This report reviews social and behavioral science models and techniques for their possible use in understanding and predicting consumer energy decision making and behaviors. A number of models and techniques have been developed that address different aspects of the decision process, use different theoretical bases and approaches, and have been aimed at different audiences. Three major areas of discussion were selected: (1) models of adaptation to social change, (2) decision making and choice, and (3) diffusion of innovation. Within these three areas, the contributions of psychologists, sociologists, economists, marketing researchers, and others were reviewed. Five primary components of the models were identified and compared. The components are: (1) situational characteristics, (2) product characteristics, (3) individual characteristics, (4) social influences, and (5) the interaction or decision rules. The explicit use of behavioral and social science models in energy decision-making and behavior studies has been limited. Examples are given of a small number of energy studies which applied and tested existing models in studying the adoption of energy conservation behaviors and technologies, and solar technology.

This report reviews social and behavioral science models and techniques for their possible use in understanding and predicting consumer energy decision making and behaviors. A number of models and techniques have been developed that address different aspects of the decision process, use different theoretical bases and approaches, and have been aimed at different audiences. Three major areas of discussion were selected: (1) models of adaptation to social change, (2) decision making and choice, and (3) diffusion of innovation. Within these three areas, the contributions of psychologists, sociologists, economists, marketing researchers, and others were reviewed. Five primary components of the models were identified and compared. The components are: (1) situational characteristics, (2) product characteristics, (3) individual characteristics, (4) social influences, and (5) the interaction or decision rules. The explicit use of behavioral and social science models in energy decision-making and behavior studies has been limited. Examples are given of a small number of energy studies which applied and tested existing models in studying the adoption of energy conservation behaviors and technologies, and solar technology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation, SBP-BRiMS 2017, held in Washington, DC, USA, in July 2017. The 16 full papers and 27 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions. Owing to its strong multi-disciplinary heritage, the papers represent a large range of disciplines including computer science, psychology, sociology, communication science, public health, bioinformatics, political science, and organizational science and use numerous types of computational methods such as machine learning, language technology, social network analysis and visualization, agent-based simulation, and statistics. They are organized in the following topical sections: behavioral and social sciences; cyber and intelligence applications; information, systems, and network sciences; and methodology.