Citation

Guo Q, Li S, Shen J, Lu J. Front. Psychol. 2022; 13: e911159.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2022.911159

PMID

36186386

PMCID

PMC9524539

Abstract

Literature shows that psychological phenomena, including values (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism), personality, and behaviors (e.g., prosocial and aggressive behavior), are geographically clustered. The effects of temperature on interpersonal and intergroup aggression have been studied by many social psychologists. To date the interactions between temperature and other geographical factors have not been addressed. This study is aiming to examine the effects of thermal demands and the moderating effects of natural geographical factors on aggressive behavior at national level. Data for 156 societies was obtained from publicly available databases. Consistent with the life-history theory, results of this study showed that aggressive behavior has a positive relationship with heat demands, and a negative relationship with cold demands. Aggressive behavior is also positively correlated with sunlight and altitude, and negatively correlated with coastline vicinity. Forest, coastline vicinity, and rainfall moderated the effect of thermal demands on aggressive behavior. In societies with more forests, with more rainfall, and closer to coastline, the negative effects of cold demands on aggressive behavior are stronger.

Language: en

Keywords

aggressive behavior; moderation effect; natural geographical factors; temperature; thermal demands