Temperature and aggression

A nationwide time-series analysis for short-term effects of ambient temperature on violent crime in South Korea

Psychological theories on heat-aggression relationship have existed for decades and recent models suggest climate change will increase violence through varying pathways. Although observational studies have examined the impact of temperature on violent crime, the evidence for associations is primarily limited to coarse temporal resolution of weather and crime (e.g., yearly/monthly) and results from a few Western communities, warranting studies based on higher temporal resolution data of modern systemic crime statistics for various regions. This observational study examined short-term temperature impacts on violent crime using national crime data for the warm months (Jun.-Sep.) across South Korea (2016-2020). Distributed lag non-linear models assessed relative risks (RRs) of daily violent crime counts at the 70th, 90th, and 99th summer temperature percentiles compared to the reference temperature (10th percentile), with adjustments for long-term trends, seasonality, weather, and air pollution. Results indicate potentially non-linear relationships between daily summer temperature (lag0-lag10) and violent crime counts. Violent crimes consistently increased from the lowest temperature and showed the highest risk at the 70th temperature (~ 28.0 °C). The RR at the 70th and 90th percentiles of daily mean temperature (lag0-lag10), compared to the reference, was 1.11 (95% CI 1.09, 1.15) and 1.04 (95% CI 1.01, 1.07), indicating significant associations. Stratified analysis showed significant increases in assault and domestic violence for increases in temperature. The lagged effects, the influences of heat on subsequent crime incidence, did not persist 21 days after the exposure, possibly due to the displacement phenomenon. We found curvilinear exposure-response relationships, which provide empirical evidence to support the psychological theories for heat and violence. Lower public safety through increased violent crime may be an additional public health harm of climate change.

The effects of cool roofs on health, environmental, and economic outcomes in rural Africa: study protocol for a community-based cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

High ambient air temperatures in Africa pose significant health and behavioral challenges in populations with limited access to cooling adaptations. The built environment can exacerbate heat exposure, making passive home cooling adaptations a potential method for protecting occupants against indoor heat exposure.

METHODS

We are conducting a 2-year community-based stratified cluster randomized controlled trial (cRCT) implementing sunlight-reflecting roof coatings, known as "cool roofs," as a climate change adaptation intervention for passive indoor home cooling. Our primary research objective is to investigate the effects of cool roofs on health, indoor climate, economic, and behavioral outcomes in rural Burkina Faso. This cRCT is nested in the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), a population-based dynamic cohort study of all people living in a geographically contiguous area covering 59 villages, 14305 households and 28610 individuals. We recruited 1200 participants, one woman and one man, each in 600 households in 25 villages in the Nouna HDSS. We stratified our sample by (i) village and (ii) two prevalent roof types in this area of Burkina Faso: mud brick and tin. We randomized the same number of people (12) and homes (6) in each stratum 1:1 to receiving vs. not receiving the cool roof. We are collecting outcome data on one primary endpoint - heart rate, (a measure of heat stress) and 22 secondary outcomes encompassing indoor climate parameters, blood pressure, body temperature, heat-related outcomes, blood glucose, sleep, cognition, mental health, health facility utilization, economic and productivity outcomes, mosquito count, life satisfaction, gender-based violence, and food consumption. We followed all participants for 2 years, conducting monthly home visits to collect objective and subjective outcomes. Approximately 12% of participants (n = 152) used smartwatches to continuously measure endpoints including heart rate, sleep and activity.

DISCUSSION

Our study demonstrates the potential of large-scale cRCTs to evaluate novel climate change adaptation interventions and provide evidence supporting investments in heat resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. By conducting this research, we will contribute to better policies and interventions to help climate-vulnerable populations ward off the detrimental effects of extreme indoor heat on health.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS) DRKS00023207. Registered on April 19, 2021.

Climate attribution of interpersonal violence: International evidence

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening interpersonal violence, yet global evidence for related impacts and potential transmission mechanisms remains limited. We examine whether and how climate change, particularly climate extremes, affects interpersonal violence. Using the panel data of 140 countries and regions from 2000 to 2019, we find that hot and wet extremes precipitated increase in homicide rates globally. Economic level, inequality, and resources scarcity were important intermediaries through which climate extremes affected homicide, while the direct effects still dominated the total effects. We then reveal the heterogeneous effects of climate extremes, further suggesting that poor countries and regions with relatively small contributions to climate change were particularly sensitive to climate extremes. These findings elucidate a strong climate-violence link, helping explain implications of facilitating violence prevention and mitigating climate change.

Ambient temperature and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Increasing evidence indicates that ambient outdoor temperature could affect mental health, which is especially concerning in the context of climate change. We aimed to comprehensively analyse the current evidence regarding the associations between ambient temperature and mental health outcomes.

METHODS

We did a systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence regarding associations between ambient outdoor temperature and changes in mental health outcomes. We searched WebOfScience, Embase, PsychINFO, and PubMed for articles published from database origin up to April 7, 2022. Eligible articles were epidemiological, observational studies in humans of all ages, which evaluated real-world responses to ambient outdoor temperature, and had mental health as a documented outcome; studies of manipulated or controlled temperature or those with only physical health outcomes were excluded. All eligible studies were synthesised qualitatively. If three or more studies reported the same or equivalent effect statistics and if they had equivalent exposure, outcome, and metrics, the studies were pooled in a random-effects meta-analysis. The risk of bias for individual studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The quality of evidence across studies was assessed using the Office of Health Assessment and Translation (OHAT) approach.

