Childhood habits can be hard to change. The results of a new study suggest that the way you set your thermostat today may be a holdover from your upbringing.
A recent article cheekily titled “Turn Down the Temperature to Save Watts” suggests that the average American doesn’t turn down his or her thermostat much, even though heating and cooling account for a significant portion of most household energy bills.
Instead, residents tend to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
“Specifically, individuals who grew up in warmer homes tend to maintain higher thermostat settings in their current homes, suggesting a lasting influence of early thermal environments on current temperature preferences,” write organizational behavior researcher Dritjon Gruda of Maynooth University in Ireland, and Paul Hanges, an organizational psychologist at the University of Maryland in the United States.
Today, residential energy consumption in the United States accounts for 21% of the country’s total energy consumption, and more than half of that consumption is for heating and cooling homes.
Although half of American homes are empty during the day, many continue to leave their heating or air conditioning on even when they are not there. Some surveys suggest that only 42% of American homeowners adjust their thermostat to save energy and costs.
Such habits not only waste energy, they also increase household bills. And the new study suggests that these preferences may be put into practice from childhood.
“Understanding what motivates consumers’ choices about heating and cooling is an important avenue for potentially reducing fossil fuel consumption,” Gruda and Hanges write.
Together, the two researchers surveyed 2,128 participants from across the United States. Respondents were asked about their average home thermostat settings in the winter, as adults, and as children. They were also asked to rate their emotional connection to their community.
Participants who now live in areas with colder winters and grew up in warmer homes – maintained at 26.67 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) – prefer to keep their current home warmer as adults than those who grew up in colder childhood homes – maintained at 21.11 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit).
Even after controlling for race, education, household income and geographic mobility, the trend held.
Although childhood habits can be “deeply ingrained and difficult to change,” Gruda and Hanges point out, that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken.
The degree to which a participant identified or connected with their community was found to “strongly” influence the relationship between a person’s current thermostat use and their education.
For example, people who moved to areas with colder winters, such as New York, and who have a strong connection to their local community tend to maintain lower unemployment rates. thermostat than participants who feel they do not fit in as much with their community.
Unsurprisingly, people in warmer regions, like Florida, tend to use less central heating and rely on air conditioning to cool their homes, even in the winter. But again, how a person integrates into their community can break this habit somewhat.
“People who reported good integration into the community reported higher temperatures in their homes, probably due to more limited air conditioning,” the psychologists note.
This suggests that peers influence our energy use, but because community norms were not measured directly, the authors say their results should be interpreted with caution.
The results are based on self-reports, which does not guarantee that participants are honest about their thermostat settings as adults or children.
Additionally, the thermostat setting may not reflect the actual temperature in the home, which, especially in older, less insulated homes, can be difficult to control.
Future research should improve on these limitations and address cultural factors that influence how people heat and cool their homes, Gruda and Hanges argue.
“Without understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms and drivers of behavior,” the psychologists write, we will fail to explain “why rational consumers do not necessarily strive to optimize their energy consumption.”
The study was published in PLOS Climate.
News Source : www.sciencealert.com
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