradict it when they are faced with conflicting information. It is likely that the cognitive dissonance is higher in those cases which would reinforce the biased search process highlighted in Hoeffler et al. (2006). The reinforcement role of emotional involvement was also implicitly recognised by Veblen (1899, p. 108) where he asserted that habits were stronger if they were “largely and profoundly concerned in the life process” or “intimately bound up with the life history”. More generally emotions play a major role for social groups and organizations. For illustrating the permanent interplay between motivation and cognition, Rouleau (2005) observes the specific role of ‘middle managers’. These groups may appear to be critical in organizations by encouraging employees to take into account the emotional impact the changes can have on individuals (Floyd and Woolridge 1992, Huy 2002). It is beyond the scope of this paper to develop these aspects further but they are obviously a line for future research as the role of emotions and affect is clearly not something that can easily be grasped (Lowenstein and Lerner, 2003). 5. Habits, routines and energy consumption Behavioural lock-in under the form of “habits” is important for understanding the continued increase of energy consumption in spite of existing environmental awareness and concern among the population28. This echoes the potentially “counterintentional” nature of habits (Verplanken and Faes, 1999) or the “occasional misfiring” (Cohen, 2006). As we developed in more details elsewhere (Maréchal, 2008; Maréchal and Lazaric, 2008), the presence of strong habits could also serve to explain the existence of what is known as the “Efficiency paradox” in energy consumption (DeCanio, 1998). This paradox refers to the fact there exists a substantial amount investments in energy efficiency that is not spontaneously undertaken by actors even though they are highly profitable based on traditional financial criteria (Maréchal, 2007). Our stance is that the existence of energy-inefficient habits of life may provide one explanatory factor of this paradox. Indeed, in line with those authors that see energy consumption as “the routine accomplishment of what people take to be “normal” ways of life (Shove, 2005, p. 117), a study has shown that consumers’ intrinsic (i.e. not determined by market signals) habits and preferences were important determinants of energy-inefficient choices in motor technologies (de Almeida, 1998, p. 650). Beyond its use for highlighting the inertia of consumption (Duesenberry 1949), Veblen’s perspective of consumption as incorporating important a potential element of waste (waste of time, effort and of goods) is also interesting in that it may serve to explain the unconscious 27 As noted in Cohen (2006, p. 388), the emotional grounding of routines was implicit in Nelson and Winter (1982). 28 Concerning the rise of environmental awareness, see for instance the many studies that have used the NEP (New Environmental Paradigm) scale. A survey of a great deal of such studies can be found in Dunlap et al. (2000).

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character of some consumption practices. Indeed, Veblen argued that some consumers may not always be aware of wasting in their daily life : “For the great body of people in any community, the proximate ground of expanditure in excess of what is required for physical comfort is not a conscious effort to excel in the expensiveness of their visible consumption, so much as it is a desire to live up to the conventional standard decency in the amount of grade of goods consumed (Veblen 1899, 103, underlined by us )”. This means that part of the conspicuous consumption is not always known by individuals and groups because it is built-in in their daily life, a way of consuming part of their history and of their social way of behaving. Obviously, a lot of everyday energy consumption corresponds to these unconscious forms of built-in consumption practices. The fact that energy consumption takes the form of habitual behaviour can be explained using the three conditions identified in Jackson (2005) – low degree of involvement, low perceived complexity and high degree of constrain – which are all met for energy consumption. Indeed, the decisions taken in everyday energy consumption are likely to be considered as having less important consequences than other decisions. According to the work of Tversky, people are more likely to use simple heuristics (such as habits) in such situations. Needless to say, the low complexity of decision tasks related to everyday energy consumption does not require a lot of cognitive effort either. Finally, as we mentioned above, the constraints of today’s society (i.e. the feeling of time pressure as well as the information overload that characterise it) tend to favour the use of habits and routines. All together, this suggests that everyday energy-related behaviours do not require much intentional effort to be set in motion such as it has been shown to the case of, for example, food consumption of adolescents in Kremers et al., 2007. For Schäfer and Bamberg (2008), p. 213, energy use along with nutrition and mobility are “forms of behaviour that are hardly reflected upon in everyday life”. In such a context, it is difficult to expect consumers to be capable of exercising control over their consumption of energy in reaction to given incentives (whether economic or informative). This may explained why the focus on efficiency and the “incentives obsession” have failed in delivering energy reductions (Wilhite, 2007, p. 23)29. Since the central perspective of this paper relies on the idea that individuals and institutions (i.e. here under the form of the aforementioned STS) “mutually constitute and condition each other” (Hodgson, 1997, p. 404), we intend to further explore the concept of habits and routines for explaining the “efficiency paradox” in energy consumption bearing in mind the broader institutional and social context within which those behaviors develop. The view that technologies are embedded in a strongly influential social context of institutions makes that consumption is shaped by (whilst also shaping) technological constraints. In line with Gidden’s Structuration theory that sees structures as both enabling and constraining, the current carbon-based STS both constraints and enables the forming of habits. Indeed, the current carbon-based STS shapes consumers’ choices towards more energy-consuming ways of life. Cultural and technological changes go hand in hand as illustrated by the rise of average internal temperatures in UK houses from 13.8 °C in 1970 to 18.2 °C in 2004 30 while the average number of electric appliances increased from 17 to 47 over the same period of time (Martiskainen, 2008). In addition, as it comes out of the “circular causation” concept highlighted in our perspective, while choices in energy consumption are being strongly influenced by the existing carbon-based STS, they, in turn, contribute to reinforce and maintain the incumbent STS. Indeed, if 29 See also the limits of traditional instruments as, for instance, market forces in de Almeida (1998), of energy labels in Gram-Hanssen et al. (2007) and of price signals in Meier and Eide, (2007). 30 Even though the range of what people report to be a comfortable temperature is wide, indoor climate are converging (Shove, 2005).