FINDINGS

114 studies were included in the systematic review, of which 19 were suitable for meta-analysis. Three meta-analyses were conducted for suicide outcomes: a 1°C increase in mean monthly temperature was associated with an increase in incidence of 1·5% (95% CI 0·8-2·2, p<0·001; n=1 563 109, seven effects pooled from three studies); a 1°C increase in mean daily temperature was associated with an increase in incidence of 1·7% (0·3-3·0, p=0·014; n=113 523, five effects pooled from five studies); and a 1°C increase in mean monthly temperature was associated with a risk ratio of 1·01 (95% CI 1·00-1·01, p<0·001; n=111 794, six effects pooled from three studies). Three meta-analyses were conducted for hospital attendance or admission for mental illness: heatwaves versus non-heatwave periods were associated with an increase in incidence of 9·7% (95% CI 7·6-11·9, p<0·001; n=362 086, three studies); the risk ratio at the 99th percentile of daily mean temperature compared with the 50th percentile was 1·02 (95% CI 1·01-1·03, p=0·006; n=532 296, three studies); and no significant association was found between a 10°C increase in daily mean temperature and hospital attendance. In a qualitative narrative synthesis, we found that ambient outdoor temperature (including absolute temperatures, temperature variability, and heatwaves) was positively associated with attempted and completed suicides (86 studies), hospital attendance or admission for mental illness (43 studies), and worse outcomes for community mental health and wellbeing (19 studies), but much of the evidence was of low certainty with high heterogeneity.

INTERPRETATION

Increased temperature and temperature variability could be associated with increased cases of suicide and suicidal behaviour, hospital attendance or admission for mental illness, and poor community health and wellbeing. Climate change is likely to increase temperature anomalies, variability, and heatwaves as well as average temperatures; as such, health system leaders and policy makers must be adequately prepared and should develop adaptation strategies. More high-quality, standardised research is required to improve our understanding of these effects.

FUNDING

None.

The effects of temperature on prosocial and antisocial behaviour: A review and meta-analysis

Research from the social sciences suggests an association between higher temperatures and increases in antisocial behaviours, including aggressive, violent, or sabotaging behaviours, and represents a heat-facilitates-aggression perspective. More recently, studies have shown that higher temperature experiences may also be linked to increases in prosocial behaviours, such as altruistic, sharing, or cooperative behaviours, representing a warmth-primes-prosociality view. However, across both literatures, there have been inconsistent findings and failures to replicate key theoretical predictions, leaving the status of temperature-behaviour links unclear. Here we review the literature and conduct meta-analyses of available empirical studies that have either prosocial (e.g., monetary reward, gift giving, helping behaviour) or antisocial (self-rewarding, retaliation, sabotaging behaviour) behavioural outcome variables, with temperature as an independent variable. In an omnibus multivariate analysis (total N = 4577) with 80 effect sizes, we found that there was no reliable effect of temperature on the behavioural outcome measured. Further, we find little support for either the warmth-primes-prosociality view or the heat-facilitates-aggression view. There were no reliable effects if we consider separately the type of behavioural outcome (prosocial or antisocial), different types of temperature experience (haptic or ambient), or potential interactions with the experimental social context (positive, neutral, or negative). We discuss how these findings affect the status of existing theoretical perspectives and provide specific suggestions advancing research in this area.

South Africa's male homicide epidemic hiding in plain sight: exploring sex differences and patterns in homicide risk in a retrospective descriptive study of postmortem investigations

Background

South Africa has homicide rates six times the global average, predominantly among men, but little is known about male victims. As part of the country's first ever study of male homicide we compared 2017 male and female victim profiles for selected covariates, against global averages and previous estimates for 2009.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective descriptive study of routine data collected through postmortem investigations, calculating age-standardised mortality rates for manner of death by age, sex and province and male-to-female incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals. We then used generalised linear models and linear regression models to assess the association between sex and victim characteristics including age and mechanism of injury (guns, stabs and blunt force) within and between years.

Findings

87% of 19,477 homicides in 2017 were males, equating to seven male deaths for every female, with sharp force and firearm discharge the most common external causes. Rates were higher among males than females at all ages, and up to eight times higher among males aged 15-44 years. Provincial rates varied overall and by sex, with the highest comparative risk for men vs. women in the Western Cape Province (11.4 males for every 1 female). Male homicides peaked during December and were highest on weekends, underscoring the prominent role of alcohol as a risk factor. Significantly more males tested positive for alcohol than females.

Interpretation

The massive, disproportionate and enduring homicide risk borne by adult South African men highlights the negligible prevention response. Only through challenging the normative perception of male invulnerability can we begin to address the enormous burden of violence impacting men. There is an urgent need to address the insidious effect of such societal norms alongside implementing structural interventions to overcome the root causes of poverty and inequality and better control alcohol and firearms.

Funding

South African Medical Research Council and Ford Foundation.

High ambient temperatures are associated with urban crime risk in Chicago

Urban crime (UC) seriously affects the security and stability of the communities and society. However, the effects of external temperatures on the risk of UC are still confusing. We quantitatively estimated the effects of high and low temperatures on UC in Chicago. After controlling for the confounding factors, we found that high temperature has a positive promoting effect on UC, for non-domestic crime, the effect occurs at lag day 0 with a maximum risk of 1.40 (95%CI, 1.34-1.46) compared to a risk of 1 at temperature of -12.3 °C, and decreased as the lag day increased. The effect of low temperature is not significant for UC. Heat waves above the 99th percentile with a duration of 4.5-5.5 days exert a significant positive impact on non-domestic crime of UC. Our findings confirm the adverse promotion effect of high temperature on UC risk, and effective individual behavior guidance and administrative intervention are of great significance for reducing the risk of UC under specific high temperature environment.

