Digital feedback nudges are increasingly used to promote pro-environmental behaviors, leveraging their ability to deliver personalized and adaptive feedback. While digital nudging is widely recognized as effective, its impact varies significantly and may follow complex temporal dynamics. This study examines how feedback nudge effectiveness evolves over time and shaped by different digital environments. Specifically, we explore whether digital social comparison feedback influences energy conservation differently when embedded as single comparison standard or combined with alternative comparison standards (i.e., “well-being temperatures”). To test this, we conducted a 10-week field-experiment involving 100 households in a medium-sized German city. Participants were assigned to one of three condi-tions: a control condition providing only individual temperature information, a social com-parison feedback condition, or a multiple feedback condition that paired social comparison with wellbeing-related comparison information. Using latent growth modeling, we assessed the effects of both feedback conditions on objectively measured room temperature changes as a proxy for energy conservation. Our findings reveal that social comparison feedback alone significantly reduces room temperatures and follows a curvilinear trajectory, with ef-fectiveness initially increasing before eventually declining. In contrast, combining social comparison feedback with wellbeing-related information failed to enhance energy conserva-tion and resulted in higher room temperatures. These findings advance the understanding of temporal dynamics in digital nudging effectiveness, emphasizing the importance of clarity and coherence in digital nudging context design. By identifying the conditions under which feedback mechanisms succeed or fail, this study provides actionable insights for implement-ing digital feedback nudges that sustain pro-environmental behaviors over time.
