Heat makes us aggressive – these are the reasons

The train stops in Lübeck – and everyone wants to go with their bathing bags in the next crowded RE to drive around 30 degrees Celsius from Hamburg on one of the last late summer days. But a dispute between two women interrupts the anticipation. “Don’t push me,” calls a lady with glasses in the patterned shirt of a young woman with impact trousers and 90s sunglasses, who hurry past.

And before she knows, the young woman gets a resounding baking pipe in the face. The rest of the passengers are steady. A man of DB security looks for the right, and the women separate themselves culpably without further outbursts of violence. And I stay back on the way to the Bay of Lübeck with the question of whether the heat does not only literally get head.

It quickly becomes clear that the phenomenon has a name: “Long-Hot-Summer effect”. It describes the fact that people at high temperatures behave more aggressive and are easier to do. The scientists Paul A. Bell and Robert A. Baron have the phenomenon of heat and aggression in the 1970s. They divided 64 male students into two groups. One group was allowed to criticize the others. She was allowed to punish the other with electric shocks. And: the hotter it was in the experimental room, the more often the students put on their critics of electric shock.

The influence of heat on behavior is wide: temperatures and punishments in professional football (National Football League in the USA) showed: The hotter it was, the more players did violations. The home team in particular tended to act aggressive. The researchers therefore assume that in addition to the heat, the fans present could also play a role. The heat also seems to have an effect on the drivers in road traffic: the green traffic lights have “overlooked” in the research employees. On hot days, the resentment among the waiting drivers was particularly large: it ended in particularly extensive horns. If you didn’t have air conditioning in the car, the most often honked.

In addition to these rather harmless consequences, heat also seems to have more drastic effects: from the United States over a period of 45 years, the result came to the fact that violent attacks increase in warm years and seasons. On the other hand, researchers came to the conclusion that people are less helpful at high temperatures. The US scientist Craig Anderson showed more than 20 years ago that more violent and sexual offenses are committed during heat waves. One from 2021 even showed that on very hot days, violence among prisoners in prisons increases by 18 percent.

However, due to their design, the results of such experiments and studies can only be seen as an indication of a connection. So you cannot prove that the increased aggressiveness is actually due to this in the heat. The researchers cannot rule out that other factors, such as more people who are outdoors or more alcohol consumption, also play a role.

One thing is certain: heat has direct effects on our body. In addition to the obvious fact that the body boosts welding production in heat so that the body temperature does not become too high, the blood vessels also expand. This reduces blood pressure ,. The heart reacts to it by increasing its pumping performance. So heat can act as a stressor.

For Central Europeans: Inside, the well-being temperature is around 22 to 25 degrees Celsius, Professor Hanns-Christian Gunga told him. He built up the Center for Space Medicine and Extreme Environments at the Berlin Charité. Climbing the thermometer to 30 degrees and more, be it for Middle Ieruopeans: too much inside. The hormone vasopressin, which regulates the water balance and is increasingly released from the body at high temperatures, provides a possible explanation for the aggressive behavior in heat. Because: The body tries to store as much fluid as possible and therefore increases the hormone. However, this not only has an impact on the water balance, the hormone also increases our willingness to aggress.

Why the warm weather is so crazy at us could also have a very banal explanation: we react quickly when we feel uncomfortable. . Among other things through: reinforced sweating, poor sleep, fatigue and

He suspects that when the weather is stressful, people tend to misunderstand uniform situations and that there can be more misunderstandings and conflicts.

In addition to aggression, heat can also be more. “During a heat wave, especially among older and weakened people, but also with younger people who have a lack of fitness, there is a significant increase in stress, fears and depression. The view of not being able to escape this heat leads to mental problems that must not be underestimated,” explains Hans-Peter Hutter, environmental doctor from MedUni in. Among other things, this could lead to panic attacks.

From the USA and Mexico there is even the result that the risk of suicide is increased on hot days.