Analysis of Daily Ambient Temperature and Firearm Violence in 100 US Cities

IMPORTANCE

Firearm violence is a leading public health crisis in the US. Understanding whether and how ambient temperature is associated with firearm violence may identify new avenues for prevention and intervention.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the overall and regional association between hotter temperatures and higher risk of firearm violence in the US.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This cross-sectional study used distributed lag nonlinear models, controlling for seasonality and long-term time trends by city and pooled results overall and by climate region. The most populous cities in the US with the highest number of assault-related firearm incidence (ie, shootings) from 2015 to 2020 were analyzed. Data analysis was performed from October 2021 to June 2022.

EXPOSURES

Maximum daily temperature by city.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The primary outcome was the number of assault-related firearm shootings by city.

RESULTS

A total of 116 511 shootings in 100 cities were included in this analysis. The pooled analysis estimated that 6.85% (95% CI, 6.09%-7.46%) of all shootings were attributable to days hotter than city-specific median temperatures. This equates to 7973 total shootings (95% CI, 7092-8688 total shootings) across the 100 cities over the 6-year study period, although the number of total persons injured or killed would be higher. Estimated risk of firearm incidents increased almost monotonically with higher temperatures, with a local peak at the 84th percentile of the temperature range corresponding to a relative risk of 1.17 (95% CI, 1.12-1.21) compared with the median temperature. However, even moderately hot temperatures were associated with higher risk of shootings. Although significant, there was low heterogeneity between cities (I2 = 11.7%; Cochran Q test, P = .02), indicating regional or climate-specific variation in the daily temperature and incident shootings relationship.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

These findings underscore the importance of heat adaptation strategies broadly throughout the year to reduce shootings, rather than focusing on only the hottest days.

A tested method for assessing and predicting weather-crime associations

Few studies have focused on haze as a weather element and its correlation with crime. In this study, we examined haze as a weather variable to investigate its effects on criminal activity. We used both monthly crime data and weather records to build a regression model that contains a sequential statistical approach to reach the correlation coefficients between the variables. Also, we developed a prediction model to predict crime cases considering three weather factors: temperature, humidity, and haze. We applied this model in two different climate provinces in Saudi Arabia, namely, Riyadh and Makkah. Riyadh is a desert area and observes haze approximately 17 days per month on average, while Makkah is a coastal area observing haze an average of 4 days per month. We found a measurable relationship between each of these three variables and criminal activity. We found that a one-degree increase in temperature was associated with an increase in assault of 0.739, when humidity and haze were held constant. For other independent variables measured against the same crime in Riyadh, a one-degree increase in humidity was associated with a 0.164 increase in assault. An increase in the number of times that a haze phenomenon is observed was associated with an increase of 0.359 in assault cases. Haze had the most effect on theft, drug, and assault crimes in Riyadh compared to the other elements. Temperature and humidity have a significant relationship with crime in Makkah, while haze had no significant influence in that region.

Temperature impacts on hate speech online: evidence from 4 billion geolocated tweets from the USA

BACKGROUND

A link between weather and aggression in the offline world has been established across a variety of societal settings. Simultaneously, the rapid digitalisation of nearly every aspect of everyday life has led to a high frequency of interpersonal conflicts online. Hate speech online has become a prevalent problem that has been shown to aggravate mental health conditions, especially among young people and marginalised groups. We examine the effect of temperature on the occurrence of hate speech on the social media platform Twitter and interpret the results in the context of the interlinkage between climate change, human behaviour, and mental health.

METHODS

In this quantitative empirical study, we used a supervised machine learning approach to identify hate speech in a dataset containing around 4 billion geolocated tweets from 773 cities across the USA between May 1, 2014 and May 1, 2020. We statistically evaluated the changes in daily hate tweets against changes in local temperature, isolating the temperature influence from confounding factors using binned panel-regression models.

FINDINGS

The prevalence of hate tweets was lowest at moderate temperatures (12 to 21°C) and marked increases in the number of hate tweets were observed at hotter and colder temperatures, reaching up to 12·5% (95% CI 8·0-16·5) for cold temperature extremes (-6 to -3°C) and up to 22·0% (95% CI 20·5-23·5) for hot temperature extremes (42 to 45°C). Outside of the moderate temperature range, the hate tweets also increased as a proportion of total tweeting activity. The quasi-quadratic shape of the temperature-hate tweet curve was robust across varying climate zones, income quartiles, religious and political beliefs, and both city-level and state-level aggregations. However, temperature ranges with the lowest prevalence of hate tweets were centred around the local temperature mean and the magnitude of the increases in hate tweets for hot and cold temperatures varied across the climate zones.

INTERPRETATION

Our results highlight hate speech online as a potential channel through which temperature alters interpersonal conflict and societal aggression. We provide empirical evidence that hot and cold temperatures can aggravate aggressive tendencies online. The prevalence of the results across climatic and socioeconomic subgroups points to limitations in the ability of humans to adapt to temperature extremes.

FUNDING

Volkswagen Foundation.