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the use of highly automatised behaviours such as habits is undoubtedly “procedurally rational” in stable contexts, it quickly turns into a change-resisting factor when conditions and circumstances vary such that alternative behaviours would yield better outcomes. The inertia of habits and routines is not intrinsically negative as it serves to hold entities together (Hannan and Freeman 1989. In line with Carillo-Hermosilla and Unruh (2006, p. 708) who resort to “old institutionalism” to explain the “apparent paradox in the increasing returns and lock-in conceptualisation”, we thus consider habits and routines as an additional explanatory factor of long term technological stability. The “predisposition” concept inspired by Veblen is also very insightful for the issue of energy consumption. If it can be convincingly argued that every individual have habits (i.e. routinised forms of actions), the attitude towards habits in general (i.e. the idea of relying on habits as a general strategy of decision-making) can be different among individuals as it is clearly shown in the qualitative analysis performed in Gram-Hanssen (2008). In fact, as claimed in Brette and Mehier (2008, p. 5), “it is only by defining habits as propensities or predispositions, and not as behaviours as such, that we can understand why the same habit may have several actualisations”. This is in line with recent empirical analysis of energy consumption in Denmark and that display both “similarity and collectivity” as well as “variety and individuality” in behaviours (Gram-Hanssen, 2008, p. 14) as well as with Veblen’s acknowledgement of the “varying degrees of ease with which different habits are formed by different persons, as well as the varying degrees of reluctance with which different habits are given up” (Veblen, 1898, p. 108). Assessing habits at the level of individuals is thus also relevant in our framework although it is recognised that consumers’ choices are strongly influenced by structural, cultural, social and institutional forces such as norms, media, etc. More than “willing” consumers should then rather be viewed as partly “locked-in” (Sanne, 2002). Consumers are thus neither fully rational (in the sense of traditional economics) nor omnipotent. Given this picture, policies aiming at promoting sustainable energy consumption would thus have to both shift the incumbent STS for it to shape decisions towards the desired direction and also deconstruct habits that this same STS has forged with time (as increased environmental awareness and intentions formulated accordingly are not sufficient in the presence of strong habits). 6. Changing habits and routines: implications for p olicy-making The previous sections served to describe how an evolutionary perspective building on both structural and individual accounts of change through the concepts of habits could prove insighful for depicting the idea that unsustainable energy consumption practices can be viewed as somewhat locked-in. Accordingly, it appears straightforward to turn to the same framework in trying to find ways of unlocking those same practices. This will inevitably involve going into the long explored concept of routines and see what important insights on routine change may be useful for our purpose. Starting from an evolutionary approach to consumption, Cowan et al (1997, p. 715) explain this process of unconscious consumption inertia with the importance of path dependency and suggest to have a better look on the consumer‘s own past consumption history. They distinguish various groups which may interfere on the creation and formation of consumer’s behaviour: the peer group, the contrast group and the aspirational group (Cowan et al : 712). This may explain the evolution of consumption and the interdependencies between various groups of consumers which may have (or not) an active role in influencing consumption. Consumption here is shaped by the social interactions but also by the importance of the past. Some recent models try also to show the cultural dimension inside social learning,

