Childhood habits can be hard to break. The results of a new survey suggest that the way you adjust your thermostat today may be a remnant of your upbringing.
A recent paper titled “Reduce for Watts” suggests that the average American doesn’t turn down their thermostat for long, despite heating and cooling accounting for a significant portion of most home energy bills.
Instead, residents tend to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
“Specifically, individuals who grew up in warmer homes tended to maintain higher thermostat settings in their current homes, suggesting a consistent influence of early thermal environments on current temperature preferences,” the researchers wrote. of organizational behavior Dritjon Gruda from Maynooth University in Ireland and Paul Hanges. , an organizational psychologist from the University of Maryland in the US.
In the US today, residential energy accounts for 21 percent of the nation’s total energy consumption, and over half of that is driven by home heating and cooling.
Despite the fact that half of all US households are empty during the day, many continue to leave their heaters or air conditioners on, even when they’re not around. Some surveys suggest that only 42 percent of American homeowners adjust their thermostats to save energy and costs.
Such habits not only waste energy, but also increase household bills. And the new survey suggests that these preferences may carry over into childhood.
“Understanding what motivates consumer heating and cooling choices is an important path to potentially reducing fossil fuel burning,” Gruda and Hanges write.
Together, the two researchers surveyed 2,128 participants from across the United States. Respondents were asked about their home’s average winter thermostat settings as adults and as children. They were also asked to rate their emotional attachment to their community.
Those participants who now live in colder winter regions and who grew up in warmer homes – stored at 26.67 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) – liked to keep their current home warmer in adulthood than those who grew up in colder childhood homes – held in 21.11 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit).
Even when controlling for race, education, family income, and geographic mobility, the trend persisted.
While 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 with or connected to their community was found to “strongly” influence the relationship between a person’s actual thermostat use and their education.
For example, people who moved to colder winter regions, such as New York, and who have a strong connection to their local community tend to maintain a lower thermostat than participants who feel they don’t fit in as much in their community.
Surprisingly, people in warmer regions, like Florida, tend to use less central heating and use their air conditioners to cool their homes, even in the winter. But once again, how well a person fits into their community can somewhat break this habit.
“Individuals who showed high community adjustment reported higher temperatures at home, due to more limited air conditioning,” the psychologists note.
This suggests that peers influence our energy use, but since community norms were not directly measured, the authors say their results should be interpreted with caution.
The findings are based on self-reports, which does not ensure that participants are being honest about their thermostat settings in adulthood or childhood.
Plus, the thermostat setting may not be reflective of the home’s actual temperature, which, especially in older, less insulated homes, can be difficult to control.
Future research should improve upon these limitations and delve into the cultural factors that influence how people heat and cool their homes, Gruda and Hanges argue.
“Without understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms and behavioral drivers,” the psychologists write, we will fail to explain “why rational consumers do not necessarily try to optimize their energy consumption.”
The study was published in PLOS Climate.