Anticipated effects of abiotic environmental change on intraspecific social interactions

Social interactions are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom. A variety of ecological and evolutionary processes are dependent on social interactions, such as movement, disease spread, information transmission, and density-dependent reproduction and survival. Social interactions, like any behaviour, are context dependent, varying with environmental conditions. Currently, environments are changing rapidly across multiple dimensions, becoming warmer and more variable, while habitats are increasingly fragmented and contaminated with pollutants. Social interactions are expected to change in response to these stressors and to continue to change into the future. However, a comprehensive understanding of the form and magnitude of the effects of these environmental changes on social interactions is currently lacking. Focusing on four major forms of rapid environmental change currently occurring, we review how these changing environmental gradients are expected to have immediate effects on social interactions such as communication, agonistic behaviours, and group formation, which will thereby induce changes in social organisation including mating systems, dominance hierarchies, and collective behaviour. Our review covers intraspecific variation in social interactions across environments, including studies in both the wild and in laboratory settings, and across a range of taxa. The expected responses of social behaviour to environmental change are diverse, but we identify several general themes. First, very dry, variable, fragmented, or polluted environments are likely to destabilise existing social systems. This occurs as these conditions limit the energy available for complex social interactions and affect dissimilar phenotypes differently. Second, a given environmental change can lead to opposite responses in social behaviour, and the direction of the response often hinges on the natural history of the organism in question. Third, our review highlights the fact that changes in environmental factors are not occurring in isolation: multiple factors are changing simultaneously, which may have antagonistic or synergistic effects, and more work should be done to understand these combined effects. We close by identifying methodological and analytical techniques that might help to study the response of social interactions to changing environments, highlight consistent patterns among taxa, and predict subsequent evolutionary change. We expect that the changes in social interactions that we document here will have consequences for individuals, groups, and for the ecology and evolution of populations, and therefore warrant a central place in the study of animal populations, particularly in an era of rapid environmental change.

Five Roles for Psychologists in Addressing Climate Change, and How They Are Informed by Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract. This paper discusses five areas where psychologists have roles in helping to address climate change, its effects on the planet and human beings, these five areas are as follows: (1) Changing human behaviors that are causing climate change. (2) Increasing human connection with nature in positive ways to heal both the planet and human beings. (3) Advising and assisting on leadership for good governance to protect the planet. (4) Providing support and psychological interventions for those affected by climate change. (5) Preparing for bad outcomes and helping adaptation and survival should these occur. This paper considers the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and how responses to it give insights for responses to climate change.

Climate change, environment pollution, COVID-19 pandemic and mental health

Converging data would indicate the existence of possible relationships between climate change, environmental pollution and epidemics/pandemics, such as the current one due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. Each of these phenomena has been supposed to provoke detrimental effects on mental health. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to review the available scientific literature on these variables in order to suggest and comment on their eventual synergistic effects on mental health. The available literature report that climate change, air pollution and COVID-19 pandemic might influence mental health, with disturbances ranging from mild negative emotional responses to full-blown psychiatric conditions, specifically, anxiety and depression, stress/trauma-related disorders, and substance abuse. The most vulnerable groups include elderly, children, women, people with pre-existing health problems especially mental illnesses, subjects taking some types of medication including psychotropic drugs, individuals with low socio-economic status, and immigrants. It is evident that COVID-19 pandemic uncovers all the fragility and weakness of our ecosystem, and inability to protect ourselves from pollutants. Again, it underlines our faults and neglect towards disasters deriving from climate change or pollution, or the consequences of human activities irrespective of natural habitats and constantly increasing the probability of spillover of viruses from animals to humans. In conclusion, the psychological/psychiatric consequences of COVID-19 pandemic, that currently seem unavoidable, represent a sharp cue of our misconception and indifference towards the links between our behaviour and their influence on the "health" of our planet and of ourselves. It is time to move towards a deeper understanding of these relationships, not only for our survival, but for the maintenance of that balance among man, animals and environment at the basis of life in earth, otherwise there will be no future.

Turning up the heat: The impact of indoor temperature on selected cognitive processes and the validity of self-report

Indoor climate interventions are often motivated from a worker comfort and productivity perspective. However, the relationship between indoor climate and human performance remains unclear. We assess the effect of indoor climate factors on human performance, focusing on the impact of indoor temperature on decision processes. Specifically, we expect heat to negatively influence higher cognitive rational processes, forcing people to rely more on intuitive shortcuts. In a laboratory setting, participants (N=257) were exposed to a controlled physical environment with either a hot temperature (28° C) or a neutral temperature (22° C) over a two-hour period, in which a battery of validated tests were conducted. We find that heat exposure did not lead to a difference in decision quality. We did find evidence for a strong gender difference in self-report, such that only men expect that high temperature leads to a significant decline in performance, which does in fact not materialize. These results cast doubt on the validity of self-report as a proxy for performance under different indoor climate conditions.

Climate change-induced human conflicts and economic costs in Pakistani Punjab

Understanding causes of interpersonal conflicts, related costs, and the effects on investment in agriculture are important concerns of social sciences. The present study was designed to explore these aspects in relation to climate change, since rising temperature and precipitation are considered crucial causal factors in fueling interpersonal conflicts. The study used cross-sectional data collected from rural farm households from a large district of Pakistani Punjab. Cost of conflicts was estimated using standard economic methods whereas factors affecting interpersonal conflicts were estimated through employing logit model. The study found that interpersonal conflicts cost US$135 per month for following the proceedings of the conflicts filed in the court. Households involved in conflicts spent significantly very few resources in purchasing farm inputs which in turn declined productivity of maize (28%) and sugarcane (19%). Warm temperature, precipitation, and windstorm were perceived by households as causal factors for interpersonal conflicts. Socioeconomic characteristics namely, farm size, livestock, family size, and high monthly income of household, were significantly associated with interpersonal conflicts. The study concludes important policy implications.

The association between weather and the number of daily shootings in Chicago (2012-2016)

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have linked weather to crime and aggression but have not considered the causal structure of the variables included in the model(s).

METHODS

This cross-sectional study used data from 2012 to 2016 to measure the association between weather and the number of shootings in Chicago. The number of shootings per day was obtained via the Chicago Tribune (2012-2016). Daily high temperature, humidity, wind speed, difference in temperature from historical average, precipitation type and amount, were extracted via The Weather Underground. Weekend, holidays, and other non-school days were also included as possible effect measure modifiers. Causally-adjusted negative binomial regressions were used to evaluate the associations between the exposures of interest and daily number of shootings.

