A Review of the Energy Consumption Behavior of Residents
居民能源消费行为研究评述

Household energy consumption has become a major source of growth in energy demand and carbon emissions. The study of residential energy consumption has developed rapidly,and remains a progressive theoretical problem. Here,we review research on the factors that influence residential energy consumption from four perspectives:environmental psychology,sociology, consumer economics and industrial ecology. Environmental psychology has the greatest contribution to this research field through qualitative analysis and empirical study. Sociology looks at households as behavior main bodies,but neglects resident individual characteristics and lacks qualitative studies. Consumer economics focuses on decision-making analysis for residential energy consumption,but neglects the effects of resident attitudes,cognition and social norms on behavior. Industrial ecology emphasizes the energy consumption and environmental impact generated by household consumption,but lacks complete data banks in China. We also review guiding policies for residential energy consumption behavior. The review shows that informational interventions have an indirect and slow impact on behavior,but the effect is long-lasting;economic interventions influence the behavior directly and fast,but lose efficacy sooner;technological interventions achieve a direct,fast and lasting effect on behavior;legal interventions have a fast effect via compulsory force and remain effective in the short to medium term. We discuss some main limitations of the present work such as a lack of theoretical and empirical studies that combine both macro and micro features;a lack of intensive analysis on the causes,restraints and pathways for residential energy consumption behavior;and a lack of policy studies on guiding residential energy consumption behavior in a Chinese context.