Weather And Crime Case Study

Weather and Crime: Relationship Between Hot Weather and Violent Crime Rates in the Rio Grande Valley

Just because the sun is bright and shining in the summer does not mean that people are at their happiest moment. It is a regular hot summer’s day where you wake up to a hot apartment due to a broken A/C. The sun is not even completely out and you are already sweating, starting your day with the wrong foot. You lose time trying to see what is going on with your air conditioning system. As if your luck could not get any worse, your car’s A/C is broken as well. So, by now, you are late for work and completely sweaty, but finally on your way. While driving to work you take the route you take every morning and to your surprise one of the roads is closed due to an accident that happened earlier. A police officer that is controlling traffic approaches your car and asks you to please back your car and take another road. At this time you explode and you snap at the police officer. Why this aggression? It could be by the series of unfortunate events you just experienced, or maybe something else could be influencing your behavior. Research has shown that emotional aggressive outbursts are frequently caused by harsh or unpleasant events such as provocation, frustration, uncomfortable temperatures, loud noise, unpleasant odors, and smoke. (Anderson, Groom,

(1997) explored the heat hypothesis, which basically suggests that uncomfortably hot temperatures increase aggressive behavior. This research took of particular interest the concept of affective aggression, which is defined as “a deliberate attempt to harm another person in which the harm is the primary goal rather than a means to some other goal” (Anderson et al., 1997). According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most instances of murder involve affective aggression. In contrast, instrumental aggression is the kind of aggression used as a means of obtaining something else (Anderson et al.,