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notably how ‘green’ attitude towards consumption has to be learned with enventually diverse incentives systems (for example ‘eco taxes’) which may have a role for promoting new kinds consumption patterns (Buensdorf and Cordes, 2007). The main insight of their model is that it suggests to go beyond the assumption of permanent ‘lock in’ by demonstrating possibility of learning and change inside consumption patterns ( Buensdorf and Cordes, 2007; Witt 2001) . Those insights lead Munier and Zhaou Wong (2005) to coin the concept of routines’ consumption with the aim of depicting social consumption as the product of history and of individual habits. This raises the thorny question of sovereignty in human action – i.e. how routines‘ consumption defined as a product of past choices, repetition and prior interactions may require some new opportunitities for incorporating change. This insight is worthful to be examined with recent findings in the concepts of habits and routines. In line with recent works in evolutionary economics (Dopfer 2007), it is essential to account for the interplay between the individual and the collective levels of action. Indeed, individuals shape their judgment, beliefs and acts not only by themselves but also in interactions with others. And the nature of these micro interactions can produce ‘recurrent interacting patterns’ that need to be carefully observed (Cohen et al 1996). Besides, it is also important to recall the aforementioned crucial role of institutions which should be understood as the working rules of collective action that may restrain the individual deliberation and plays a cognitive role by creating “institutionalized minds” and “institutionalized personalities” (Commons, ibid, p.874). But, although deliberation and calculative processes are not always mobilized, in some circumstances the mind may reveal “a creative agency looking towards the future and manipulating the external world and other people in view of expected consequences” (Commons [1934], p.7 ; Hodgson 1988). In consequence, even though the old institutionalist framework is very insightful in highlighting the embeddeness of individual habits and organisational routines as well as the emergence of routinisation processes, it should also serve to analyse change as pictured in the recent approach to organisational routines (Feldman 2000; Lazaric and Denis 2005; Becker, Lazaric and Nelson and Winter 2005). Indeed, several studies have shown the importance of stability and change in organisational routines (Feldman 2000, 2004, Howard- Greenville 2005). Routines are repertoires of knowledge partly activated by the members of an organisation (Lazaric 2000, p. 164), consequently they are generative, dynamic systems, not static objects (Pentland and Feldman 2003, 2005). It follows that the collective level of routine might explain its potential for change. Michael Cohen and Bacdayan (1994) are confronted with the same question in their observation of collective forms of memorization that go beyond individual forms of memorization : ‘the routine of a group can be viewed as the concatenation of such procedurally stored actions, each primed by and priming the actions of others.’ (Cohen and Bacdayan (1994, p. 557). This issue has been by Hutchins (1995) who shows how the social and technical environment conditions individual processes of memorization31. The question that arises is thus that of the role played by the individual in the development and control of these cognitive processes. This again shows the need to look for ways to change habits that target not only the collective dimension but also the individual one. This is explicitly acknowledged in a recent paper on routines where it mentioned that “(a)ccounting for for the reliable spread and differential adoption of routines is only part of the puzzle, however. What is missing is a theory of endogenous generation of distinctly novel routines” (Becker al., 2006, p. 361, underlined by us). However, existing analyses of change in routines concentrate on internal 31 Indeed, in his study of a marine crew, he concludes that there definitely is a type of memory distributed at the group level (Hutchins 1995, p. 228). On the other hand, this study also reveals that most members of the crew conduct their cognitive activity in an active manner - i.e. they go beyond what is formally prescribed so as to be able to anticipate possible breakdowns or future problems (Hutchins 1995, p. 201).

