It’s a debate in many offices if not most. And it’s been going on for a long time.
The debate over where to set the temperature on the thermostat in the office.Some workers like it cool, some like it warmer.And now a new study is out with evidence of a gender gap when it comes to the air conditioning.
The study says women perform better on cognitive tasks in warmer environments, while men do better when it’s cooler.
The researchers say that with recent buzz about office temperature settings being sexist, they wanted to know if there’s any truth to it.
So they studied more than 500 college students and they found that women performed better on both math and verbal tasks as room temperatures went up, while the opposite was true for men.
Says the lead researcher, When we start at low temperatures, the gender gap is huge in the math task,” she says. “As the temperature increases, women become better and better and better, and at some point there’s no gender gap.”
So maybe this new study is worth testing out for yourself wherever you work. Let us know what you find out and what you do about it.
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