Table 1.
Literature summary on the crime-weather relationship: whereas routine activities theory helps explaining shifts in opportunity as weather changes, heat-aggression theories address individual motivators
| Routine activities | Heat-aggression | |
|---|---|---|
| Experiments | ||
| - Negative Affect Escape Model: Baron and Bell (1976); Bell and Baron (1975) theorized from human experiments that aggression caused by negative affect (i.e., feelings of irritation, annoyance, or discomfort) increases with temperature increases until an unbearable temperature threshold is reached, after which people escape heat | ||
| - General (Affective) Aggression Model: Anderson et al. (1995); Anderson and Bushman (2002) believe negative affect, aggressive thoughts, and physiological arousal are mediators to the effect of hot temperatures on aggressive tendencies | ||
| Observational studies | ||
| Short-term effects | - Cohn and Rotton (1997, 2005) believe that, when time of the day is accounted for, while violence increases during pleasant weather, people are less likely to commit acts of violence when it is too hot (curvilinear relationship between temperature and aggression) | - Bushman et al. (2005) argue against Cohn and Rotton’s (1997; 2005) curvilinear relationship and for a linear relationship between temperature and assault, even during the hottest time of the day in hottest months of the year |
| - Social Escape and Avoidance Theory: Rotton and Cohn (2000b) perceive pleasant weather as a promoter of social contact and inclement weather (especially heat and cold) as a factor reducing the chances of strangers coming into contact in public settings, instead inclement weather leads individuals to retreat to primary territories | ||
| Long-term trends | - Routine activities theory: Cohen and Felson (1979) suggest crimes to occur when victims and offenders are brought into contact in the absence of controllers such as guardians, place managers, and intimate handlers such as parents, teachers, and employers | - Anderson et al. (1997) observed a positive relation between annual average temperature and serious and deadly assault, as well as between annual number of hot days and the size of usual Summer increase in violence |
| - Rotton and Cohn (2003) found an association between annual temperatures and rates for assault, rape, robbery, burglary, and larceny | ||