RESULTS

A 10-degree (°C) higher temperature was significantly associated with 34% more shootings on weekdays, and 42% more shootings on weekends or holidays. A 10-degree higher temperature than average was also associated with 33.8% higher rate of shootings.

CONCLUSION

In recent years, shootings in Chicago were more likely to happen on warm days and especially during the weekend or holidays. This finding is in-line with studies that have linked crime to higher temperature and also suggests that shootings may be related to when individuals are outside and more likely to encounter violence. Interventions that keep people inside, such as air-conditioning and summer programs for students, might be effective in reducing the number of shootings in Chicago. We believe using a causal structure is useful for understanding the link between weather and shootings.

Combating Climate Change-induced Heat Stress: Assessing Cool Roofs and Its Impact on the Indoor Ambient Temperature of the Households in the Urban Slums of Ahmedabad

Background

The rising global temperature and frequent heatwaves are the adverse effects of climate change. The causalities and ill impacts of the heat stress were higher among the slum dwellers because of the vulnerable household structures, which were made by heat-trapping materials like tin sheets, cement sheet (asbestos), plastic, and tarpaulin. The houses are not only dwellings but also a source of livelihood for many slum dwellers as they are involved in home-based work. The increase in the temperature of more than 40°C severely affects health and increases energy expenditures.

Objective

The present study conducted to identify the efficient cool roof technologies that reduce indoor temperature of the households and improve the heat resilience of dwellings located in the urban slums of Ahmedabad.

Methodology

The performances of cool roof interventions were compared with the nonintervention - roof types, namely, tin, asbestos/cement sheet, and concrete. Relative humidity/temperature data loggers (Lascar EL-USB-2-LCD, Sweden) were used to measure the indoor ambient temperature and humidity. The questionnaire-based survey also has been conducted to understand the socioeconomic status and the perceptions related to roofing and health.

Results

The results revealed that selected cool roof technologies including Thermocol insulation, solar reflective white paint on the outer surface of the roof, and Modroof are effectively reducing the indoor temperature as compared to the nonintervention roofing.

Conclusion

Cool roof technologies have a wider scope as number of informal settlements are increasing across the cities in India and other developing countries. The governments may not able to provide proper housing to all these inhabitants due to various reasons including the land tenure of the habitats. Validated cool roof technologies can be promoted as these structures are not requires legal sanctions and easily dismantled and installed in multiple places and safeguards the investment of urban poor.

Trends in Family Violence Are Not Causally Associated with COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders: a Commentary on Piquero et al

COVID-19 has caused a wave of research publications in academic and pre-print outlets which have resulted in several high-profile retractions. While the breadth of emerging research has been instrumental in understanding and curbing the global pandemic in near real-time, unfortunately manuscripts with major methodological challenges have fallen through the cracks. In this perspective, we illustrate this issue in light of a recent manuscript by Piquero et al. (2020). In the study, a statistically significant association between stay-at-home orders and family violence was not detected; however, the authors widely disseminated a "12.5% increase in family violence" offenses to a variety of media outlets. This negligent dissemination of inaccurate research findings has important implications for policy and the virus mitigation efforts, which might urge policymakers to terminate stay-at-home orders in an effort to reduce family violence and other social risk factors. Changes may ultimately result in more COVID-related deaths as stay-at-home orders are prematurely and inappropriately lifted to prevent purported injuries in the home. Therefore, the widespread propagation of these claims in the absence of scientific evidence of an increase has great potential to cause harm.

Temperature and mental health: Evidence from the spectrum of mental health outcomes

This paper characterizes the link between ambient temperatures and a broad set of mental health outcomes. We find that higher temperatures increase emergency department visits for mental illness, suicides, and self-reported days of poor mental health. Specifically, cold temperatures reduce negative mental health outcomes while hot temperatures increase them. Our estimates reveal no evidence of adaptation, instead the temperature relationship is stable across time, baseline climate, air conditioning penetration rates, accessibility of mental health services, and other factors. The character of the results suggests that temperature affects mental health very differently than physical health, and more similarly to other psychological and behavioral outcomes. We provide suggestive evidence for sleep disruption as an active mechanism behind our results and discuss the implications of our findings for the allocation of mental health services and in light of climate change.

The competitive reaction time task: The development and scientific utility of a flexible laboratory aggression paradigm

Laboratory measures play an important role in the study of aggression because they allow researchers to make causal inferences. However, these measures have also been criticized. In particular, the competitive reaction time task (CRTT) has been criticized for allowing aggression to be operationalized in multiple ways, leaving it susceptible to "p-hacking." This article describes the development of the CRTT and the ways in which its paradigm flexibility and analytic flexibility allows it to test a wide range of hypotheses and research questions. This flexibility gives the CRTT significant scientific utility, but as with any research paradigm, comes with the obligation that it has to be used with integrity. Although safeguards exist and there is little evidence of misuse, study preregistration can increase confidence in CRTT findings. The importance of findings such as those of Hyatt et al. (in press), which provide further evidence for the validity of the CRTT, are also noted.

Hot and bothered? Associations between temperature and crime in Australia

Temperature and crime is one of the most extreme relationships between the atmospheric environment and human behaviour, yet our knowledge about it is primarily based on Northern Hemisphere research. This study used both temporal and spatial models to investigate the relationship between temperature and crime in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, using an 11-year data set. Results suggested that assault and theft counts were significantly higher in summer than winter (17.8 and 3.7%, respectively), while fraud counts were not significantly different. Using linear and quadratic terms for maximum daily temperature, a linear regression model indicated that daily assault counts significantly increased with rising temperature and the rate of increase slowed as temperatures exceeded 30 °C. Theft counts significantly increased with rising temperature then declined as temperatures exceeded 30°C. Again, there was no evidence of a relationship between temperature and frequency of fraud count. Spatial modelling revealed that 96% of local government areas (LGAs) in NSW had a higher summer assault rate than winter. The findings of this study provide an empirical foundation for understanding crime-temperature relationships in Australia.

