خشونت و پرخاشگری در گرمای اشتیاق و با خونسردی: سندرم ECS-TC

The heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks; beads of sweat were gathering in my eyebrows. It was just the same sort of heat as at my mother's funeral and I had the same disagreeable sensations—especially in my forehead, where all the veins seemed to be bursting through my skin. I couldn't stand it any longer … I was conscious only of the cymbals of the sun clashing on my skull … of the keen blade of light flashing up from [his] knife … everything began to reel before my eyes … every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver. The trigger gave… (Camus, 1946, p. 50)

In the heyday of deterministic criminology during the 19th and early 20th century, theories and empirical research on environmental influences on behavior proliferated. Perhaps the earliest formal statements were propounded by Quetelet in 1833 as the thermic theory of delinquency (Sylvester, 1972) and by Kropotkin, who stressed the importance of humidity as well as temperature as a cause of violent crime (Cohen, 1941). Lombroso (1899) made elaborate statistical studies of seasonal as well as geographic variations in crime, and Gaedeken (1909), following Dexter's (1899) monumental monograph on weather and crime posited a direct physiochemical effect. Virtually all analyses found the same relationship: an increase in assaults from January to July and an increase in property crimes with the onset of winter. Because some climatic determinists, such as Huntington (1945), arrived at conclusions that were perceived to be racist, the whole tradition of research fell into disrepute, especially with the advent of marxist sociology. Not until the report of the United States Riot Commission (1968) pointed out that the majority of riots in 1967 occurred during those days when the temperature soared above 80°F was there a resurgence of interest. Goranson and King (1970) determined that 15 of 17 cities experiencing riots in 1967 had abnormally hot temperatures during those days of mass violence. Temperatures remained hot in eight cities in which riots persisted beyond 2 days, and dropped in seven cities in which riots were brief. Since then the vast majority of studies has found a linear relationship between environmental or ambient temperature and assaultive crime Feldman & Jarmon 1979, Michael & Zumpe 1983 and Rotton & Frey 1985 but not homicide, a much rarer crime. Only Baron and Ransberger (1978) have found a curvilinear relationship between heat and collective violent behavior. That conclusion concurred with their laboratory findings that the relationship between ambient temperature and aggression follows a curvilinear function, with moderate heat increasing aggression, and temperatures over 85°F resulting in a decrease. Carlsmith and Anderson (1979) have since demonstrated that Baron and Ransberger's (1978) conclusion in regard to collective violence was faulty, an artifact of their data analysis and, in subsequent studies, further demonstrated the monotonic relationship between hot weather and crime, especially violent crime Anderson 1987 and Anderson & Anderson 1984.