By Geoff Lowe
Getting hot under the collar
Do our tempers flare when the temperature rises? Here are some reports on the effects of weather on human behaviour.
When the weather turns hot, tempers start to flare, and violent crime rates go up. This is a commonsense view, but one that contradicts several laboratory studies that attempt to explain how temperature affects aggression.
Now, American researchers using data from city streets have come down on the side of common sense.
Laboratory experiments have shown that hotter temperatures do indeed provoke anger and aggression – but only up to a point. At around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, aggression becomes a less important motivator of behaviour than does just getting out of the heat.
But outside the lab, things may happen differently, say the researchers who monitored the number of criminal assaults reported to the Chicago police department daily from June through August. They also noted the average temperatures on those days.
Elsewhere, others were counting the number of aggression-anger’ crimes (rape and murder) and nonaggression-anger’ crimes (robbery and arson) recorded in the Houston Chronicle newspaper and charting the maximum daily temperature.
In both cities the number of aggressive, violent crimes increased as the temperature rose – well past the point at which lab studies predicted that aggressive tendencies would decrease. Nonaggressive crimes did not appear to be related to changes in temperature.
Why this contradiction between street life and the laboratory? The researchers speculate that since high temperatures are more obvious in the lab, people may attribute their aggressive feelings to the heat and then overcompensate by trying to calm down.
This does not prove that more heat causes more violence, the researchers caution. But their results show that temperature does not always affect aggression the way psychologists thought it did.
In Britain, of course, we don’t get too many hot days. However, we do get some very warm spells now and again. During such times, certain changes in behaviour are noticeable. Firstly, more people are out and about: and secondly, there is more beer drinking going on. These could be significant factors. But I haven’t yet been able to find anyone who’s been willing to stay inside and analyze the daily aggressive crime rates.
However, the practical experience of police and ambulance crews frequently confirms that heat plus
drinking (alcohol) equals aggression. Many officers agree that the warmth may be less responsible for trouble than the drinking which the hot days (and nights) have encouraged.
“Heat does encourage people to drink,” said one police inspector. “They set out in good spirits, drink too much and get over-exuberant. Then tempers fray and the police have more work to do.
When I was on the beat I disliked working on a warm night because I knew more people would be staying out drinking, instead of going home.”
Putting it down to the weather
Keep a weather eye open and you’ll find it easier to get on with people, say other psychologists who have been investigating more general effects of weather on human behaviour.
They found that the best time to make up after a quarrel is just after a storm. People tend to be more friendly during this period, when the temperature is starting to normalize. And the ideal time to fill in your income tax form is when it is moderately cold and windy. That sort of weather is fine for brainwork, say the psychologists at Baylor University College, Houston, Texas.
The physical stresses put on the body by heat, cold, wind and rain apparently have a considerable effect on our humour and efficiency. One of the most trying times for human relationships is said to be during the few hours before a storm, when the reduced atmospheric pressure slows circulation of the blood which is carrying oxygen to the brain. This makes people irritable and depressed.
During the lull before a storm, hospitals are often busier than usual. Ill people get worse, unbalanced people are more likely to become violent, and more women nearing childbirth go into labour.
It is the worst time for practical jokes, but the psychologists found that when a storm is over and conditions are cooler, people reach a peak of good humour. That is also an ideal time for salesmen. People are more receptive to sales talk, less critical and more likely to buy things they cannot really afford.
Moderate cold is mentally stimulating. The researchers found that there were nearly 20 per cent more examination passes in April and November than in June and July.
Perhaps the strangest effect that the unpredictable British weather has on people is that the vast majority of our everyday conversations are dominated by references to the weather.
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