Introduction: Just calling a food product or an artifact “eco-friendly” is enough to make individuals believe that the products have superior features compared to an objectively identical alternative labeled conventional (e.g., Sörqvist et al. 2013). Research show that occupants are more comfortable in “green” buildings (Kim, Hwang, Lee & Corser, 2015), if these self-reports are influenced by the “green” label are still unclear. The purpose of this paper was to extend this eco-label effect even further, namely to buildings. Participants in the environmentally framed condition rated the room as more comfortable to the room framed as conventional. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Theoretical background: Research in environmental psychology have shown that people assign higher taste-ratings to a food-product that is labeled as eco-friendly compared to a conventional alternative, even though the two products are in fact identical. This preference bias has been shown with various products. For example coffee (Sörqvist et al. 2013), bananas (Sörqvist et al. 2015), wine (Wiedmann, 2014), and lamps (Sörqvist, Haga, Holmgren & Hansla, 2015). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there exist a preference bias for “green” compared to conventional buildings

Method: Thirty five university students participated in the study (16 women), with a mean age of 28.06 years (SD = 10.22), ranging from 18 years to 62 years.

The study took place in two rooms, the participants were told that one room was run by an environmentally certified system, whereas the other room was run by a conventional system.

They were then asked to assign comfort ratings to both rooms.

A within design will be used with informational framing as the independent variable. The dependent variable was general comfort.

Results: The participants perceived the "green" room (M = 6.11, SD = 2.06) as more comfortable than the "conventional" room (M = 5.40, SD = 1.63), even though the two rooms were identical, t(34) = 2.03, p = .050.

Conclusion: Future studies investigating psychological benefits of “green” buildings should control for this preference bias, for example by not letting the participants know if the building is “green” or conventional. Also investigate potential methods regarding how to maximize this effect.