SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Researchers Link Heat, Crime Waves

A review of the 200 years of research on the relationship between high temperatures and aggressive behavior supports what police officials have long suspected: Heat waves and crime waves are related.

Writing in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin, Craig Anderson of the University of Missouri at Columbia reported that hot weather and violent crime are intertwined. Anderson reviewed about 100 studies dating to the late 1700s.

“Each data source had its limitations, but if they all tell the same story, you start to believe the results,” Anderson said. Poring over crime data and field studies, Anderson saw that “hotter years, quarters of years, seasons, months and days all yield relatively more aggressive behaviors such as murders, rapes, assaults, riots and wife beatings, among others.”

“Temperature is specific to aggression,” Anderson said. Now, he said, he and other psychologists want to know why this is true.