Women Are More Productive At Warmer Temps, Men Are Opposite

A new USC study has shed light on the thermostat wars that go on in homes and offices around the country. Women always seem to be cold, and men always seem to be hot leaving neither ideally comfortable in most settings. The study found that women perform better on math and verbal tasks at higher temperatures.

The opposite was true of men; the guys performed better on the same tasks at lower temperatures. However, the study found that the relationship between temperature and men's performance was less pronounced than in women. Study results suggest that gender is an important factor in determining the impact of temperature on comfort, productivity, and cognitive performance.

Study author Tom Chang says that it had been documented that women like warmer indoor temperatures than men but until now the idea had been that the warmer temps were just a personal preference. The study shows that whether people feel comfortable or not is important, but how hard men and women try on math and verbal tasks is affected by temperature.

The study counted 543 participants who participated in a laboratory experiment conducted in Berlin. For each of the sessions, room temperatures were set at increments between 61 degrees Fahrenheit to about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. Each session had participants doing three different tasks with participants monetarily incentivized for performance.

For the math test, the participants had to add up five two-digit numbers without using a calculator. The verbal test had participants build as many German words as possible with a set of ten letters. The last task was a cognitive reflection test with questions framed to the intuitive answer was wrong.

A meaningful relationship between room temperature and how well participants scored on math and verbal tasks were found. The temperature did not affect men or women on the cognitive reflection test. The study suggests setting temperatures at significantly higher levels to increase productivity in mixed gender workplaces.