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or external changes, and few of them examine the possible interactions between both sources of change. Organizations have the ability to interpret external signs in many different ways; as a result, the intentional or non-intentional nature of change is often difficult, for an outsider, to observe. As shown in section 4, the motivational dimension should not be neglected for looking beyond the historical contingencies that limit the possibilities of novelty (Castaldi and Dosi, 2006). In the aformentioned perspective of the “mindful” nature of routines – which may be related to the functionality or goal-directedness of habits - potential change in routines should not be seen as a fateful coincidence related to external and disruptive factors, but as a crucial ingredient to the revitalization of individuals and organizations. At organizational level, this has significant implications as the social groups that rely on routines might, in their daily mobilization, forget the context in which they were learned and their significance. This is the reason why in certain collective tasks, some groups may tend to rely on old procedural knowledge without questioning its adequacy. Nevertheless, conservatism is not a fatality and depends on the peculiar features of the organizational context. This points to the double recursiveness in this process, such as it is described by Orlikowsky (2000), and prompts us to examine organizations’ capacity of improvisation in order to reveal the “essentially transformational character of all human action, even in its most routinized form” (Giddens, in Orlikowski, 2000, p. 425). Together with the meta-awareness of people with respect to their habits, it thus seems necessary to build on the mindfulness or goal-directed dimension of habits in order to trigger a change. As reminded in Wood and Neal (2007, p. 844), “habits possess conservative features that constraint their relation with goals. Within these constraints goals and habits can direct each other”. It follows that interventions combining elements aiming at interrupting habitual behaviour with others designed towards increasing the motivation to change will be more effective (Eriksson et al, 2008). Accordingly, disrupting habits could be achieved through inducing deliberation and/or modifying the satisfying nature of habitual behaviour. With respect to positive feedbacks enjoyed when performing a habit, the most effective way to change a habit would be to prohibit it or to, alternatively, to make it impossible. However, as mentioned in Jager (2003), strategies that interfere with individual freedom are likely to be often rejected by the population in many cases which makes necessary to turn to alternatives ways. As described in section 3, since habits can be seen as the automatic cuing of behaviour induced by stable features of performance context32, analysing the habit-triggering cues is a first step towards disrupting existing habits. Indeed, as noted in Verplanken and Wood (2006), p. 9, “the dependence of habits on environmental cues represents an important point of vulnerability”. Here again, it is crucial to underline that habits differ from purely emotional responses since what is effective for controlling those responses might be counterproductive in the case of habits. Indeed, as noted in Wood and Neal (2007, p. 854), “instead as inattention to the cue, high level of vigilance to it appear to be effective”. Following Ji Song and Wood (2007), the main context cues include physical surroundings, social surroundings, temporal perspective, task definition, antecedent states. As mentioned in Maréchal (2008), physical location is obviously an important environmental cue in the case of energy consumption. Accordingly, economic incentives aimed at improving energy efficiency would probably be more effective if supporting information was specifically targeted towards new residents (whose previously-determined habits have been perturbed with the change of physical location) than they would be among the population of incumbent

32 For an overview of studies that show the ways in which behaviour is influenced by performance context, see, for instance, Dijksterhuis et al. (2005), Chartrand (2005) and Wood et al. (2005).

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residents. This is supported by the evidence contained in Wood et al. (2005) that shows how a change of location would induce decisions to be more in line with intentions than with habits. All together, this shows the greater efficacy of measures when they are tied with contextual change. Beyond the importance of cues, we also saw that the persistence of habits could be partly explained by the presence of short-term rewards coupled with what is called the problem of “temporal asymmetry”. Besides disrupting the performance context of habits33, another policy measure that could also turn out to be effective would be to reduce the direct rewards experienced when performing the habitual behaviour. Jager (2003) provides some interesting examples of such rewards-reducing strategies like, for instance, applying nasty substances on fingernails to avoid biting them or the use of anti-alcohol pills. Whereas there does not seem to be any obvious similar strategies in the field of domestic energy consumption, policy-makers could turn to their counter-parts which aims at increasing the rewards attached to the alternative behaviour. Making the alternative behaviour more rewarding seems to provide an interesting point on which to found sustainable energy measures. This is confirmed by the answers provided by respondents that have taken part – on a voluntary basis - in the Brussels Energy Challenge as it is the very notion of “challenge” that is considered to be most “interesting” aspect of the proposed policy34. The participants also considered the idea of challenge as a facilitating factor in implementing their behavioural change on a daily basis (especially with respect to their neighbours and their broader social network). In fact, as mentioned in Matthies et al. (2006), p.94, commitments strategies (i.e. as the Brussels Energy Challenge) enhances “self-satisfaction as a result of acting in accordance with personal values” and therefore increases “the cost of not acting”. This obviously reflects the aforementioned importance of the social and collective dimensions of habits and routines. Another strategy that builds on predictions from social identity theory and social comparison theory is the use of comparative feedbacks. These have been shown to increase the performance through raising motivation in a study of two units of a metallurgical company (Siero et al., 1996). In one unit, employees received information about energy conservation, had to set goals and received feedback on their own conservation behaviour. In the second unit the only difference was that they also received information about the performance of the other unit. As expected, employees who received comparative information saved more energy. The authors note that it is “remarkable that behavioural change took place with hardly any changes in attitudes” (Siero et al. 1996, p. 245). Another approach that may prove successful for disrupting habits is to tie them to emerging fashions and trends (Jager, 2003) or to naturally occurring life changes (Verplanken and Wood, 2006). For instance, Schaefer and Bamberg (2008, p. 215) mention empirical evidence about the increased openness of young mothers to receiving information about healthy nutrition practices. Sensitive life events (such as retirement, change of job, moving, disease, etc.) thus provide window of opportunity for change of behaviour to occur (Schaefer and Bamberg 2008, p. 215). Echoing the above-mentioned relevancy of targeting new residents, the idea is to propose policy measures to those individuals that are more likely to be receptive due to their context.

