In explanation of the link between heat and aggression, Moghaddam suggests that temperature increases are unlikely to cause increases in aggression, instead it is more likely to be social contact. The statistics gathered from the American homicide statistics support this as it shows there are peaks in homicide rates for late summer and December. The temperatures can change the way in which people interpret ambiguous situations and influence a person towards an aggressive response.
It could be due to the increased frequency of contact between people as more time is spent outside. However, domestic violence also peaks in summer even though families spend more time together in winter. Baron and Bell add that there are more links between aggression and the cold than there are between aggression and heat. Temperature may not increase arousal; instead it is the degree of induced affect. So the dominant response is to minimise the discomfort.
Noise is another environmental effect. Manstead says that noise may affect a person’s ability to deal with frustration especially if they invest effort like speaking louder or straining to hear others.
Glass carried out an experiment where participants had to complete word searches in one of the 5 conditions:
1- loud noise played randomly
2- loud noise played constantly throughout
3- soft noise played randomly
4- soft noise played constantly throughout
5- No noise
The participants’ physiological arousal was measured using a Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which measured arousal and stress. After the task, they had to complete four puzzles, two of which were insoluble. The frustration was measured in terms of the length of time spent on the tasks.
The results were that fewer errors were made on the word search in conditions 2 and 4 than in 1 and 3. This is because noise affected the concentration of the participants when played unpredictably in the random conditions. When the noise was fixed, the noise could be ignored or ‘tuned out’.
In relation to frustration, Donnerstein and Wilson 76 also showed that noise could cause aggression in a study where male participants were instructed to write an essay and was either favoured or criticised by a teacher. They were then allowed to give the teacher electric shocks whilst listening to one second bursts at either 65 decibels or at 95 decibels.
It was found that more and the participants in the 95-decibel conditions administered longer shocks if they were criticised by the teacher. As the effect of a noisy environment should be compared with a quite one, another experiment was set up as before but with three different conditions whilst giving shocks. 1, a quite room. 2, a noisy room and the participants could not control the noise. 3, a noisy room but participants could control it. In this experiment, it was found that those in condition 2 gave the highest level of shocks. Condition 3 did not give as high as it is suspected that control minimised aggression. The problems with this study include the fact that individual differences were not taken in to account of. Every participant is expected to be more aggressive in required situations but they could have had other influences on their behaviour before the experiment started.
Whilst Glass’s and Donnerstein and Wilson’s experiments only provided evidence for the effects of noise in the short term, Evans studied 7-8 year old children and the effects of long-term exposure to uncontrollable noise. These children lived 22 miles from Munich in Germany, which was a rural area, and an airport was to open nearby. Half the children lived under the flight path of the airport and the other half lived in a quite area. The children were tested for blood pressure, stress hormone levels and quality of life 6 months before the airport opening, 6 months after and another 18 months later. It was found that those living under the flight path had increased blood pressure and increase in stress hormones. After 18 months, they had reported a lower quality of life. Those in the quite condition did not change in blood pressure or hormone levels. Based on this study, noise can have effect on the quality of life of the children, not only physically affecting their blood and hormone balance.
In conclusion, research has found a correlation between an increase in temperature and an increase in aggression (Griffitt and Mcfalan). Moghaddam argued however that warmer temperatures mean more social contact, in result; people are more likely to dispute. This does not explain the increase in domestic violence in the summer as more family contact is made in winter. This shows that heat may not have affect on aggression. Baron and Bell also stated that there’s also a greater correlation between the cold and aggression than with heat, which also objects the theory that heat affects aggression.
There was also a contradiction to the theory that at a certain temperature, aggression falls (Halpern and Ransberger), which is known as the inverted ‘U’ idea. It is suggested that perhaps the heat caused people to avoid any more stress, explaining the fall of aggression at a certain temperature. Overall, it could be the negativity of the temperature that caused aggression (hot and cold) and increased social contact too but there may be confounding variables that could have caused any aggression, especially individual differences.
With noise, Manstead, Glass and Donnerstein and Wilson all aggress that it can have negative affect on a persons reaction, including frustration and an increase in administering electric shocks. There can also be long-term damages to the physical response of children and quality of life (Evans).
