Childhood habits can be hard to break. The results of a new study suggest that the way you set your thermostat today could be a vestige of your upbringing.
A recent article with the cheeky title “Turn down for watts” found that the average American doesn’t turn down the thermostat much, despite the fact that heating and cooling make up a significant portion of most households’ energy bills.
Instead, residents often follow in their parents’ footsteps.
“Individuals who grew up in warmer homes tend to turn up the thermostat in their current home, suggesting that the thermal environment in which they lived has a lasting influence on current temperature preferences,” write Dritjon Gruda, an organizational behavior researcher at Maynooth University in Ireland, and Paul Hanges, an organizational psychologist at the University of Maryland in the US.
Currently, 21 percent of total U.S. energy consumption comes from residential energy use, with more than half of that going toward household heating and cooling.
Despite the fact that half of all U.S. homes are empty during the day, many leave their heat or air conditioner on even when they’re not there. Some studies suggest that only 42 percent of U.S. homeowners adjust their thermostats to save energy and money.
Not only do such habits waste energy, they also increase household bills. And the new research suggests that these preferences can be implemented as early as childhood.
“Understanding what motivates consumers to choose heating and cooling is an important way to reduce fossil fuel consumption,” Gruda and Hanges write.
Together, the two researchers surveyed 2,128 participants from the United States. Respondents were asked about the average winter thermostat settings of their homes as adults and as children. They were also asked to rate their emotional connection to their communities.
The participants who now live in colder winter areas and who grew up in warmer homes – maintained at 26.67 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) – found it more pleasant to keep their current home warmer as adults than those who grew up in colder homes as children – maintained on 21.11 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit).
Even when race, education, household income and geographic mobility were taken into account, the trend remained.
Gruda and Hanges note that while childhood habits can be “deeply ingrained and difficult to change,” that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken.
The extent to which a participant identified with or felt connected to his or her community was found to have a “strong” influence on the relationship between a person’s current thermostat use and his or her upbringing.
For example, people who have moved to colder winter areas, such as New York, and who have strong ties to their local community tend to have lower thermostat than participants who feel they fit less well into their community.
It’s not surprising that people in warmer climates, like Florida, use their central heating less and rely on their air conditioners to cool their homes, even in the winter. But again, how well someone fits into their community can break that habit somewhat.
“Individuals who reported feeling good in the community reported higher temperatures in their homes, likely due to more limited air conditioning,” the psychologists note.
This suggests that peers influence our energy consumption. However, because community norms were not measured directly, the authors say the results should be interpreted with caution.
The findings are based on self-reporting, which does not guarantee that participants will be honest about their thermostat settings as adults or children.
In addition, the thermostat setting may not match the actual temperature in the house. This can be difficult to regulate, especially in older, less well-insulated houses.
Future research should improve these limitations and delve deeper into the 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 cannot explain “why rational consumers do not necessarily seek to optimize their energy consumption.”
The research was published in PLOS Climate.