Linear and Curvilinear Relationships Between Temperature, Affect, and Violence: Reply to Cotton

Heat and Violence in the Dallas Field Data: Linearity, Curvilinearity, and Heteroscedasticity1

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Harries and Stadler (1988) observed only a positive linear trend, with no curvilinear relationship, between heat and violence in their 1980-81 Dallas field data. When Cotton (1986) observed similar trends in his data, we noted that in fact the variance in violence increases with temperature (Bell & Fusco, 1986). We report here similar statistically significant heteroscedasticity in the Harries and Stadler data.

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“…Cotton (1986) provided a good example of field data supporting the linear relationship. We observed, however, that Cotton's data contained statistically significant heteroscedasticity which could actually support the negative affect escape model, as well as higher order trends (Bell & Fusco, 1986). That is, although violence increased with temperature, the variance in the number of violent incidents increased as well.…”

“…Anderson (in press) has termed this the negarive affect escape model. Considerable laboratory research from Baron and his colleagues and from others has supported such a model, although there are laboratory studies which fail to support the model (see Anderson, in press;Bell & Fusco, 1986;Rotton, 1986 for reviews). Field studies, on the other hand, generally detect only a linear (rectilinear or monotonic) relationship between temperature and violence as operationalized by reports in law enforcement records, although there are again exceptions to these findings (see Anderson, in press; Bell & Fusco, 1986 for reviews).Numerous attempts have been made to reconcile the differences between 'The authors express their sincere appreciation to Keith D. Harries and Stephen J. Stadler for 'Requests for reprints should be sent to Paul A.…”

Violence is a curvilinear function of temperature in Dallas: A replication.

“…According to Baron and Bell's negative affect escape (NAE) model, the discomfort caused by moderately high and low temperatures facilitates aggression, but extreme temperatures arouse competing motives, such as a desire to escape, which conflict with and thereby reduce aggression. Not everybody accepts the NAE model's predictions, as evidenced by vigorous exchanges in the literature (Anderson & DeNeve, 1992;Bell, 1992;Bell & Fusco, 1986). However, we suspect that even its critics will agree that the NAE model satisfied the heuristic function of a theory: The model's counterintuitive predictions generated a considerable amount of research, especially field studies aimed at assessing the external validity of laboratory results.Anderson and Anderson (1998) have proposed a general affective (GA) model of aggression as an alternative to the NAE model.…”

Effects of Environmental Odor and Coping Style on Negative Affect, Anger, Arousal, and Escape1

“…in other data, such as studies in which the variance in aggression increases with increases in temperature (potentially allowing for rectilinear and inverted-U relationships in the same data ;Bell & Fusco, 1986, 1989, and that other unmeasured variables such as alcohol consumption or availability of escape can account for inconsistencies in results (Bell, 1992).…”