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How Heat Affects our Behavior and Decision-Making

Author headshotLindsey Turk
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Sep 08, 2022

We’ve all experienced those hot summer’s days, when you’re sweating through your clothes and it seems unbearable to move even one more inch than necessary. Those days when everybody seems especially annoying and all you want to do is go home, crank up the AC, and cool down. 

As climate change marches full steam ahead, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense.1 Many experts have sounded the alarm about how a warming planet is likely to affect our physical health, putting vulnerable people at increased risk of heat-related illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and heat stroke. 

But another, often-overlooked consequence of climate change is the effect this extra heat will have on our decision-making processes. If you’ve noticed that you feel more irritable in the warmer months, rest assured that it’s not just you. As it turns out, social scientists have documented this phenomenon, dubbing it the heat hypothesis. The theory posits that hot weather can increase angry, aggressive, and even violent behavior.2,3,4,5

If we’re going to prevent the worst of the climate crisis from hitting us, we need to change our behavior, and fast. But given what we know about climate change and all the human elements that contribute to it, could the hot weather itself be an obstacle to making progress on this front? And what other consequences will a warming planet have on our decision-making?

References

  1. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. (2022, July 27). Heat Waves and Climate Change. Retrieved September 8, 2022, from https://www.c2es.org/content/heat-waves-and-climate-change/
  2. Allen, J. J., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2018, February). The General Aggression Model. Current Opinion in Psychology, 19, 75–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.034 
  3. Anderson, C. A. (1989, July). Temperature and aggression: ubiquitous effects of heat on occurrence of human violence. Psychological Bulletin, 106(1), 74–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.106.1.74 
  4. Anderson, C. A., & Anderson, D. C. (1984, January). Ambient temperature and violent crime: tests of the linear and curvilinear hypotheses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(1), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.46.1.91 
  5. Krenzer, W. L. D., & Splan, E. D. (2018, January). Evaluating the heat-aggression hypothesis: The role of temporal and social factors in predicting baseball related aggression. Aggress Behav, 44(1), 83–88. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21726
  6. Ceccato, V. (2005, September). Homicide in São Paulo, Brazil: Assessing spatial-temporal and weather variations. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3), 307–321. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494405000393?via%3Dihub
  7. Breetzke, G. D. (2011, February 10). Seasonal Assault and Neighborhood Deprivation in South Africa: Some Preliminary Findings.  Environment and Behavior, 44(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916510397758
  8. Miles-Novelo, A., & Anderson, C. A. (2019, January). Climate Change and Psychology: Effects of Rapid Global Warming on Violence and Aggression. Current Climate Change Reports, 5, 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-019-00121-2
  9. Plante, C., Allen, J. A., & Anderson, C. A. (2017, April). Likely Effects of Rapid Climate Change on Violence andConflict. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.344
  10. Mullins, J. T., & White, C. (2019, December). Temperature and mental health: Evidence from the spectrum of mental health outcomes. Journal of Health Economics, 68, 102240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.102240
  11. Burnett, D. (2018, February 14). Cruel Summer: how hot weather makes people angrier. The Guardian. Retrieved September 8, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/jul/03/summer-hot-weather-anger-psychology
  12. Liu, J., Varghese, B. M., Hansen, A., Xiang, J., Zhang, Y., Dear, K., Gourley, M., Driscoll, T., Morgan, G., Capon, A., & Bi, P. (2021, August). Is there an association between hot weather and poor mental health outcomes? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Environment International, 153, 106533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106533
  13. Lerner, J. S., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2006). Portrait of the angry decision maker: how appraisal tendencies shape anger’s influence on cognition. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19(2), 115–137. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.515
  14. Meissner, P., Poensgen, C., & Wulf, T. (2021, August). How hot cognition can lead us astray: The effect of anger on strategic decision making. European Management Journal, 39(4), 434–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2020.09.010
  15. Bodenhausen, G. V., Sheppard, L. A., & Kramer, G. P. (1994, January). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420240104
  16. Lerner, J. S., Goldberg, J. H., & Tetlock, P. E. (1998, June). Sober Second Thought: The Effects of Accountability, Anger, and Authoritarianism on Attributions of Responsibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(6), 563–574. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167298246001
  17. Small, D. A., & Lerner, J. S. (2008, April). Emotional Policy: Personal Sadness and Anger Shape Judgments about a Welfare Case. Political Psychology, 29(2), 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2008.00621.x
  18. Tiedens, L. Z. (2001). The Effect of Anger on the Hostile Inferences of Aggressive and Nonaggressive People: Specific Emotions, Cognitive Processing, and Chronic Accessibility. Motivation and Emotion, 25(3), 233–251. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1012224507488
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  20. Litvak, P. M., Lerner, J. S., Tiedens, L. Z., & Shonk, K. (2009, December 21). Fuel in the Fire: How Anger Impacts Judgment and Decision-Making. International Handbook of Anger, 287–310. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89676-2_17
  21. Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, Anger, and Risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 146–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.146
  22. Underwood, E. A. M. (2021, June 23). How to Prevent Air Conditioners from Heating the Planet. Scientific American. Retrieved September 8, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-prevent-air-conditioners-from-heating-the-planet/
  23. Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., & Capstick, S. (2021, December). Behaviour change to address climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 76–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.04.002
  24. Communications and Marketing. (2022, July 20). 8 ways to manage your anger when the temperature rises. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved September 8, 2022, from https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2018/07/20/8-ways-to-manage-your-anger-when-the-temperature-rises/

About the Author

Lindsey Turk's portrait

Lindsey Turk

Lindsey Turk is a Summer Content Associate at The Decision Lab. She holds a Master of Professional Studies in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Boston University. Over the last few years, she’s gained experience in customer service, consulting, research, and communications in various industries. Before The Decision Lab, Lindsey served as a consultant to the US Department of State, working with its international HIV initiative, PEPFAR. Through Cornell, she also worked with a health food company in Kenya to improve access to clean foods and cites this opportunity as what cemented her interest in using behavioral science for good.

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