The extreme heat and violence study is interesting because there seems to be two different behaviour effects in the psychology journals, heat increases leading to aggression and warmth as a prime for altruistic behaviour. The evidence appears to be really mixed, but as temps are irrevocably rising it will be intriguing to see what variables tip in favour of each behaviour 😊
Well the interesting thing here is that different areas of science are measuring different effects. And they employ different types of research so it’s hard to say apples for apples! For example in psychology there are (real life) studies with small sample sizes showing driver irritability increases with temp, and sports playing and aggression increases with temp, then there are Lab (simulated) studies showing people withhold money from researchers in provoking situations when temps are higher, and my personal fave.. sitting on a heated pad can lead to hostility.
Then there are geographical and big population based analyses which are longitudinal, so for example climate change over wide geographic areas and over longer timescales than most psych studies. (This is the same epidemiological approach used by the JAMA psychiatry article you picked up) Here we see temp reportedly having a strong effect on criminal behaviour - although a counter argument is that in warmer months, people are more likely to be outside of their homes, leading to more opportunities for violence or criminal activity. It’s really difficult to isolate variables in population based studies, i.e correlation rather than causation. We know this because population-based studies appear to support temperature-behaviour links to a far greater extent than lab-based studies, so temp increases might be a proxy for another variable.
In the altruistic camp one hypothesis is around priming effects, so holding a warm cup leads to warmer feelings. There have been inconsistent results in trying to replicate these findings, priming in general in fact has lower effects than originally thought because of publication bias in psychology- that is we are more likely to see studies with an effect published than those without an effect.
To answer your question more broadly, one meta analysis found inconclusive evidence for both theories, so I guess we need to keep digging! Long answer I know, but it’s really interesting that there are opposite theories, and even more intriguing that both have their limitations in understanding.
Fascinating! This is based on nothing, but the maybe holding a warm cup provokes altruism because of a gap between the persons temp and the lovely warm cup you are holding? Also, random thought, but another counterpoint is that people in warmer countries aren’t more aggressive or irritable than people in colder climates right?
I’ve linked to an article from ‘warm hands warm heart’ these experiments point to what we call embodied cognition is the idea that our bodies influence the brain as much as the brain sends signals to our bodies. The claim is that when we experience physical warmth we automatically and unconsciously activate concepts associated with interpersonal warmth and are therefore predisposed to act more pro-socially
It’s worth noting that small scale priming experiments have been difficult to reproduce with positive results though and there are mixed results. https://www.science.org/content/article/warm-hands-warm-hearts (a classic priming study that’s cited is by Williams and Bargh from 2008)
In terms of the climate studies, they are measuring differences in temp rises rather than the diff between hotter and colder countries, that said- there are claims that living closer to the equator = more homicides and this UN paper has been cited by some academics https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf there’s some causal evidence that hotter states in the US have more violence too, but you have to wonder about local policy, political influences as these differences are sometimes acute between states.
A scan of the literature and counter debates shows that political and economic factors are far stronger predictors of violence, conflict, and war.
I think the takeaway for me is if we are seeing a trend of more domestic violence against women related to temp increases what else is going on? The evidence suggests it’s more nuanced than the correlation.
Yes, it will never be only about the heat. If the temp rises and my job in agriculture is in danger because of drought, maybe the economic stress is more of a factor than the heat
The extreme heat and violence study is interesting because there seems to be two different behaviour effects in the psychology journals, heat increases leading to aggression and warmth as a prime for altruistic behaviour. The evidence appears to be really mixed, but as temps are irrevocably rising it will be intriguing to see what variables tip in favour of each behaviour 😊
That’s fascinating. And reassuring! I hope we find out altruism is the real result. Are there a lot of studies that indicate altruism over aggression?
Well the interesting thing here is that different areas of science are measuring different effects. And they employ different types of research so it’s hard to say apples for apples! For example in psychology there are (real life) studies with small sample sizes showing driver irritability increases with temp, and sports playing and aggression increases with temp, then there are Lab (simulated) studies showing people withhold money from researchers in provoking situations when temps are higher, and my personal fave.. sitting on a heated pad can lead to hostility.
Then there are geographical and big population based analyses which are longitudinal, so for example climate change over wide geographic areas and over longer timescales than most psych studies. (This is the same epidemiological approach used by the JAMA psychiatry article you picked up) Here we see temp reportedly having a strong effect on criminal behaviour - although a counter argument is that in warmer months, people are more likely to be outside of their homes, leading to more opportunities for violence or criminal activity. It’s really difficult to isolate variables in population based studies, i.e correlation rather than causation. We know this because population-based studies appear to support temperature-behaviour links to a far greater extent than lab-based studies, so temp increases might be a proxy for another variable.
In the altruistic camp one hypothesis is around priming effects, so holding a warm cup leads to warmer feelings. There have been inconsistent results in trying to replicate these findings, priming in general in fact has lower effects than originally thought because of publication bias in psychology- that is we are more likely to see studies with an effect published than those without an effect.
To answer your question more broadly, one meta analysis found inconclusive evidence for both theories, so I guess we need to keep digging! Long answer I know, but it’s really interesting that there are opposite theories, and even more intriguing that both have their limitations in understanding.
Fascinating! This is based on nothing, but the maybe holding a warm cup provokes altruism because of a gap between the persons temp and the lovely warm cup you are holding? Also, random thought, but another counterpoint is that people in warmer countries aren’t more aggressive or irritable than people in colder climates right?
P.s I really enjoy your round up posts 😊 this weeks was real food for thought!
Thank you so much. That’s wonderful to hear !
I’ve linked to an article from ‘warm hands warm heart’ these experiments point to what we call embodied cognition is the idea that our bodies influence the brain as much as the brain sends signals to our bodies. The claim is that when we experience physical warmth we automatically and unconsciously activate concepts associated with interpersonal warmth and are therefore predisposed to act more pro-socially
It’s worth noting that small scale priming experiments have been difficult to reproduce with positive results though and there are mixed results. https://www.science.org/content/article/warm-hands-warm-hearts (a classic priming study that’s cited is by Williams and Bargh from 2008)
In terms of the climate studies, they are measuring differences in temp rises rather than the diff between hotter and colder countries, that said- there are claims that living closer to the equator = more homicides and this UN paper has been cited by some academics https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf there’s some causal evidence that hotter states in the US have more violence too, but you have to wonder about local policy, political influences as these differences are sometimes acute between states.
A scan of the literature and counter debates shows that political and economic factors are far stronger predictors of violence, conflict, and war.
I think the takeaway for me is if we are seeing a trend of more domestic violence against women related to temp increases what else is going on? The evidence suggests it’s more nuanced than the correlation.
Yes, it will never be only about the heat. If the temp rises and my job in agriculture is in danger because of drought, maybe the economic stress is more of a factor than the heat
I guess also, experiments, polling, etc, Will never fully reflect reality!