The part I found especially poignant was the house-dwellers who incorrectly tried to correct their spouses, e.g. "no it actually wastes energy to turn down the heat at night".
I wonder how much of that is motivated by people who see their spouse's complaints of being too cold at night as whining or frivolous, but will cooperate if there is a "technical" justification.
Here's an interesting but very old paper - two theories of Heat Control.
It discusses mental models of home heating systems (thermostats) non-experts use.
These models tend to be extremely wrong from theoretical perspective, but surprisingly useful in practice.
The findings are applicable to a much wider range of subjects than just thermostats, and have certain epistemological significance, especially with regard to compartmentalization.