The summer heat can really get you down
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Hot summer days are not always as enjoyable as you would like them to be. As a matter of fact the summer heat can hit your state of mind really hard.
It’s not always easy to relax and enjoy yourself on very hot summer days. Lehigh University reports people often become moody and not at all helpful from uncomfortable summer heat.
It has been concluded from a new study by associate professor Liuba Belkin of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Maryam Kouchaki, who is an assistant professor at Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois, that when when it’s uncomfortably hot you are not as likely to be a helpful person or “prosocial.” Belkin says emotional and behavioral reactions of people are shaped by ambient temperatures. In uncomfortable environmental conditions people generally help less.
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Data was obtained from a large Russian retail chain for part of this study. Clerks who were working in a very hot environment were 50 percent less likely to take part in prosocial behaviors. Prosocial behavior in this context includes listening actively, making suggestions and offering to help customers.
In the second part of this study participants in a survey who recalled or imagined situations where they were very hot were more fatigued and had less positive affect and prosocial behavior. And in the third part of this study it was observed that even slight fluctuations in temperature altered behavior. Students in a college management course in a classroom with uncomfortably warm temperature had increased fatigue, less positive affect and were less interested in helping out with a survey.
This study, “Exploring the impact of ambient temperature on helping” has been published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Researchers have observed that fatigue is increased by heat and this leads to a lowering of positive affect and ultimately lowers individual helping. This helps us understand how vitally important it is to keep cool to be at your best on a hot summer day.
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