Ecologizing Social Psychology: The Physical Environment as a Necessary Constituent of Social Processes

Recent trends in social psychology point to increased interest in extending current theories by better incorporating the body (e.g., embodied cognition) and the broader interpersonal context (e.g., situations). However, despite being a critical component in early social theorizing, the physical environment remains in large part underdeveloped in most research programs. In this article, I outline an ecological framework for understanding the person-environment relationship. After introducing this perspective, I describe how this approach helps reveal the critical role played by the physical environment in a variety of social processes, including childhood development, interpersonal relationships, and social identity. Finally, I review a topic in environmental psychology that has received little attention among social psychologists: territories. I provide an ecological perspective on how the design, use, and personalization of this type of environment guide and constrain regulatory processes involving social behavior, identity expression, and emotional experience.

Cold temperatures, stress, and violence

The relation between temperature and violence was found in many studies. However, the results of such studies demonstrated only that uncomfortably hot temperatures increase violence. There seem to be no data on the effect of cold temperatures. We studied the relation between temperature and violence for the Russian Federation because the Russian Federation is a country with huge climatic differences. Two types of the analysis of the data were applied. In Analysis 1 average yearly temperatures were used. For violent crimes a decrease in temperature resulted in the increase of the crimes after taking into account three socioeconomic variables. Analysis 2 was based on monthly data. Violence was high in winter and spring months but low in autumn months. In our opinion, the conventional models that are used to clarify the effect of hot temperatures cannot explain our results. We hypothesize that long periods of cold temperatures can be considered as mild chronic stress. Chronic stress may exert depression and depression is associated with irritability and anger. In some situations these emotions may stimulate violence. An increase in violence associated with city living and economic downturns may partially be a consequence of mild chronic stress.

Heat wave and the risk of intimate partner violence

BACKGROUND

A high number of women report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). It is of utmost importance to identify possible factors that precipitate IPV and incorporate them into police protocols for evaluating IPV risk. Scientific evidence shows that environmental temperature is associated with a risk of violent behavior.

OBJECTIVES

To analyze the effect and impact of heat waves on the risk of IPV.

METHODS

Ecological, longitudinal time series study. The dependent variables are: intimate partner femicides (IPF), reports of IPV and 016 IPV telephone help line calls in the Community of Madrid from 05/01 to 09/30 in the years 2008-2016. The principal independent variable is the daily maximum temperature in Celsius (Tmax) above the heat wave threshold of 34 °C. A binomial negative regression was used for calls and reports and a Poisson regression was used for IPF. The attributable risk among those exposed (AR%) and the number of attributable cases was calculated for each variable.

RESULTS

The risk of IPF increased three days after the heat wave, [RR(IC95%):1.40(1.00-1.97)], police reports of IPV increased one day after [RR (IC95%):1.02(1.00-1.03) and help line calls increased five days after [RR(IC95%):1.01(1.00-1.03)]. The AR% was 28.8% (IC95%: 0.3%-49.2%) for IPF, 1.7% (IC95%:0.3%-3.1%) for police reports and 1.43% (IC95:0.1%;2.8%) for help line calls.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that heat waves are associated with an increase in IPV. The effect of an increase in IPV is delayed in time, with differences according to the violence indicators analyzed.

The Influence of Interannual Climate Variability on Regional Violent Crime Rates in the United States

While the impact of climate on regional geopolitical stability and large-scale conflict has garnered increased visibility in recent years, the effects of climate variability on interpersonal violent crime have received only limited scientific attention. Though earlier studies have established a modest correlation between temperature and violent crime, the underlying seasonality in both variables was often not controlled for and spatial heterogeneity of the statistical relationships has largely been overlooked. Here a method of spatial aggregation is applied to the United States, enabling a systematic investigation into the observed relationships between large-scale climate variability and regionally aggregated crime rates. This novel approach allows for differentiation between the effects of two previously proposed mechanisms linking climate and violent crime, the Routine Activities Theory and Temperature-Aggression Hypothesis. Results indicate large and statistically significant positive correlations between the interannual variability of wintertime air temperature and both violent and property crime rates, with negligible correlations emerging from summertime data. Results strongly support the Routine Activities Theory linking climate and violent crime, with climate variability explaining well over a third of the variance of wintertime violent crime in several broad regions of the United States. Finally, results motivate the development of observationally constrained empirical models and their potential application to seasonal and potentially longer-term forecasts.

Biological Clocks and Rhythms of Anger and Aggression

The body’s internal timekeeping system is an under-recognized but highly influential force in behaviors and emotions including anger and reactive aggression. Predictable cycles or rhythms in behavior are expressed on several different time scales such as circadian (circa diem, or approximately 24-h rhythms) and infradian (exceeding 24 h, such as monthly or seasonal cycles). The circadian timekeeping system underlying rhythmic behaviors in mammals is constituted by a network of clocks distributed throughout the brain and body, the activity of which synchronizes to a central pacemaker, or master clock. Our daily experiences with the external environment including social activity strongly influence the exact timing of this network. In the present review, we examine evidence from a number of species and propose that anger and reactive aggression interact in multiple ways with circadian clocks. Specifically, we argue that: (i) there are predictable rhythms in the expression of aggression and anger; (ii) disruptions of the normal functioning of the circadian system increase the likelihood of aggressive behaviors; and (iii) conversely, chronic expression of anger can disrupt normal rhythmic cycles of physiological activities and create conditions for pathologies such as cardiovascular disease to develop. Taken together, these observations suggest that a comprehensive perspective on anger and reactive aggression must incorporate an understanding of the role of the circadian timing system in these intense affective states.

