What Shapes the Temperatures of Living Rooms in Three European Regions?

Abstract

The paper presents results of a study of heating habits (particularly the reported temperature in the living room during the heating season) in three EU regions: Aberdeenshire in Scotland, Brandenburg state in Germany, and South Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Data were collected using a questionnaire study carried out in 2010. There were approximately 500 respondents in each region. Three types of data are analysed: socio-demographics (including gender, age, education, income); housing characteristics (e.g. type, size, insulation, heating system), and attitudes towards energy and environmental issues (perception of climate change and perceived self-efficacy of energy saving). The results show some explanatory power of income, house insulation, age, place of living and self-efficacy on people’s reported living room temperatures. The biggest differences were found, however, between the three regions. Scottish households report the lowest average temperature, Germans higher and Czechs the highest. We also discuss the role of the local climatic conditions and put the results (especially the negligible role of most socio-demographics and housing characteristics) into the framework of theory of social practice and discussions about the limits of traditional sociopsychological ABC models (attitude-behaviour-choice) of pro-environmental behaviours.

Keywords

• energy saving
• environmental behaviour
• heating
• household
• temperature
• social practices