33 A good example of a perturbed habit context is the 8-day closure of a freeway that lead to the development of a new script-based travel mode choice (Fujii and Gärling, 2003). 34 It has a 9.06 on a scale ranging from 1 to 10 anchored by « not at all interesting » to “very interesting ». For instance, “the feeling of acting individually to fight against a global issue” has a score of 8.30 whereas the score of “individual follow-up” is of only 5.60. The complete result can be found in the June 2007 Report (in French) on www.defi-energie.be

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Bearing in mind the path-dependent reinforcement process described in section 4 , disrupting habits would also require dealing with above-mentioned “confirmatory bias” in information search displayed by people with strong habits. Drawing from the experience of cigarette packages, the important points to keep in mind in designing information seem to be the immediacy (i.e. at the time of performance) and the indisputableness. Regarding, domestic energy consumption, direct feedbacks under the form of smart meters (displaying instantaneously either your consumption or its translation in financial or ecological terms) could be a way forward to this respect. Finally, it is important to recall the context within which habits and routines develop. Bearing this is mind, it is obvious that disrupting an unsustainable habit of energy consumption is only a first step as policy-makers must also ensure the new (more sustainable) behaviour is tested, adopted and maintained. As mentioned in Matthies et al. (2006), p. 104, “a temporary situational change as a defrosting of habits can only lead to a long-term change to new behaviour if the evaluation of the new behaviour is positive, which require that the internal and external determinants are in favour of the new behaviour”. Within our framework, this clearly means that external aspects (i.e. wider societal, cultural, institutional and technological aspects) must be taken into account. According to the typology developed in Verplanken and Wood (2006, p. 96), such measures that “focus on the lager structural conditions in which people’s behaviour is embedded” would qualify as “upstream interventions”35. The case of recycling illustrates how the presence of a structured environment promoting the alternative behaviour may greatly contribute to changing unsustainable habits. Consequently, policies should also be aimed at helping consumer “to escape the restrictions imposed on their knowledge by the mental habits they have acquired” (Ramazzotti, 2007, p. 776). In this perspective, motivation and creativity are only one part of the puzzle for changing habits and routines. They are necessary for revitalizing traditional policy making and for creating new recurring interactions patterns and for learning new ways to dela with new sustainable consumption (Witt 2001). Without motivation individuals and collective procedural knowledge may be trapped by prior network externalities and existing path dependency. Contextual factors, mentioned above may vanish without an enabling environment supporting new behaviours. Changes may be directed to environmental factors for generating new conditions for sustainable change with the generation of distinctly novel habits and routines. In short for changing habits and routines durably, not only incentives and rewards are required but new cultural conditions are also needed. Action, at a policy making level for example- may be driven by their improvement but more broadly on the environment in which they emerge and are selected. In short changes in energy consumption require new kinds of procedural knowledge. Individual volition and structural influences are more likely to disrupt existing cognitive automatisms present at individual and collective level if values are rewards coming from these two dimensions appear to be self reinforcing and complementary. One role of the policy maker may be to reduce the gap between what individuals and institutions ought to do and what they really implement in their daily actions.

35 Conversely, those measures that target individual are considered “downstream interventions”.

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