Russian data refute the CLASH model

We examined the CLASH model using the data on climate and violence from the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation is a huge country with dramatic climatic differences between regions. Our results are absolutely inconsistent with the model. We consider there are a range of climates in which the human organism functions optimally. Deviations from the range cause impulsiveness and aggression.

The Association of Ambient Temperature and Violent Crime

It is controversial if global warming will result into increased crime and conflict rate, and no causal neurobiological mechanisms have been proposed for the putative association between ambient temperature and aggressive behavior. This study shows that during 1996–2013, ambient temperature explained 10% of variance in the violent crime rate in Finland, corresponding to a 1.7% increase/degree centigrade. Ambient temperature also correlated with a one month delay in circannual changes in peripheral serotonin transporter density among both offenders and healthy control subjects, which itself correlated strongly with the monthly violent crime rate. This suggests that rise in temperature modulates serotonergic transmission which may increase impulsivity and general human activity level, resulting into increase in social interaction and risk of violent incidents. Together, these results suggest that the effect of ambient temperature on occurrence of violent crime is partly mediated through the serotonergic system, and that a 2 °C increase in average temperatures would increase violent crime rates by more than 3% in non-tropical and non-subtropical areas, if other contributing factors remained constant.

The effects of environmental resource and security on aggressive behavior

Exposure to different environments has been reported to change aggressive behavior, but previous research did not consider the underlying elements that caused such an effect. Based on previous work on environmental perception, we examined the role of environmental resource and security in altering aggression level. In three experiments, participants were exposed to environments that varied in resource (High vs. Low) and security (High vs. Low) levels, after which aggression was measured. The environments were presented through visual priming (Experiments 1-2) and a first-person gameplay (Experiment 3). We observed a consistent resource-security interaction effect on aggression, operationalized as the level of noise blast (Experiment 1) and number of unpleasant pictures (Experiments 2-3) delivered to strangers by the participants. High resource levels associated with higher aggression in insecure conditions, but lower aggression in secure conditions. The findings suggest that the adaptive value of aggression varies under different environmental constraints. Implications are discussed in terms of the effects of adverse environments on aggression, and the nature's effects on social behavior. Aggr. Behav. 43:304-314, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Correlates and Consequences of Exposure to Video Game Violence: Hostile Personality, Empathy, and Aggressive Behavior

Research has shown that exposure to violent video games causes increases in aggression, but the mechanisms of this effect have remained elusive. Also, potential differences in short-term and long-term exposure are not well understood. An initial correlational study shows that video game violence exposure (VVE) is positively correlated with self-reports of aggressive behavior and that this relation is robust to controlling for multiple aspects of personality. A lab experiment showed that individuals low in VVE behave more aggressively after playing a violent video game than after a nonviolent game but that those high in VVE display relatively high levels of aggression regardless of game content. Mediational analyses show that trait hostility, empathy, and hostile perceptions partially account for the VVE effect on aggression. These findings suggest that repeated exposure to video game violence increases aggressive behavior in part via changes in cognitive and personality factors associated with desensitization.

Heat and Violence

The heat hypothesis states that hot temperatures can increase aggressive motives and behaviors. Although alternative explanations occasionally account for some portion of the observed increases in aggression when temperatures are high, none are sufficient to account for most such heat effects. Hot temperatures increase aggression by directly increasing feelings of hostility and indirectly increasing aggressive thoughts. Results show that global warming trends may well increase violent-crime rates. Better climate controls in many institutional settings (e.g., prisons, schools, the workplace) may reduce aggression-related problems in those settings.

A relationship between temperature and aggression in NFL football penalties

BACKGROUND

Increased ambient temperature has been implicated in increased physical aggression, which has important practical consequences. The present study investigates this established relationship between aggressive behavior and ambient temperature in the highly aggressive context of professional football in the National Football League (NFL).

METHODS

Using a publicly available dataset, authors conducted multiple hierarchical regression analyses on game-level data (2326 games).

RESULTS

The analysis revealed that temperature positively predicted aggressive penalties in football, and that this relationship was significant for teams playing at home but not for visiting teams.

CONCLUSION

These results indicate that even in the aggressive context of football, warmer weather contributes to increased violence. Further, the presence of the heat-aggression relationship for the home team suggests that the characteristics of interacting groups may influence whether heat would have an adverse effect on the outcome of those interactions.

The effects of temperature on political violence: global evidence at the subnational level

A number of studies have demonstrated an empirical relationship between higher ambient temperatures and substate violence, which have been extrapolated to make predictions about the security implications of climate change. This literature rests on the untested assumption that the mechanism behind the temperature-conflict link is that disruption of agricultural production provokes local violence. Using a subnational-level dataset, this paper demonstrates that the relationship: (1) obtains globally, (2) exists at the substate level — provinces that experience positive temperature deviations see increased conflict; and (3) occurs even in regions without significant agricultural production. Diminished local farm output resulting from elevated temperatures is unlikely to account for the entire increase in substate violence. The findings encourage future research to identify additional mechanisms, including the possibility that a substantial portion of the variation is brought about by the well-documented direct effects of temperature on individuals' propensity for violence or through macroeconomic mechanisms such as food price shocks.

