This longitudinal study explored the impact of showing householders infrared images (of their homes leaking heat) on energy consumption and attitudes

Auburn, TC

Goodhew, J

Pahl, S

Auburn, Timothy

Plymouth Electronic Archive and Research Library

”That's it we're having more insulation”!  ……………will householders change behaviours and attitudes  after viewing an infrared image of their homes leaking heat? Julie Goodhew Tim Auburn Sabine Pahl, School of Psychology, University of Plymouth. UK INFRARED IMAGE AS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROMPT Employs model : ANTECEDENT  BEHAVIOUR CONSEQUENCE AN ANTECEDENT INTERVENTION         Fig 2:  Heat leaking from door.   Prompt to insulate the door add a  thick curtain?    Specific, tailored and vivid antecedents may be more likely to achieve such behaviour change. Conclusion References: Gardner and Stern, 2002. Abrahamse, 2005. CONTACT DETAILS: Julie Goodhew  at julie.goodhew@plymouth.ac.uk  This longitudinal study explored the impact of showing householders infrared images (of their homes leaking heat) on energy consumption and attitudes. RATIONALE Energy is a scarce commodity and a voluntary reduction in use imay be desirable to meet the challenges of, a changing climate, limited supply of fossil fuels.. Households are major contributors to the demand for energy.         EXAMPLE 1  IMAGE NEWNESS ATTRACTS THE ATTENTION P1: “We’re on fire” P2: “ Wow, that looks dreadful” VIEWER ORIENTATES THE IMAGE TO THEIR HOME  P1:Now that’s….now that’s the side?  I:    Is it the side here. P1:  Ah yes. It’s this window that I am not sure    about……Oh, yes it is, yes it is.  It’s the second front bedroom, there is the arch of the front bedroom, you are looking in fact at that window, that window there.  IMAGE CONTAINS SALIENT INFORMATION                            P1:“You see this is interesting  VIEWER SUPERIMPOSES KNOWLEDGE (household habits, thermal dynamics, folk physics). P1:“……is interesting, I don’t remember where the blinds were in the bedroom.  They were probably drawn, eh here, because you can see here that this is darker and they are the blinds in the bay window. Whereas that side of it, is that because it is illuminated from there or are we actually seeing that the blind was only partially drawn on that side”  VIEWER ACCOUNTS FOR INFORMATION IN IMAGE – REJECT  or ACCEPT?  P1:“…….because we don’t always fully draw them….”.  VIEWER MATCHES INFORMATION TO ‘CORRECT’ KNOWLEDGE, ENERGY SAVING ACTION RETRIEVED/SUGGESTED  P1“On that basis, one of the things that you could do to minimise the heat loss is to have rather heavier curtains.”   P2: “We could put the foil behind the radiators in that bay window”. METHOD Participants: 50 householders from a small UK town. 10 of these took part in semi structured interviews. A FLIR 265HS Infrared Camera with Zoom attachment Householders may change their behaviours and attitudes after being shown an infrared image of their home leaking heat if the image prompts a ‘succesfull’ pathway through all of the stages of analysis. Fig 3 Fig 1: Will seeing heat leaking from under the door prompt  the householder to draughtproof?   DESIGN Condition 1 Condition 2 Control  Intervention at t1, follow up at +6 months and + 1 year •Infrared Image of Home •Carbon Footprint •Annual energy usage •Questionnaire •NEP Scale •Carbon footprint calculation •Annual energy usage •Questionnaire •NEP Scale •Annual energy usage •Questionnaire •NEP Scale Table 1: Showing intervention per condition QUALITATIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Participant exposure to the images led to a suggested energy saving action in some cases.  Semi structured interview data suggested stages of analysis of the images, through which the participant made sense of the data, in an iterative pathway.  The characteristics of a ‘successful’ pathway are illustrated in Example 1 with the arrows indicating the image being viewed at the time.  Interview data where there was no energy saving action generated suggests that participants ‘fall away’ from the pathway at one or more points.  So, the image may not attract attention, may not have saliency for the viewer, the viewer accounts for the heat loss but rejects a possible solution, or applied flawed folk physics. RESULTS Table 1:Quantitative characteristics of sample.      No correlation found between attitude and household energy usage. VARIABLE  Condition 1 n = Condition2  n = Control  n = ENERGY USE IN CARBON (kg) M = 4569 SD = 3214 M = 4912 SD = 3063 M = 5286 SD = 3396 NEP M = 2.15 SD = 0.56 M = 1.92 SD = 0.54 M = 1.78 SD =0.48 Type of Home (Mode) Detached Detached  Detached  Julie Goodhew Tim Auburn Sabine Pahl, School of Psychology,Plymouth University, UK 

That's it we're having more insulation: Will householders change behaviours and attitudes after being shown an infrared image of their homes leaking heat?

That's it we're having more insulation: Will householders change behaviours and attitudes after being shown an infrared image of their homes leaking heat?

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Plymouth Electronic Archive and Research Library