IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i17p9960-d629614.html

Cognitive Biases in Building Energy Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Maic Rakitta

    (Laboratory for Building Energy Materials and Components, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 129, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland)

  • Jannis Wernery

    (Laboratory for Building Energy Materials and Components, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 129, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland)

Abstract

Research on sustainability in the building sector currently focuses mainly on technical solutions while little attention is given to how behaviour influences the uptake of these solutions. Bounded rationality may have a significant impact on the effective implementation of more sustainable technologies that are already available. However, empirical evidence on the effects of bounded rationality in the building sector, such as cognitive biases, is still lacking. Here, we present an empirical investigation of four cognitive biases in the building environment, namely the framing, anchor, default, and decoy effect. For that, energy-related decisions situations were presented to approximately 270 participants in an online survey. Our results show that awareness of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings can be raised through framing that the willingness to pay more for an energy-efficient home can be increased by presenting it as default, and that the choices can be shifted towards more energy-efficient appliances by using a decoy. The hypothesis that anchoring increases the willingness to pay more for the installation of a solar system could not be supported. These findings decrease the lack of empirical data on cognitive biases in the context of buildings and further indicate the potential of choice architecture in the building environment. The influence of cognitive biases in energy-related decisions should be used to increase the adaptation of sustainable technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Maic Rakitta & Jannis Wernery, 2021. "Cognitive Biases in Building Energy Decisions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-21, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:17:p:9960-:d:629614
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9960/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9960/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leidy Klotz & Elke Weber & Eric Johnson & Tripp Shealy & Morela Hernandez & Bethany Gordon, 2018. "Beyond rationality in engineering design for sustainability," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(5), pages 225-233, May.
    2. repec:aen:journl:ej41-6-daminato is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Felix Ebeling & Sebastian Lotz, 2015. "Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(9), pages 868-871, September.
    4. Delgado, Laura & Shealy, Tripp, 2018. "Opportunities for greater energy efficiency in government facilities by aligning decision structures with advances in behavioral science," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3952-3961.
    5. Jae-Do Song & Young-Hwan Ahn, 2019. "Cognitive Bias in Emissions Trading," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1325-1348, December.
    7. Huber, Joel & Payne, John W & Puto, Christopher, 1982. "Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(1), pages 90-98, June.
    8. Jachimowicz, Jon M. & Duncan, Shannon & Weber, Elke U. & Johnson, Eric J., 2019. "When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 159-186, November.
    9. Schubert, Christian, 2017. "Green nudges: Do they work? Are they ethical?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 329-342.
    10. Palan, Stefan & Schitter, Christian, 2018. "Prolific.ac—A subject pool for online experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 22-27.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hala Sanboskani & Mounir El Asmar & Elie Azar, 2022. "Green Building Contractors 2025: Analyzing and Forecasting Green Building Contractors’ Market Trends in the US," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Szara, Katarzyna, 2024. "Behavioral Aspects of Investments in Renewable Energy Sources on the Example of Podkarpackie Province," Economic and Regional Studies (Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne), John Paul II University of Applied Sciences in Biala Podlaska, vol. 17(01), January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meier, Johanna & Andor, Mark A. & Doebbe, Friederike C. & Haddaway, Neal R. & Reisch, Lucia A., 2022. "Review: Do green defaults reduce meat consumption?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    2. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Georg D. Granic, 2023. "Does choice change preferences? An incentivized test of the mere choice effect," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(3), pages 499-521, July.
    3. L. Mundaca & H. Moncreiff, 2021. "New Perspectives on Green Energy Defaults," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 357-383, September.
    4. Cauwelier, Kathleen & Buldeo Rai, Heleen & Mommens, Koen, 2025. "Thinking fast, slow delivery: nudging sustainable choices among Gen Z consumers," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Danuta Miłaszewicz, 2022. "Survey Results on Using Nudges for Choice of Green-Energy Supplier," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Gosnell, Greer K., 2018. "Communicating Resourcefully: A Natural Field Experiment on Environmental Framing and Cognitive Dissonance in Going Paperless," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 128-144.
    7. Dykstra, Holly & Fernández Guerrico, Sofía, 2026. "Offsetting the Earnings Disincentive in Public Housing: Evidence from a Behaviorally Informed Field Intervention," IZA Discussion Papers 18483, IZA Network @ LISER.
    8. Stephan Hankammer & Robin Kleer & Frank T. Piller, 2021. "Sustainability nudges in the context of customer co-design for consumer electronics," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(6), pages 897-933, August.
    9. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    10. Ghesla, Claus & Grieder, Manuel & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Nudging the poor and the rich – A field study on the distributional effects of green electricity defaults," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    11. Diana Chvirova & Robert Keller & Lotta Stöbe & Linda Wolf, 2026. "Beyond choice architecture: toward understanding the role of the decoy effect in sustainable tourism recommender systems," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 1-26, June.
    12. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    13. repec:osf:socarx:e9nyu_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Changkuk Im, 2023. "Accurate Quality Elicitation in a Multi-Attribute Choice Setting," Papers 2309.00114, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    15. Watson, Nicole Elizabeth & Huebner, Gesche & Fell, Michael James & Shipworth, David, 2020. "Two energy suppliers are better than one: survey experiments on consumer engagement with local energy in GB," SocArXiv e9nyu, Center for Open Science.
    16. Nana Adrian, 2019. "Price Discrimination and Salient Thinking," Diskussionsschriften dp1906, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    17. Congiu, Luca & Botta, Enrico & Zoli, Mariangela, 2025. "Biases and nudges in the circular economy: A review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    18. Simonson, Itamar & Sela, Aner, 2009. "On the Heritability of Choice, Judgment, and "Irrationality": Genetic Effects on Prudence and Constructive Predispositions," Research Papers 2029, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    19. Rita Abdel-Sater & Coralie Chevallier, 2025. "Can green nudges increase inequalities?," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 24(2), pages 827-844, December.
    20. Essl, Andrea & Suter, Manuel & von Bieberstein, Frauke, 2023. "The effect of future-time referencing on pro-environmental behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    21. Kaiser, Micha & Bernauer, Manuela & Sunstein, Cass R. & Reisch, Lucia A., 2020. "The power of green defaults: the impact of regional variation of opt-out tariffs on green energy demand in Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:17:p:9960-:d:629614. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.