La elección del ritmo: al compás senti-mental

Taking a qualitative approach enabled identification of a range of cues that people potentially use when inferring the effectiveness of common household energy-saving measures. With no previous research into the cues people might use when inferring the effectiveness of energy-saving measures, exploratory methods were the most appropriate approach. The findings of this study provide several poten-tial research questions to be followed up using more in-depth qualitative meth-ods or by quantifying the qualitative findings so far. Studies 4A–4C reported in Chapter 7 attempt to quantify the cues identified in the present study.

Participants gave fewer examples of how they thought about energy in the present study than in Study 1 (see Chapter 3). A larger sample size might have helped to produce a greater range of examples on which to base the analysis. The sample size was limited to ten participants because the energy savings interviews were originally designed to be conducted as part of a single study with the data in Study 1. It became clear when first trying to analyse the data from the energy saving interviews, however, that perceptions of energy savings were quite dif-ferent from perceptions of energy consumption. It is unlikely that more than ten participants would have enabled more detailed analyses of the data; more prob-ing of the responses of the existprob-ing participants might have been more beneficial.

The relatively limited number of examples is probably more related to the com-plexity of the topic of discussion. Participants in the present study seemed less able to explain their thinking and did not give examples of their thinking as freely as in Study 1. This is probably because energy consumption was a simpler con-cept to discuss than energy saving. Throughout the iterative process of analysis of the data, the researcher continuously learnt more about both the requirements

of a rational model of energy savings judgements and how to tease apart partici-pants’ perceptions relative to that. It is only having acquired that understanding through the analysis process that it would now be possible for the researcher to probe participants’ responses in more detail. Further, more focused, interview studies would be useful to explore the details of how people use heuristic cues to make energy savings judgements, though the benefit of doing this would de-pend on the extent to which people can vocalise how they make energy savings judgements. Alternatively, quantitatively exploring the way in which people se-lect and use energy savings cues would provide further understanding of how people make energy savings judgements. This is the approach taken in Studies 4A–4C in Chapter 7.

As noted in Study 1 about participants’ use of cues in energy consumption judgements, it was not clear whether participants were only using the cues that they mentioned and were ignoring all others or whether they were implicitly us-ing additional cues that they did not mention or that they were not even aware of.

This is a limitation of the method used in this study and is relevant to the whole of the analysis. It was also sometimes difficult to know what reason participants were giving for savings. For example, if they gave “switching off lights” as a way to save energy but never explained why or could not explain why when asked, it could not really be assumed that they perceived reducing the amount of light produced or reducing the amount of heat produced by the light bulbs as indica-tors of saving energy; the indicator might be that the measure sounded familiar to them so they assumed that it was effective, or that they had been brought up switching lights off whenever possible and so assumed it was effective. It is also possible that participants’ feelings about how likely they were to implement the measure, how much effort it would take, and how much money it would cost might have influenced their perceptions of its effectiveness. Further, more de-tailed, interviews with a standard set of comparisons of measures would help to tease apart the cues that people use and identify when they use them and who tends to use which cues.

6.5 Conclusion

Householders use a range of cues to infer the effectiveness of common energy-saving measures. Some of the cues are based on perceptions of the energy sumption of the appliance on which the measure is implemented (appliance con-sumption cue), and how the appliance is changed to save energy (e.g. size reduc-tion, age reducreduc-tion, or heat reduction cues). Other cues are based on the measure itself and how the measure is implemented. Householders perceive measures differently based on whether they need to be implemented frequently or infre-quently (measure frequency cue), and also whether they save energy by shorten-ing the amount of time in use (usage reduction cue) or by improvshorten-ing efficiency to save energy whilst continuing to be used (efficiency usage cue). As with percep-tions of energy consumption of appliances, when multiple cues are used to infer the energy savings of a measure, inferences from different cues can conflict and must be resolved before judgements can be made. Energy savings judgements are complex and people do their best to simplify them enough to even attempt to make them.

Chapter 7

Quantifying the Heuristic Energy Savings Cues (Studies 4A–4C)

7.1 Introduction

In the three studies reported in this chapter, participants’ judgements of the rela-tive effecrela-tiveness of energy-saving measures were explored for evidence of par-ticular heuristic cues being used to infer energy savings. It was found, in Study 3 (see Chapter 6), that energy savings judgements are even more complex than energy consumption judgements and that participants tried to simplify the judge-ments in a similar way: using the heuristic process of feature substitution (Kah-neman & Frederick, 2002). Although participants attempted to simplify energy savings and energy consumption judgements in a similar way, they used differ-ent, and more varied, cues in energy savings judgements. Study 3 was novel in energy perceptions research in exploring the heuristic cues that householders might use to infer the relative effectiveness of energy-saving measures—previous similar research in the literature has investigated only the cues that are used in energy consumption judgements. Studies 4A–4C quantified and continued to ex-plore the use of a selection of the energy savings cues that were identified using qualitative methods in Study 3.

The studies in this chapter took a novel approach in heuristic energy percep-tions research by asking participants to make more natural, comparative judge-ments instead of estimating or ranking long lists of items. The paired compar-isons data that were collected were analysed using dual scaling (Nishisato, 2004), a novel method in energy perceptions research. Dual scaling provides a multidi-mensional, non-parametric analysis with a visual summary of the data to explore and interpret (Nishisato, 2007).