Trait aggression in two representative U.S. surveys: Testing the generalizability of college samples

Aggression research often relies upon convenient samples with unknown generalizability to populations of interest, potentially threatening external validity. This article details the measurement properties of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire Short Form (BPAQ-SF) and its subscales in two nationally representative U.S. samples (N = 924) and a concurrent study with U.S. college students (N = 384). The results provide useful benchmarks for generalizing BPAQ-SF results from convenient samples to U.S. adults, including distributions, reliability, and factor structure. The results also confirm basic relationships between trait aggression and key social and demographic variables such as sex, age, and socioeconomic status while establishing convergent validity with violent political attitudes. Results from the national studies closely align with those from the student sample, providing reasonable support for generalizing trait aggression elements to U.S. adults. Aggr. Behav. Aggr. Behav. 42:171-188, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Stab in the Dark?: A Research Note on Temporal Patterns of Street Robbery

OBJECTIVES

Test the influence of darkness in the street robbery crime event alongside temperature.

METHODS

Negative binomial regression models tested darkness and temperature as predictors of street robbery. Units of analysis were four 6-hr time intervals in two U.K. study areas that have different levels of darkness and variations of temperature throughout the year.

RESULTS

Darkness is a key factor related to robbery events in both study areas. Traversing from full daylight to full darkness increased the predicted volume of robbery by a multiple of 2.6 in London and 1.2 in Glasgow. Temperature was significant only in the London study area. Interaction terms did not enhance the predictive power of the models.

CONCLUSION

Darkness is an important driving factor in seasonal variation of street robbery. A further implication of the research is that time of the day patterns are crucial to understanding seasonal trends in crime data.

Socioecological psychology

Socioecological psychology investigates humans' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaption to physical, interpersonal, economic, and political environments. This article summarizes three types of socioecological psychology research: (a) association studies that link an aspect of social ecology (e.g., population density) with psychology (e.g., prosocial behavior), (b) process studies that clarify why there is an association between social ecology and psychology (e.g., residential mobility → anxiety → familiarity seeking), and (c) niche construction studies that illuminate how psychological states give rise to the creation and maintenance of a social ecology (e.g., familiarity seeking → dominance of national chain stores). Socioecological psychology attempts to bring the objectivist perspective to psychological science, investigating how objective social and physical environments, not just perception and construal of the environments, affect one's thinking, feeling, and behaviors, as well as how people's thinking, feeling, and behaviors give rise to social and built environments.

Climate change and levels of violence in socially disadvantaged neighborhood groups

The current study examines the link between climate change and neighborhood levels of violence using 20 years of monthly climatic and crime data from St. Louis, MO, USA. St. Louis census tracts are aggregated in neighborhood groups of similar levels of social disadvantage, after which each group is subjected to time series analysis. Findings suggest that neighborhoods with higher levels of social disadvantage are very likely to experience higher levels of violence as a result of anomalously warm temperatures. The 20 % of most disadvantaged neighborhoods in St. Louis, MO, USA are predicted to experience over half of the climate change-related increase in cases of violence. These results provide further evidence that the health impacts of climate change are proportionally higher among populations that are already at high risk and underscore the need to comprehensively address climate change.

Temper, Temperature, and Temptation

In this study, we analyzed data from 57,293 Major League Baseball games to test whether high temperatures interact with provocation to increase the likelihood that batters will be hit by a pitch. Controlling for a number of other variables, we conducted analyses showing that the probability of a pitcher hitting a batter increases sharply at high temperatures when more of the pitcher’s teammates have been hit by the opposing team earlier in the game. We suggest that high temperatures increase retaliation by increasing hostile attributions when teammates are hit by a pitch and by lowering inhibitions against retaliation.

Partners with bad temper: reject or cure? A study of chronic pain and aggression in horses

Background

Experiencing acute pain can affect the social behaviour of both humans and animals and can increase the risk that they exhibit aggressive or violent behaviour. However, studies have focused mainly on the impact of acute rather than chronic painful experiences. As recent results suggest that chronic pain or chronic discomfort could increase aggressiveness in humans and other mammals, we tested here the hypothesis that, in horses, aggression towards humans (a common source of accidents for professionals) could be linked to regularly reported vertebral problems of riding horses.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Vertebral examination and standardized behavioural tests were made independently on the same horses. Here we showed that most horses severely affected by vertebral problems were prone to react aggressively towards humans (33/43 horses, chi-square test, df = 1, χ² = 12.30, p<0.001), which was not the case for unaffected or slightly affected horses (9/16 horses, chi-square test, df = 1, χ² = 0.25, p>0.05). The more affected they were, the fewer positive reactions they exhibited (rs = −0.31, p = 0.02).

Conclusions/Significance

This is to our knowledge the first experimental evidence of such a link between chronic discomfort/potential pain (inferred from the presence of vertebral problems) and aggression, suggesting that chronic painful experiences may act in ways similar to those of acute experiences. Chronic discomfort or pain may often be overlooked when facing “bad tempered” individuals, whether humans or animals. This experimental study confirms the importance of including chronic discomfort or pain as a major factor in interpersonal relations and models of aggression.

Social Ecology

This article presents a socioecological approach (accounting for physical, societal, and interpersonal environments) to psychological theorizing and research. First, we demonstrate that economic systems, political systems, religious systems, climates, and geography exert a distal yet important influence on human mind and behavior. Second, we summarize the historical precedents of socioecological psychology. There have been several waves of ecological movements with distinct emphases in the history of psychological science, such as K. Lewin’s (1936, 1939) field theory and U. Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological approach to human development. Environmental and community psychologies, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, promoted social activism through basic and applied research on ecological factors and social outcomes. Most recently, the rise of cultural psychology has encouraged psychologists to pay attention to cultural factors in basic psychological processes, but note that less attention has been given to socioecological factors per se. We highlight the benefits of bringing the socioecological perspective back to mainstream psychological theorizing and research.