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Do you get conservation fatigue when asked to cut energy use? It's a thing.
Some temperatures during the record-setting July 6 heatwave.
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Do you get conservation fatigue when asked to cut energy use? It's a thing.
For the duration of L-A’s big heat wave you’re going to see and hear a lot of calls for energy conservation. But will YOU comply? Or do you fall off the wagon after a few days?
It’s called conservation fatigue.
After about two or three days of oppressive heat, we backslide and turn the AC back up.
Dr. Robert Cialdini is a behavioral scientist at Arizona State University.
His research says that the usual reasons to conserve -- like saving money or saving the earth – those don’t make people change their actions.
What does work is peer information -- knowing what your neighbors are doing to conserve.
This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal.
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